"What Next for Russia in Ukraine?" Topic

I really can't see Putin just giving up on his assault and invasion in Ukraine, even given recent reverses in fortune, so, what's next for the Russian army in Ukraine?

Any chance for Putin to reverse the recent setbacks there without the use of tactical nukes, and/or chemical weapons?

I can see him getting even more irate and redoubling efforts to bombard various cities and civilians to punish and/or eliminate them for their audacity of daring to defend their country.

Nothing but death remains for Russia in Ukraine. Their soldiers will die and their equipment will be destroyed. Russia will be forced out and the borders returned to the pre 2014 state.

Russia does not have the forces to stop this. No new troops are sent to Ukraine. the troops that are already there drop daily in effectiveness.

Chemical weapons cannot change that. Nukes cannot change that. Russia is doomed in Ukraine.

So far Russia has failed in more or less everything, The initial assault failed. The drive in Donbass failed. The defense agains the latest Ukrainian offensive failed. Ukraine only gets stronger and more experienced, Russia the exact opposite.

What next for RaZZia?
Eliminating a contingent of 25.000 their elite troops near Kherson.

"Chemical weapons cannot change that. Nukes cannot change that"

Actually, that would massively change things since the Ukrainians could not respond to either of those. The big question then becomes whether or not NATO jumps in and would things escalate out of hand, which is a bit frightening. I found it interesting this weekend that on several news reports they actually brought up the subject of tactical nuclear weapons.

NATO jumps in

Where is the UN in all of this? I thought they were supposed to bring peace and unity and ponies and rainbows and an end to war.

The UN is a total waste of money, resources (other), and air.

The Russian plan was to pound with artillery and then advance with low-quality infantry, but it seems HIMARS and other assistance has put an end to that.

I don't see an alternative for Russia. They no longer have an armor force or helicopter force that could take ground.

Russian army will leave Ukraine.

I hear they're going out the sixth story window.

The Russians will continue to take heavy loses and eventually will leave. And claim "Victory" ! As the Ukraine takes back it's lost territory and continues on charging Russians with War crimes.

Buy some cheap drones on eBay!

I predict that the Russian army is in the process of collapse, & hope to be proven right. Some of the news I am seeing does not bode well for Putin's military adventurism.

Damon.

Wait a few weeks and then destroy power transmission from the remaining 15 power plants, target dams and transport infrastructure and wait for winter without power, water and supplies to turn Ukraine into panic.

Partial mobilisation, train hard, get it right early next year while ground still frozen or post spring thaw.

Ukrainian shelling into Russia near Kherson Oblast and perceived weakness of attack is already creating a lot of pressure among supporters of the SMO (and they aren't a small number despite Western sources focussing on dissent) to use Russia's full military power.

Jury's out on what the balance of Ukrainian losses/will to fight is.

I'm not saying I want it to happen, but assuming Putin is not planning on simply giving up, I'd guess the above is one of his better options

Annexing the separatist areas, digging in over the winter, terrorizing the Ukrainian population by destroying civilian infrastructure throughout the territory of Ukraine.
Ideological preparation of the Russian population for harsher measures, hoping for protests in the West because of social hardship and promoting moscow's fifth column.
Wait and see what happens.

You can still declare victory, withdraw and defenestrate pesky critics later.

"to use Russia's full military power"…
What is precisely left of the full military power? Most elite units have been mulled down, modern equipment has vaporized. They are not even able to support their Armenian ally through the CSTO… All former soviet republics have realized that Russia has nothing left and are starting to solve their problem by themselves.
They can mobilize but they will fight a WW2 type war on a modern battlefield, not sure it will end well for them.

War is won in the will. Putin's obstinacy cannot translate into morale for a battered and exhausted army. They'll crack. They appear to be cracking already.

Since the beginning, the Ukrainians have demonstrated their determination to resist with every fiber of their being. There are no signs of this changing.

Putin can target the civilian infrastructure. But if he does, the west will start providing longer ranged missiles allowing Ukraine to tag Russian civilian infrastructure as well.

Russia can deploy chemical or nuclear weapons to try to reshuffle their hand, but its likely to backfire. The west would take a blind eye to whatever Ukraine wanted to do to respond. Ethnic cleansing in the Donbas. Terroristic attacks in Russia. Assassinations in Russia and abroad.

Ukraine could deploy dirty bombs in Russia. It isn't like they don't have a ready and substantial supply of highly radioactive material available.

It won't be like the Chechins who had issues trying to "blend" in metro Russia. Lots of Ukrainians have Russian papers.

Russia keeps rattling the nuclear saber. Given the performance of their conventional military, they might want to refrain from launching what might end up being a nuclear dud.

Any use of chemical or nuclear would force Europe to turn off Russian oil and gas imports. That'd leave the Russian economy like Wile E. Coyote, running in mid air, waiting for gravity to kick in.

This could drag on for quite some time, and probably will, but like a beaten but unrepentant bar brawler who refuses to go down, it's just a matter of time, and pain, and teeth, before reality decrees,…enough.

I've seen 2 posts in the last 34 hours of Russians fighting eachother. One a brawl in a hotel lobby, the other a full blown shootout. Neither is verified:
youtu.be/QUYIaCGPaMA

Deployment of WMD still seems off the cards. Though Luhansk's "government" is reported as preparing some kind of "referendum", sounds like it might just be a parliamentary vote, on joining with Russia. With Luhansk as sovereign Russian territory, in name only, Putin might try to declare a general mobilisation and further threaten WMD use since attacking Russian Luhansk would be that 'existential' threat to sovereign Russian territory.

A general mobilisation isn't going to help in the short to median term and deploying WMD is probably just going to give NATO and the EU an excuse to go a few more steps up the escalation ladder since no one's going to accept some decree from Luhansk's puppet government as legitimate. Popping a nuke, even a small one, on that pretext might be too much even for Xi. I suppose the big question is how attached to the Imperial dream are the Russian people? Even dictators need some societal support.

If it becomes clear that Luhansk is going to declare itself part of Russia in panic that might actually push the Ukrainian military to throw caution to the wind and go hell for leather into the breakaway republic. It would be a big risk for Ukraine but then it could pay off if the Russian military is still reeling from the last couple of weeks.

"Wait a few weeks and then destroy power transmission from the remaining 15 power plants"
The Russians seem to have waited until they had destroyed the transmission lines from the ZNPP (which they occupy) before attacking other power plants as its electricity was going to unoccupied Ukraine. Reducing electricity production in Ukraine may oblige the EU to supply Ukraine, so become part of Russia's 'energy war' on the EU.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Putin announces partial mobilisation of reserves.

link

So not even a general mobilisation….

Russia probably can't equip and integrate effectively the newly mobilised reserves anytime soon any more than it could service a more intense bombardment of Ukraine. It's been burning through cruise missiles and the like far quicker than estimated production rates. The failure of Russian airpower to intervein meaningfully in the recent Ukrainian offensive suggests its increasingly ineffective.

Most of Putin's speech seems to have rested on threatening that once we've faked making bits of Ukraine into Russia, you'll be attacking sovereign Russia territory. It was fairly obvious that was going to happen.

not even a general mobilisation

A positive aspect is, we will see if there is a spontaneous opposition in the population centers of Moscow and
St.Petersburg relevant for the regime, which is not too cowardly and flees to Turkey and elsewhere.
As it is happening right now.

Change in Russia can happen very quickly.

It is funny how the calls for resistance of the opponents of the regime use the same Russian ethno-nationalism as the regime arguing now, Russian brothers, fathers and sons have to die in Ukraine.

It shows how little Russians value the non-Russian brothers, fathers and sons from their internal colonies that had to die for Russian hybris.

Let them come, send more heavy weapons and kill them in Ukraine.
The more Russians die there the better.

I think Putin has painted himself into a corner, even a partial mobilization suggest to the Russian population things are not going well. On the other hand if he uses these in Ukraine, then the the general Russian population will see how the war is not going first hand.

The more Russians die there the better.

Didn't Kirk say that about the Klingons ? 😲😁

Didn't Kirk say that about the Klingons ?

Can't remember, but he was right.

Live long and prosper!

Kapla'

Targeting Ukraine's power and water systems seem to be the Russians' best option, as mentioned above.

Use of chemicals seems to be another option, since nothing was done after they used them in Syria.

Continued bombardments of cities and other infrastructure could be done too.

It is good to see the Russians in retreat, but I'm betting Putin isn't willing to give up on his attacks on Ukraine just yet.

I'll be surprised if Kiev and other far western cities aren't targeted more heavily in the near future for rocket/missile bombardment.

Putin just escalated his war in Ukraine. Here's your expert guide to what's coming next.

link

Armand