Originally Posted by Lonewolf_50 (Post 11279715)

He certainly advocated for that, but he was unable to get his chain of command to agree. :p

Originally Posted by NutLoose (Post 11279711)

Was it not Patton that recognised the threat and said keep on going after Germany was defeated.

Originally Posted by Sevarg (Post 11280006)

Nutty,
The helicopter looks wrong, no down wash.

Originally Posted by Imagegear (Post 11279827)

An excellent precis of the options available to Russia, however, as noted many times previously, the psyche of the average Russian walking the streets would not countenance any of the better options above unless a radical re-assessment of their actual fallibility occurred. This would require a mental leap beyond anything they can tolerate. Possibly a revolution might do it, but simply changing the government just gets you more of the same.

IG

Originally Posted by dead_pan (Post 11279541)

Indeed it was. I for one would love Russia to be booted out of Ukraine however the realist in me believes this is unlikely to happen anytime soon and, even if it did, it would come at considerable (additional) human and material cost to Ukraine. Would it really be worth it, especially if the considerable prizes of EU and NATO membership could be realised much faster than it will otherwise be? IMO this would far outweigh the economic impact of its loss of territory.
.........

Originally Posted by fdr (Post 11279810)

The Ukrainian position is pretty understandable, they have every right to ask for that, and they also have every reason to be wary of any agreements that rely on the integrity of the Kremlin; recent history suggests that Gepetto has been working overtime in Tuscany....

The Russians have a number of options, and most are not desirable.
1. They can escalate;
2. They can continue with the current master plan...;
3. They can conduct a partial withdrawal to 2014 lines;
4. They can conduct a full withdrawal to pre 2014 lines.

Escalation
The cost to Russia to date has been considerable, escalation increases those losses and the outcome is if successful gaining ownership of a wrecked country, and having to wear the cone of shame for the next century. A bargain wrapped in a disaster, inside a catastrophe. The fight doesn't end with the takeover of the terrain, it only begins, and that risks the complete stability of the rest of Russia. Oooops.

Continuation
When on a bad bet, just keep laying down the further bets, as that has always worked at Vegas.... not. The cost to Russia in capital terms, resources, military capability, lives of their defence force, and in Rubles, on top of the cost to their economy as it collapses to levels of more than a decade ago is problematic to stability fo the federation. Not looking good at all.

Withdrawal to 2014 lines
The "love" expended on the Donbas and other locations by Russia won't be forgotten readily; the behaviour of the Russian army in the field doesn't lend itself to winning hearts and minds. Expect that a prolonged asymmetric war would ensure within the Donbas, and as the population is effectively homogeneous to Russia proper, that would end up at the home door step.

Withdrawal to pre-2014 lines
Of any specific concern that Russia has had was the matter of the Black Sea fleet. With the global warming situation, the Baltic and Northern fleets will become ice free 24/7/365 in the next decade, and it is possible that even Kamchatka will follow suit. Vladivostok is very close to ice free if not already, being kept open at worst by ice breakers. Within the Black sea area, Russia has a good port in Novorossiysk, which is completely ice free. Russia would still feel compromised by the Kerch waterway, which is their access to the Sea of Azov, the Don river and the major port of Rostov on Don. There is a possible opportunity to demilitarize completely Crimea and have it supported by a standing UN force, to ensure that no militarization arises from either side. The sad part is that Ukraine had entered into an agreement in the post 1991 condition to let Russia maintain access to the Black Sea fleet using Sevastopol as a base, and the action of Russia was to undermine that largesse in 2014.

Putin can pull success out of this on the home front as being the peace maker, which oddly is in the best interests of Russia. That is, Russia has a historic anxiety towards it's territory, and arguably uses that paranoia as a justification for it's appalling action to it's neighbors. The damage to the relationship of Russia with neighboring states is not in the interest of the Russian citizenry. Returning Russia to a position of international accord is important, unless we all want to revisit the best and worst of the Cold War. Did that, didn't like it so much. Russia needs to be resuscitated at some point, but it also needs to wind back the anxiety that is in their psyche, while having a bit of a belly button cogitation on what is in the interest of the public as far as graft and corruption is concerned. Re-nationalizing resources that were plundered in the aftermath of 1991 would be a good start. Giving the oligarchs a minor residual compensatory amount may smooth that sort of transition back to a normal market working for the masses. Energy wise, Russia needs to move away from being dependent on such resources, they have enough on hand to reset their economy to other alternatives.

Russia will need help on various matters by the global community to normalize their economy, and to deal with the festering problem of nuclear waste etc that has lost it's headline space in recent months but remains a present danger. Not much help will be forthcoming unless a comprehensive understanding can be achieved that resolves the Russian concerns, and any such agreement has to be robust enough to survive the recidivist history towards agreements that Russia has cataloged over a lone time line.

The kinetic character of warfare with current art munitions precludes an 30 year or 100 year war scenario, the expenditure and losses are of biblical proportions in the field, Russia is losing around a company a day, a couple of battalions a week, and Ukraine is suffering losses that are at the very least a substantial percentage of the Russian losses, on a historic attacker/defender ratio for a non-blizkreig event (Sitzkrieg 2.0?).

While Russia may consider it's interests lie in no less than a 2014 line of ceasefire, that may not be the most cost effective balance all up. The concept of cost/gain balance that was being taught pre 24 Feb 22 suggested there was no rational basis for the "Special Military Operation"; 6 months later, the glaring deficit in rationale has been reinforced by the global deterioration of the strategic position of Russia in the context of an "us v them" model. NATO has expanded considerably, the alliance is stronger for the threat that was imposed, and by any measure Russia has lost a very large proportion of it's forces, and shown severe deficiencies of their equipment, leadership, manpower, policies, procedures and practices in the field.

An exit strategy that doesn't provide for any territorial gain by Russia may seem unpalatable, but that can be made more attractive by action by the global community that may wish to improve global security while returning Russia to the international community. It is a shame to lose the richness of the arts and history of Russia due to the errors of a single individual who acted incautiously based on questionable intelligence as a consequence of his "manner" of management. Ukraine still needs to be remediated, the load of recovery will befall on the rest of the world one way of the other.

Originally Posted by DirtyProp (Post 11280161)

Only the Ukrainian people can answer that question, and nobody else. It is their fight and they are the ones paying the highest price.
We can only support their decisions, whichever ones they choose.

Originally Posted by langleybaston (Post 11280180)

Gentlemen, the enemy has four options.
He will choose the fifth.

Originally Posted by Pali (Post 11280222)

I wonder how hard it is to adjust them to carry western made weapons especially HARM missiles which may play a role in expected oncoming offensive of Ukraine.

Originally Posted by Pali (Post 11280222)

I found this photo (probably from some printed aviation or army magazine) with Magic 2 under Slovakian Mig-29 wing. It must be quite an old photo because that particular Mig-29 per tail number was destroyed in a crash in November 2002.

This missile is supposedly made backwards compatible with the Sidewinder launch hardware so my question is how hard it is to put such hardware on soviet made fighter. Per Wiki Romanian AF uses them till today on their Mig-21 fighters.

Our Slovakian Migs are supposed to be transferred to Ukraine soon and I wonder how hard it is to adjust them to carry western made weapons especially HARM missiles which may play a role in expected oncoming offensive of Ukraine.

Originally Posted by rattman (Post 11279876)

I dont speak russian so cant confirm it but theres videos going around on social media of russians protesting with placards that have pictures of russian servicemen who have lost limbs in ukraine. Apparently they are begging US and UK to stop sending weapons to ukraine. Sound like a form of cognitive dissonance to me.

Originally Posted by DuncanDoenitz (Post 11280264)

I don't know about the compatibility of Russian/Western ordnance in general, but Sidewinder/Magic is not an "in general" case.

In the late 1950's, through China, the USSR was able to acquire an early model of AIM-9 Sidewinder. The Soviet Union reverse-engineered this example to produce its own AA-2 Atoll missile; copied to the extent that not only is it compatible with AIM-9 launching hardware but that the individual missile modules are themselves interchangeable.

If Magic was conceived as being backwards compatible with Sidewinder, it follows that a degree of 3-way Atoll/Sidewinder/Magic compatibility has been inherited.

Originally Posted by fdr (Post 11279810)

The Ukrainian position is pretty understandable, they have every right to ask for that, and they also have every reason to be wary of any agreements that rely on the integrity of the Kremlin; recent history suggests that Gepetto has been working overtime in Tuscany....

The Russians have a number of options, and most are not desirable.
1. They can escalate;
2. They can continue with the current master plan...;
3. They can conduct a partial withdrawal to 2014 lines;
4. They can conduct a full withdrawal to pre 2014 lines.