Ukraine-Russia War Take 2

But everyone who locked up the rates , has fixed rates now.

Btw i was talking more generically, even people who got a mortgage 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, like in the USA (and Italy) , most mortgages are fixed rate, for cultural reasons. That's very different from the UK and Canada that's why i mentioned it to you (iirc you are british?), because i was like "WTF" when i first learnt it the opposite way .

Like where i live when rates go up no 1 i know pays more for his mortgage, normal people take fixed rates. In the UK and Canada if i understood it properly it's actually impossible to have 20y or 30y fixed rate mortgages.

Surely these rates and the end of the subsidy will make it a lot harder to buy a house for Russians. But that's very different than thinking normal households will be hit by a huge increase in mortgage costs. Vast majority of people in Russia don't carre any debt in general.

30 million dollar costing drones are in the air in the black sea everyday monitoring Russian military and bases and giving intellegence to Ukranians where to hit,how would you feel if Russian drone did the same in say,Miami,Boston hell Hawaii even

Similar to how I feel about the Russian spies which were caught, the election meddling, the cyberattacks against energy grids, hacking solar winds, trying to convert military intelligence officers etc.

If you mean specifically to give intelligence to a country that USA invaded and is fighting back then I'd say probably think it is totally predictable, and we should stop invading that country so they stop attacking us using that Russian intelligence.

It is a false equivalence though since USA has never done what you are suggesting.

Do you know how much China and Russia spend on assets that live among us? Lol my old workplace had so many Chinese bugs it took years to retrofit it back to normal.

im looking at sevastopol on google maps right now. u mad?

You mean except the detail that Crimea isn't russian territory, it's occupied Ukrainian land?

Of course it isn't. If Russia somehow believed NATO was an existential threat, then 90% of its active ground forces would not be operating in Ukraine, leaving its borders with NATO countries almost drained of personnel. They would be securing Russian borders from said threat.

This is obvious. You have to be extremely naive to believe otherwise.

As we see from recent news, Russia has even be so self-assured that it faces no existential threat that much of it borders against Ukraine were poorly guarded.

I don't think there can be any doubt that as the war strides on and escalates, the risk of the conflict spiraling out of control increases. We're closer to global conflict now than we were in 2023, and in 2023 we were closer than we were in 2022.

However, this doesn't mean that we would somehow be safer by taking measures that forces the war to end. Likely, the opposite would be the outcome. For that matter, we don't have many such measures to use.

We could hypothetically stop material support to Ukraine, which would likely lead to an eventual strategic "victory" for Russia. However, this would drastically increase the risk of global conflict, as Russia would pretty much be guaranteed to invade other countries in the near future. I think it would make a war in the Baltics all but inevitable, and I also think it would fire up Russian powerplays in Moldova, Belarus and they'd also accelerate conflict in the Balkans.

Well said. Unfortunately many (itt included) believe that providing Ukraine with arms is "warmongering" on the West/Ukraine's side, and there's no proof that Russia would continue invading after getting what they want in Ukraine. It's extremely silly.

Completely forgetting the other aspects of providing aid to Ukraine, it decreases the likelihood and severity of future conflicts. So far all of Putin's "red lines" have proven to be posturing. And there have been a lot of red lines: no arms, no migs, no missiles, no tanks, no firing inside Russia, no HIMARs, no patriots, no f16s, and now Russia is being faced with the largest attack on its soil since WW2. Meanwhile the two main red lines that weren't crossed, no NATO membership for Ukraine and no NATO bases in Ukraine, were major "reasons" for the invasion to begin with. The red line narrative is meaningless, it is meant to scare naive people.

If Putin and his court excel at anything it is staying in power. There is exactly one red line and that is threatening Putin's ability to continue ruling. Ironically all of this "escalation management" is threatening that more than anything. If Ukraine had been given what it needed since the start then it's likely that the Russia's economy would be in a better state, Putin would be less politically tied to the war, and the threat of any type of nuclear weapon being launched would be far less.

Yes, surprising that the Ukrainians could just punch through like that. It seems risky (Ukraine could lose some its best formations unless it has a sound fallback plan -- which it may well have), but it seems to have been aimed at drawing Russian troops away from other areas where they've been pushing forward. Whether Ukraine has the strength to take advantage in those other areas we don't know, but as a propaganda coup, not least given the sacred status of Kursk in Russian nationalist mythology (relating to the 1943 battle), it's pretty solid.

someone I follow said that Russia is "allowed" to use conscripts to defend this attack since it is on Russian territory so it will not draw many troops from other areas.

Actually the Russians seem to be having considerable problems with recruitment, and hence with the morale of troops who don't want to be there and don't see the point.

They don't count recalled reservists as conscripts, but there is evidence that they've already been using actual conscripts in Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66...

Chucking new and green conscripts against some of Ukraine's best brigades may not be an ideal plan.

I have been surprised at Ukraine being able to pull some punches recently.

I think trump chances of winning going down should weight on Putin decision making process.

Until recently, Putin had a reasonable plan in dragging it with minimal costs as much as possible for some months.

Now he might be looking at potentially several other years of conflict.

He might not have planned for this properly I guess.

And Ukraine is of course going to try to capitalize on the momentum.

Interesting times

Russia has been using conscripts since the start of the war, but not in huge numbers. Since they are allowed to defend Russia it is possible that Putin could respond with only conscript.

This would make his already growing political problems grow even more. There have already been troops moved from Kharkiv to Kursk. That doesn't immediately help Donetsk, but it could eventually.

I personally don't think this looks like it will accomplish much. I also thought that of Krynky which was a huge success though.

hum interesting this could give Ukraine the negotiation power it needs to end the war on terms its willing to end it on if they can capture and hold large areas of russia. I wonder how Russia will respond. this was the offensive they needed last year

According to today's update from Meduza's expert, the 810 naval brigade, among others, has been redirected from Zaporozhzhia, as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_rTgFzB...

will this increase or decrease the risk of nukes being used in the region

small increase short term. possibly way less long term. I never said I didn't want ukraine to win. I just dont want them to fight an unwinnable war. if your gonna do it play to win about time

Large parts of the skeleton crews that remained at various Russian borders in the west are now being transported to Kursk, this includes forces from the Kaliningrad enclave.

Anyone looking at the movement of force during the Russian invasion and war in Ukraine knew very well that the Russian argument that they were under threat from some foreign bogeyman was just nonsensical spin, but this is even more clear now that these borders are close to undefended.

And while Russia has used drafted soldiers and conscripts in Ukraine, and while they have also used press-ganging to force such soldiers to sign and become contract soldiers, these defense efforts also mean that there will be a drastic increase in Russian conscripts that have to participate in the war.

That will also be a challenge, since Russians have not prioritized conscript units with training, equipment or ammunition.

Now, there will be veteran forces as well in the defense of this region, but it is going to be a mess to organize these forces. Especially since Russia has organized the defense of Kursk under a different command chain than the Ukraine war, and it also seems like this command chain has already been subject to a purge.

Regardless of the outcome for Ukraine, this will be a very bad time to be a Russian infantry conscript.

Looking more and more likely that they mobilize again.

It’s over for Russia. They created a hardened military force with combat experience while all of their experienced guys are killed by the meat grinder.

In battlefield you mostly learn how to survive. The idea that there's some level 50 soldiers vs level 1 soldiers and it somehow will be a bloodbath is not true.

Now if the troops are poorly equipped, logistics doesn't work (no food, ammo), incompetent leadership, poorly trained or unmotivated then it's a different story.

If the new meat has the same training, leadership, equipment and the same logistics as the "veterans" I don't think the difference really even exists.

The BBC reported earlier that Ukraine is now holding more land inside Russia than the Russians are holding inside Ukraine. (Remarkable if true.) The Russian governor of Belgorod region, to the east of the incursion, has declared an emergency. The Ukrainians claim to have advanced another 1-2 kilometres today, taken 100 Russian PoWs and shot down a Russian Su-34 Fullback bomber last night. Reporters in the area have seen Ukrainian 'tanks' -- journalists are often unclear on what a tank is, but they presumably mean large tracked armoured vehicles with guns -- being ferried forward on low-loaders. So the lines of communication seem to be good.

It's all very surprising, and risky if it goes wrong without a good fallback plan -- the Ukrainians could lose some of their best troops -- but at present the Russians seem caught out and don't quite know what to do.

How many civilians have the Ukrainians killed?