Ukraine Conflict - Der Weg zurück

[Gorth]

55 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Yup, it's the one silver lining in all of this. I was genuinely concerned that in a NATO-Russia war we actually stood to potentially lose. Not anymore. Even a woefully unprepared and squabbling with each other NATO would utterly crush the Russians (which of course would then cause them to use tac nukes to save their sorry asses). I mean, that 40 mi. convoy broken down and stuck in mud is a humiliating disgrace. If only we would transfer an MLRS battery to the Ukrainians. That convoy would be obliterated in short order.

For some reason, Russia always seems to have been a "slow learner" when it came to warfare. During Napoleons invasion, he made it to Moscow without too much trouble. Winter saved the day for the Russians and France got spanked good on the way out. Don't get me started on the Russo-Japanese War! During WWI, after initial success against the woeful Austro-Hungarian empire, Germany showed them how it's done. Not only that, Germany deployed Lenin as the tactical nuke of the time, destabilizing the country. The war was however effectively decided after the battle of Tannenberg (losing Finland, the Baltic territories and what became then east Poland). Enter WWII and Russia again got repeated ass kicking the first two years, despite German forces almost disintegrating during the first winter (because, everybody, not just Russia, seems to underestimate the challenges of logistics on those huge, open plains). They did eventually shape up though, not at least due to a blatant disregard of the cost in human lives and ended up giving as good as they took, but they always seems to be a few years behind?

 

[Azdeus]

6 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

WTI Oil at 126!!! Brent at 135!!!

Holy F!  +50% in 1.5 week...

I'm not even sure what to think at the moment. It will soon be a dramatic situation... 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-06/brent-oil-soars-above-135-on-fears-over-tightening-market?srnd=premium-europe

 

Funnily enough, we here in Sweden have such high taxes on diesel and petrol, over 50%, that just by removing the VAT on the fueltax, we could not notice this pricehike at the pump at all.

Not that they'd do that, the hippies don't want to stop people from being "motivated" to switch to electric vehicles.

 

[Malcador]

Well for Napoleon, the plan was to draw him into Russia, with scorched earth tactics to wear Le Grand Armee down. Forget who had the idea, but pretty sure it was neither Barclay or Bagrarion.  It did a decent enough job, by the time he reached Moscow they'd lost a lot.  There's Minard's famous chart about it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png

Not the greatest idea to march into a 500 km salient. Wonder how things would have gone if they didn't escape Berezina.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Malcador

[Darkpriest]

3 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Funnily enough, we here in Sweden have such high taxes on diesel and petrol, over 50%, that just by removing the VAT on the fueltax, we could not notice this pricehike at the pump at all.

Not that they'd do that, the hippies don't want to stop people from being "motivated" to switch to electric vehicles.

 

Yeah... Not sure if people not being able to afford buying one will be able to get one... Those cars are also going up inn price at a rapid pace. Electric bills will be a bitch too quite soon. Various metals and semis are going up. 

 

Wheat hit 1300 or 13 per bushel, and other food commodities went higher as well (corn touching 800)

Oil hit 130+ per barrel. 

Gas is going higher, EU gas price is under a particular heavy strain

EUR weakens drastically, there was a point where  you could have 1CHF for 1EUR. 

DAX plummeted over 20% since the start, and during one day only- today touching 5% intraday loss... 

You will start seeing a heavy social unrest with the next month bills and costs of life. 

This sanctions are mutually assured destruction. Sure, Russia will suffer more, but boy, we are in for some pain. Hope that people in US cashed out their 401k and put that in gold on Feb 24th...

 

Edit: This is without saying much worse for Emerging markets or countries neighbouring UA, like Poland

Edited March 7, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Sarex]

6 hours ago, Katphood said:

So this was the Russian army that was going to rival the US army?! Hahaha... 

Have you ever read about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars?

[BruceVC]

8 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Have you ever read about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars?

Yes extensively and the Russian army is still way below the US army around training and resources. And they use conscripts for example, never a great idea 

[Zoraptor]

14 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Have you ever read about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars?

The funny thing about Afghanistan and Iraq is all the people suddenly complaining about maps showing controlled areas and how Russia doesn't control the countryside. If you did similar for Iraq/ Afghanistan you'd have ended up with the majority of both countries outside western control, and heaps of people complaining that those didn't show reality. I don't disagree with the initial point, but it would be nice if there was some consistency and map makers didn't show huge tracts of land controlled in Afghanistan just because some Brits in a Defender toodled through a month earlier.

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Well for Napoleon, the plan was to draw him into Russia, with scorched earth tactics to wear Le Grand Armee down. Forget who had the idea, but pretty sure it was neither Barclay or Bagrarion. 

IIRC it was Barclay de Tolly's plan though it was largely implemented by Kutuzov, and Borodino- 'the bloodiest single day battle in Europe', though it depends on how accurate casualty estimates in some of the ancient battles like Cannae are- was supposedly Alexander's idea. But yeah, Napoleon made it to Moscow with a great deal of trouble, and with only about a quarter of the troops he started off with. A lot of them weren't dead or deserters but left as garrisons and guards for the supply lines; but most of them ended up dead anyway.

If Napoleon had one issue it was not learning from mistakes. He had the same strategic issue in Egypt, but got out and left Kléber (and blamed Brueys earlier) to take the blame there. He tried fording a flooding Danube after taking Vienna didn't trigger a surrender (same as taking Moscow didn't in 1812) and got beaten by the Austrians of all people when his pontoon bridge broke and he got stuck with only half his army. If the Austrians had been less Austrian he might have lost that war too. And he messed up Borodino the same way he messed up Waterloo 3 years later.

2 hours ago, Gorth said:

The war was however effectively decided after the battle of Tannenberg (losing Finland, the Baltic territories and what became then east Poland).

Tannenburg was the first big battle on the eastern front, it set the tone more than decided things. It was typically Russian though, appoint two commanders who weren't exactly brilliant and hated each other in Samsonov and Rennenkampf then be surprised when they don't coordinate or help each other with both getting smacked up in succession. OTOH the Brusilov offensive in 1916 came very close to knocking Austria-Hungary out of the war completely.

As much as the Soviets did badly in 1941 against the Germans they still inflicted more casualties in the first 6 weeks of Barbarossa than Germany had suffered in the near two years of war prior to that.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Zoraptor

[Katphood]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

Have you ever read about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars?

Yup. Took the US less than 24 hours to gain air superiority in both cases. 

Edit: I know, the Taliban didn't even have WW1 planes.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Katphood

[Gorth]

11 minutes ago, Katphood said:

Edit: I know, the Taliban didn't even have WW1 planes.

The Taliban even has Black Hawks now

[Gorth]

On a more serious note, the BBC is predicting doom and gloom for the world’s food supply effectively from this summer and onwards (because of the war) with the food supplies dropping up to 50% in some cases 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60623941

 

Edit: reading between the lines, prepare for famine and social unrest 

[Sarex]

Spoiler

 

Seems the Ukraine goverment started killing their own. Wonder what he did to earn that.

 

2 hours ago, Katphood said:

Yup. Took the US less than 24 hours to gain air superiority in both cases. 

Edit: I know, the Taliban didn't even have WW1 planes.

 

And the US's military tactic was scorched earth, where they would bomb the **** out of everything in advance of their troops.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Amentep
Edited to put graphic content behind spoiler tags

[pmp10]

14 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Wonder what he did to earn that.

The whole thing was hopelessly confused but Ukrainian intelligence stated that he worked for them and was no traitor.
In all likelihood a covert operation went spectacularly wrong. 

[Darkpriest]

44 minutes ago, Gorth said:

On a more serious note, the BBC is predicting doom and gloom for the world’s food supply effectively from this summer and onwards (because of the war) with the food supplies dropping up to 50% in some cases 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60623941

 

Edit: reading between the lines, prepare for famine and social unrest 

Thats what i've been saying since like a week ago? 

[Lexx]

Looks like mainstream media is slowly catching up to what we know for a while already.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

On a more serious note, the BBC is predicting doom and gloom for the world’s food supply effectively from this summer and onwards (because of the war) with the food supplies dropping up to 50% in some cases 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60623941

 

Edit: reading between the lines, prepare for famine and social unrest 

Another reason to be outraged towards Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, the list just keeps getting bigger Gorthfuscious 

[Darkpriest]

22 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Another reason to be outraged towards Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, the list just keeps getting bigger Gorthfuscious 

You could also put that on the ignorant, pompous and simply incompetent foreign affairs resp in US and UK. For domestic brownie points, at currently super low ratings, they've went posturing against clearly determined and armed Russians. 

Diplomacy is about hearing sides and finding smart, if uneasy compromise, so both sides can take something away as a win. 

If you behave like as if "mute was talking to a deaf", then you are not a diplomant, but a stupid person and a product of twitterati mob era. 

There should have been Minsk accords moved forward, and while it would be a bit painful for UA to admit the loss of that, it would have been much better for the overall world and stability. 

The problem is now, that UA will be devastated, will bleed out and will be ruined, Russia will be ruined economicly for a brief time, Europe and US will experience wealth destruction, social unrest and depression in reality of a very high inflation, poorer countries will experience hunger and voilent revolts. With all that, you still need to have some exit deal for Putin, because relying on him stopping due to sanctions or loss of life in Ukraine is naive to say the least. 

If you will cancel Russia in a way that it is now common in Western media and socialmedia space, then you have no exit plan and stupid journos and politicians leave no room for a serious peace talk that can succeed, because they want to cancel Putin's Russia and not give anything. 

Yes, ultimately it is Putin's Russia, who broke peace, but we have to admit, that Western diplomacy and UA diplomacy wasn't stellar. 

We all will now pay a heavy price for it. 

[Darkpriest]

Russians stated their conditions

-----

following headlines hit Reuters:

KREMLIN SPOKESMAN SAYS UKRAINE MUST AMEND CONSTITUTION AND REJECT CLAIMS TO ENTER ANY BLOC

UKRAINE MUST RECOGNISE CRIMEA AS RUSSIAN, AND DONETSK AND LUGANSK AS INDEPENDENT STATES

IF THESE CONDITIONS ARE MET, THEN RUSSIAN MILITARY ACTION WILL ‘STOP IN A MOMENT’ - SPOKESMAN

 

If it were up to me, i'd say I take them. 

Save lives, build up economically, put a lot of billateral agreements for trade and exchange, special credit lines, and get people back and let them fpcus on rebuilding

Russians got nothing more than theybhad already, and you only confirm that legally. UA will never enter NATO, but can still buy equipment. 

The most painful part would be not being a part of EU, but bilateral deals can help to go around it, if it is economic deals you want. 

This also needs to be in plce for as long as situation in Kremlin will not be more favorable, and Russians will have a lot to deal with internally in the next couplenof years. 

Edited March 7, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Darkpriest]

The above conditions are effectively Russian surrender. They will not take less, but they will leave from UA batterred, humiliated and with no regime change

Edited March 7, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Lexx]

What about the oil and gas they found? Does that all fall under crimea territory? If so, I doubt they are going to take the deal.

[Darkpriest]

2 minutes ago, Lexx said:

What about the oil and gas they found? Does that all fall under crimea territory? If so, I doubt they are going to take the deal.

I do not recall at the moment, but I would forget about Crimea. Ukraine is never going to get it back, unless they want to now move somehow on the offensive and attack and seize it... 

Donbas and Lukhansk would be painful, but in their current state, they are non-usable anyway, and Russians will not be able to use those terrains in near future as well. 

 

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, Darkpriest said:

Thats what i've been saying since like a week ago? 

I hope you'll forgive me for paying more attention to BBC and Al Jazeera than ZeroHedge. The latter may be perfectly fine, I'm just not familiar with it

 

[pmp10]

37 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Russians stated their conditions

-----

following headlines hit Reuters:

KREMLIN SPOKESMAN SAYS UKRAINE MUST AMEND CONSTITUTION AND REJECT CLAIMS TO ENTER ANY BLOC

UKRAINE MUST RECOGNISE CRIMEA AS RUSSIAN, AND DONETSK AND LUGANSK AS INDEPENDENT STATES

IF THESE CONDITIONS ARE MET, THEN RUSSIAN MILITARY ACTION WILL ‘STOP IN A MOMENT’ - SPOKESMAN

But there was also this:

Quote

[...] Ukraine cease military action [...]

Quote

"We really are finishing the demilitarisation of Ukraine. We will finish it. But the main thing is that Ukraine ceases its military action. They should stop their military action and then no one will shoot," he said.

Can mean anything and the terms are not so generous if they keep demanding giving up on any chance of military resistance in the future. 

[Darkpriest]

Just now, Gorth said:

I hope you'll forgive me for paying more attention to BBC and Al Jazeera than ZeroHedge. The latter may be perfectly fine, I'm just not familiar with it

 

Sure thing, it's just easier for me to link complied text from there. I'm not linking political stuff from there, as some of the op eds are giving me a brain tumor, but they are quite good at compiling "market" related stuff, even if it is sentionalist and doom and gloom at times. I'm usually filtering out the useless crap

Besides, why not trust your forum 'analytic'

[Darkpriest]

Just now, pmp10 said:

But there was also this:

Can mean anything and the terms are not so generous if they keep demanding giving up on any chance of military resistance in the future. 

I believe this is related to UA to stop doing the hit and run attacks on the Russian columns and positions. Demilitarization now is understood as loss of offesnive capabilities and infrastructure. It will take millions to repair and replace all that was destroyed. But it might also be just 'diplomatic' talk, as it was a special oeration with aim of demilitarization and denazification (sic!) 

[Lexx]

Thing is... what guarantees that russia won't just invade again in 5 years? Demilitarizing ukraine smells like a trap to me.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Lexx