Great Power contentions

[Montmorency]

They still haven't been able to excavate the rubble from the Mariupol Drama Theater, which was bombed a week ago. Nevertheless hard to imagine civilian casualties in Mariupol though.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1506630965766070272 [VIDEO]

It's about time for transgovernmental management of the global food supply and its distribution (almost all Yemenis and Afghans are suffering food scarcity).

Is it the general consensus by now that making battalions with 4 maneuver companies, integrated artillery and AD batteries, recon, engineering, etc. the primary operational unit of a military overloads the battalion commander and leaves the unit non-resilient to disabling casualties?
https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/e...g/2Fiore17.pdf

Tangential brigade success story (Patton's wet dream).

Zubrowski’s Raid: In early August 2014, Ukraine’ 95th Air Assault Brigade (Mechanized) conducted the largest and
longest armored raid behind enemy lines in recorded military history. The 95th was comprised of
two mechanizedinfantry battalions, one tank battalion and a battalion of self-propelled artillery. The brigade attacked on multiple
parallel axes of advance, and combined-arms company-sized teams penetrated the thinly defended separatists’
positions and regrouped in the rear. The brigade then penetrated in depth along the two separatist regions’
internal border and maneuvered 200 kilometers east along the southern border of the Donbass. They destroyed
and captured Russian tanks and artillery, relieved several isolated Ukrainian garrisons and, finally, returned to their
starting position near Slovyansk. They marched 450 kilometers behind enemy lines and brought back captured
Russian armor and heavy artillery as well.
17 The raid achieved its objective of relieving Ukrainian forces in the
separatist provinces, and it proved that Russian regular units were operating in Ukraine. However, the gains were
undone in November 2014 when Russia deployed BTGs to the conflict in overwhelming numbers to support the
separatists directly.
 Lessons for a BCT: Look for opportunities to penetrate and inflict maximum damage. Even though 95th was
inside enemy lines for days, the unit consistently surprised enemy units, including Russian regulars. This
suggests the absence of theater-level battle tracking, cross-unit communication and a difficulty transmitting
orders to create a coordinated response to the marauding Ukrainian brigade.

That's where I'm cautiously optimistic for the Ukrainian situation now. The Russians in country aren't being allowed a pause for refit or reconstitution as the UA is able to take the fight to them though on a smaller scale. US intel doesn't seem to report any new BTGs lining up as reinforcements anywhere outside the Ukraine so that seems that units are being fed right into combat or the troops and equipment are being used purely as replacements. Both are indicators to me that Russia won't be able to adapt their tactics at the lower level Company and below and are going to be forced to rely on artillery.

This artillery reliance would usually be a good thing but considering the poor logistics situation as well as the security of those supply lines I think front line units won't be able to use their artillery as liberally as their doctrine would like. We haven't been seeing the massive rocket barrages of the first few weeks pop up in a while so that to me says they're being used at Battery and lower level as Battalion and greater sized barrages aren't sustainable right now.

Depends on what your interpretation of a pause is. Going by the ISW reports, for a couple of weeks now the Russians have generally only been fielding companies and battalions on the offensive along any given axis, albeit frequently overall, with offensive operations now almost at a total standstill in the northern half of the AO. (It's been reasonable to persist in Donetsk/Luhansk.)

To be precise, Putin would have to be really stupid to keep attacking piecemeal in net excess of Russia's capacity to resupply and reconstitute comprehensively, but we'll see... Winter has ended, so assuming there is a low-intensity stalemate until May, both sides will build up their operational reserves. For Ukraine this will mean training up their territorials to replace lost regulars and National Guard, as well as recruiting new territorials and organizing the partisan element for stay-behind and for areas already occupied. For Russia it will mean summoning as many reserves as combat units can absorb and/or be removed from the economy, and refreshing their training. Russia would also recruit as many mercenaries as possible and perhaps flood the rear areas with them alongside Rosgvardia and other internal security in order to stamp out resistance. This would be necessary since if Russia ever does bring the bulk of their force to bear against the Dnieper, having at least twice the area behind them that they do now, their LOC will be that much more vulnerable. Especially so given past performance, and the fact that they would be investing major cities from across the river (i.e. high expenditure of bulky supplies).

US intel doesn't seem to report any new BTGs lining up as reinforcements anywhere outside the Ukraine

Various sources since early in the month have been referencing Russian reinforcement units being brought up to the AO. I can't say I remember details, but for the most recent examples there were elements of naval infantry from around the country (ISW), an engineering detachment (Militaryland), and elements drawn from international deployments such as in the Caucasus and Syria (various sources).

If the UA is actually threatening Kherson as the rumor mill suggest this may draw more Russian units off of Mariupol too.

Kherson is like the holy grail for armchair generals, because of how overstretched the Russian advance is on that front. If a covert squad could properly blow the bridge, the only bridge over the Dnieper for 150 miles (Zaporizhzhia), and the only bridge the Russians control, then anywhere from 7-14 BTG of regulars (from what I've read), a bundle of artillery brigades, some air defense units, and some Spetsnaz and Rosgvardia in the AO will be cut off by ground. At least until the Russians can get bridgelayers on the scene (if they're good, they already have bridgelayers in Kherson in reserve). Best of all would be to blow the bridge at both banks, so a risky diversionary Ukrainian attack out of the Mykolaiv salient wouldn't even be needed and any restoration by the Russians would take weeks too long to rescue trapped assets.

If an uprising in Kherson could be triggered, it would be worth hundreds of lives to trap up to 20K Russian forces as well as an enormous quantity of artillery and AD systems.

Many of the Russians could still be evacuated by air while abandoning their equipment, but something like half their contingent is operating forward near Mykolaiv or at the provincial border near Kryvyi Rih, 50 or more miles out from Kherson. Thousands would be forced to surrender en masse.

Re-anchoring along the Dnieper while liquidating an entire Russian corps at low cost would be a watershed victory for Ukraine. It would also allow the transfer of several brigades to Kyiv (though the captured heavy equipment would take a long time to repurpose).

It would be legendary.

Sadly for the fantasy the Ukrainians probably don't have the capability.

NB. To my recollection the nearby bridge at Nova Kakhovka was blown at the beginning of the war. If it wasn't then the tactical picture is rather more complex for Ukraine.

I'm actually not too worried about this aspect as so many Ukrainians are part Russians or have close ties there so that they won't blame the Russian people just the government. Same for Russian citizens, this gamble and potential loss is clearly at the feet of Putin and his corrupt cronies. Sorta how the Nazis blamed the 'stab in the back' and 'the Jews' rather than acknowledge their defeat.

Almost all Ukrainian speakers a decade ago were Russian speakers, and heavily acculturated to Russian hegemony. Now, while the dust will take a long time to settle regardless of outcomes, I'm picking up on a very intense hatred of Russia and all things Russian among the Ukrainian populace. This sensitivity was cultivated over the past 8 years as well to be sure, but something has boiled over and a profound delinking with Soviet/Russian heritage is being carried forward. Just one video that captures the sentiment is a Ukrainian soldier surveying a destroyed Russian column and vowing, in Russian, to forswear the Russian language after the war. The universal resort to the framing of "orcs" and various highly-antiquated ethnic slurs isn't something that gets buried easily.

Let's not forget that part of the Russian ultranationalism that led to this war was the self-glorifying, unrepentant categorization of "fascist" as denoting "German", and then just anything couched as anti-Russian. If the Russian military, the one that singlehandedly saved the world from "fascism", can turn any opponent in the world into radioactive dust - as Russian TV personalities crowed - then of course Great Russia has the right and the means to do it again.

Notice how former President Medvedev, and Russian state TV, have been running trial balloons on the need to invade all of Eastern Europe in order to teach it some respect, and to renew deNazification.

(For another glimpse at the successful Fox-Newsification of the Russian people:)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Unfortunately, there are some [pro-Russian] minded people in Kharkiv. They hide in the shelters and eat the humanitarian aid that comes from Europe and is distributed by Ukraine. And they still sympathize with Russia — it’s just delusional, if you ask me. I know [these kinds of people personally], of course. They think Ukraine is bombing itself.

I’m friends with some of my relatives from Crimea on [Russian social media site] Odnoklassniki. It’s my dad’s sisters and their children. I wrote: “We don’t need to be saved from anyone. We live on our own land and we want to live in Ukraine. Please get out of here.” Then came a barrage of negative comments. “It was different in the Soviet Union,” “You’re Nazis,” “You worship Bandera.” “I want to get in a tank myself and come greet you all.” And those are my relatives. So we cut them off. I’m not going to talk to them anymore. I don’t see the point.

My dad is currently in Crimea serving in the army; his wife and his wife’s son are there with him. I messaged him, “Did they send you to ‘save’ Ukraine, too?”

“Yes,” he responded.

“You don’t need to save us from anybody,” I wrote.

“You don’t understand anything," he wrote back. "People want us to save them from the Nazis."

Beyond specific national relations, my point was that Ukraine winning the war 'on its own' could combine to engender a certain chauvinism or overconfidence. Chauvinism and brutalization are a toxic brew. The West must invest in normalcy and peaceful flourishing in Ukraine, pull it away from the likes of Poland and, to quote Rod Dreher again, "make the Donbass safe for genderqueers and migrants."

I have no thoughts on what shape the program of disarmament would take, but additionally an immediate practical necessity for a victorious Ukraine - besides clearing away mines, ordnance, and rubble - will be to account for and confiscate as many small arms, RPGs, and heavy weapons from the general population as is feasible. Recall how the resistance movements of occupied Europe prominent included all sorts of unsavory political types, as well as gangsters and opportunists; it took years of diligent work to keep that threat to the state from festering.

I could see the Russians angrier at the US specifically and the West generally than at Ukraine for somehow 'tricking' Putin into this war. I just wonder what this means for the future political environment of Russia. Will it be revanchism and meddling in Europe or will they do their historically turn eastward and focus on their influence in Central Asia and the Far East.

Any further Russian Dolschtosslegend-ing is a whole other subject. It will never be possible to impose a comprehensive military defeat upon them. It's yet another crying shame; before the war most Russians were at a minimum neutral about American influence on their society.