Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[giblets]

Waiting for MOBIUS to tell us it was a genius master stroke by Putin

[pchang]

How is Mobius exchanging his rubles?

[BeBMan]

...it's all going according to the plan

Didn't work out so well for the last guy who kinda sorta maybe tried that...

True

[Dinner]

Look on the bright side, BebMan. German built tanks are now back in Kursk and that makes Putler sad.

[Geronimo]

Technically right, but in practice totally wrong. The Ukrainians hasn't met any unmanned trenches yet, if they had, they would have steamrolled it. The russians can't cover all the front of the Ukrainian/Russian without decimating their military currently active in Ukraine.

Defences can be substantially "manned" even if that consists of an artillery piece situated at regular intervals just close enough to cover the approach to the defences. if the defences are minefields and tank obstacles it can easily slow the would-be-invaders down enough that they are caught by rapid response teams. So while technically you are correct that the Ukrainians haven't encountered any "unmanned" (as in totally desolate of Russian soldiers of any kind) defences it doesn't change the fact that you don't need an army to meet a would-be-invader to stop them from crossing the defences. WIth the right defence infrastructure, manpower to man a frontier is much less of an issue.

[The Mad Monk]

Interesting question: is this strategically insane incursion into Russia Ukraine's Battle of the Bulge moment...?

One final desperate roll of the dice that ****s their last remaining reserves.

Looks like it to me 🙄

Another interesting question: did Ukraine look at Russia's defenses and think, "Maginot Line"?

A literal end run, leaving the enemy completely exposed.

Looks like it to me 🙄

[The Mad Monk]

To be clear, in my thoroughly amateur armchair general opinion, Ukraine may sweep down behind all those well-prepared defensive works, and if all goes well, take back a good chunk of their own territory in the process. Maybe even all of it. Of course, that's just a pipe dream.

[pchang]

Their incursion is a little too far away for that kind of sweep. They must go through the whole of Belgorod first.

[pchang]

Serb can pick up some extra cash if he can spare some time to dig a few ditches.

[The Mad Monk]

Owerthrowing a legitimate government and establishing a Nazi regime, which sent an army to suppress the righteous uprising against the anti-constitutional coup (inspired, sponsored and supported by YOU) and killing over 15 000 ethnic Russians at Ukraine is a casus belly in my dictionary!

Well, if THAT was a casus belli, what do you call THIS?

[Dinner]

It turns out it was Ukraine which blew up the Nordstream pipeline to prevent Russia from selling natural gas. The pipeline had already been shutdown by Putin as a way to put political and economic pressure on the German government to get them to abandon NATO. I wonder if there is more to this story?

https://amp.dw.com/en/nord-stream-explosions-germany-issues-arrest-warrant/a-69933920

[N35t0r]

It's still unnamed sources, so I'd take it with a grain of salt.

Also, there were several Ukrainian nationals sabotaging/fighting for Russia (at least at the start of the war), so that alone doesn't really say much by itself.

[Geronimo]

It turns out it was Ukraine which blew up the Nordstream pipeline to prevent Russia from selling natural gas. The pipeline had already been shutdown by Putin as a way to put political and economic pressure on the German government to get them to abandon NATO. I wonder if there is more to this story?

https://amp.dw.com/en/nord-stream-ex...ant/a-69933920

Isn't this saying that private parties from Ukraine masterminded it rather than any part of the Ukrainian government?

I do like that this explanation makes more sense from a motivational standpoint. It was always going to have been incredibly stupid for either Putin or Biden to be responsible for the act.

[BeBMan]

It turns out it was Ukraine which blew up the Nordstream pipeline to prevent Russia from selling natural gas. The pipeline had already been shutdown by Putin as a way to put political and economic pressure on the German government to get them to abandon NATO. I wonder if there is more to this story?

https://amp.dw.com/en/nord-stream-ex...ant/a-69933920

Yeah, as N35t0r sez, just being from Ukraine doesn't prove Ukraine is behind it, as there are folks supportive of Russia in Ukraine.

That being said, if it was Ukraine indeed I would not approve of the method. But the whole pipeline project should have been stopped in 2014/15, when the aggression started, so...

I don't see it as a general prob to buy Russian gas, but it should certainly not have been business as usual after the lil green men showed up on Crimea.

[Geronimo]

The Russians blowing up their own pipeline makes no sense whatsoever 🙄

It was either the Ukrainians, the Americans, or both.

Gazprom was liable for billions if the NS2 pipeline was not in use but not if it were to be destroyed. Russia also owned the gas pipelines to Georgia in 2006. When those pipelines blew up who did you blame for that Mobius? The intact but un-used NS2 was a huge literal liability for Russia and it definitely has directly benefitted from its destruction. That said, the destruction of the pipeline destroys an effective carrot that Russia might've tried to dangle in front of Europe.

The Americans never made sense as being responsible for the destruction of a German pipeline either as it would obviously undermine literally everything the US is trying to achieve in the region. the only way the US might have been involved would be in cooperation with Germany and other European stakeholders to avoid blow-back.

That private parties would have destroyed it as an act of economic terrorism in support of Ukraine is probably the only explanation that makes any kind of motivational sense.

[N35t0r]

This, only the problem was for NS1, since NS2 was never operational.

[Geronimo]

I was being unfair on the Germans, as they penetrated to a distance of ~60km during the Battle of the Bulge...

The Ukrainians are losing a significant chunk of their best equipment and units in this 'adventure'.

I think it was naive to expect the Russians to peel away their forces in the Donbas, and that has patently not happened as they continue advance significantly across multiple strategically important areas.

I'm expecting the Russians to blunt the Ukrainian advance in Kursk. Once those forces lose their momentum in enemy territory, they will be dangerously exposed to drone strikes and glide bombs etc.

We're only a week in. The Battle of the Bulge took six weeks.

we'll see. By the time the battle of the Bulge happened in the second world war it was too late for the Third Reich to really do anything other than surrender. The battle of the bulge was a ridiculous long shot for the Nazis and they certainly lost the battle but it didn't meaningfully make their defeat any faster or easier either. I think Ukraine is also very low on options. The important thing is that the Russian defences were breached. At this point it's very difficult to see how the operation was not a good idea for Ukraine regardless of how Russia responds.

[N35t0r]

If anything, it's providing several cracks to Putin's information lockdown about the war (and the fact that several of the captured conscripts come from the core Russian areas and not from the colonies also doesn't help).