Ukraine Always Get What You Want

Take it to the Ukraine thread. Oh, wait.

 

Spoiler alert: He can't.

 

Link?

 

Fair. But I'm going to side with: 1. The principal of interior vs. exterior lines and 2. the utter shit show which has been Russian logistics thus far.

 

. . . and speaking of the Navy:

The naval war for Ukraine | Miller Center

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-new...p-in-the-black-sea-is-operating-in-a-pattern/

 

Putin already has thousands of loyal little green men on the ground in the East.

And all this navy talk is a good reminder of the naval superiority Putin enjoys, up to and including a blockade of Odesa if he wants one and further amphibious assaults into targets in the east like Mariupol.

Which is not to say that the Russian military will be any more competent than it has been.

Just that they can continue to bust up Ukraine for some time to come.

 

But simultaneously: If Ukraine has a safe haven on the west side of the Dnieper River, they can continue to extract a heavy, heavy toll. Russian punching power has only decreased since Day One, and will continue to degrade as they take unreplaceable losses.

It's been pretty well agreed upon that modern conflict between first-world powers is going to mean combat is lethal and quick. The average combat unit is going to punch itself out pretty quickly, without readily available replacements and resupply. If Ukraine is knocking out Russian vehicles as quickly as it claims with little chance of Russian replacements ...

 

Nope

 

Just to conclude the naval sidebar, this:

Meet the Kilo: The Russian Submarine the US Navy Calls the 'Black Hole'

The Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet is believed to have four improved Kilo-class submarines, each equipped with Kalibr land-attack missiles operating in the Black Sea. Of those, Rostov-na-Donu (B-237) reportedly transited through the Dardanelles less than two weeks before Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The submarine, which is part of the Black Sea Fleet’s 4th Independent Submarine Brigade, entered service with the Russian navy in December 2014.

The deployment of the submarine was part of Russia‘s pre-invasion build-up of naval forces in the Black Sea.

 

NATO on the border.

 

The LCS is standing in the unemployment line, and an F-35 walks by and says "hold my keg."

Putin is going to bring in the Wagner Group guys and the guys who did his bidding in Syria. Question is, how long will they keep pounding if there's nothing in it for them?