Bakhmut has strategic importance. It's a crossroad of important highways: M03 and T0504. Losing Bakhmut will hurt Ukraine's ability to support its' troops. How much? Remains to be seen if the city truly has been captured.
Ukraine
- Thread starter Silvanus
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I'm not really sure about that at all, not least because Bakhmut has been borderline impossible to readily use for transport for months as a frontline, and Ukraine seems to have supplied its troops fine. I don't really see it from maps either - certainly not enough to justify the effort the Russians put in.
Of course, whilst it might not hurt Ukraine that much, it might provide significant benefits to Russia - I suppose it gives them options for offensives towards Sloviansk or Kostiantynivka. The latter, particularly, might be a way to unhinge the Ukraine defences close to Donetsk city.
I've heard it the other way.
Bahkmut is where a number of Russian supply lines converge and thus it's easier to provide logistics for. Of course, now it's a matter of sunk cost for Russia to capture it after 10 months and no other successs to speak of since the war kicked off.
- May 6, 2020
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Honestly, gotta respect the hustle.
Just gonna leave this here.
Rules Lawyering at it's finest.
"Biden only said we couldn't attack Russia. He never said we couldn't drive some trucks full of weapons and humvees out to a pre-determined spot near the border and leave them there."
And that's assuming the rebels didn't trade some suitcases full of money to some nice men in sunglasses from...did he say Langley-grad in Virginia Oblast?
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Wouldn't even have to do that. Now they've got new guns, they don't need their old guns so much, and nobody said they couldn't pass those on to someone else. There might even be stuff that used to belong to Russia that's just going home.
I'm sure that those brave Russian rebels with suspiciously nice uniforms with no insignia were a completely home grown resistance movement, just like in Crimea
Would all of that weigh up against the possible ramifications of it though?
Not seeing what ramifications there would be. Russia will cry foul and kill Ukranian civilians whatever happens.
I believe the rebels have claimed they bought the equipment from the black market: this is credible - after all, there's hardly a shortage of US military equipment sloshing around the world for people to get their hands on. Although Ukraine is obviously assisting them to some degree.
I'm a little more neutral on claims of US involvement. At base it's plausible, but then the USA has also been keen to avoid perceptions it poses a threat to Russian territory and integrity.
Yes, Russia will kill Ukrainian civilians either way, true that, but I wouldn't want something like this leading to further escalation by Russia or a drop in support by the US, last I checked the US was rather adamant about not wanting their weapons used in an aggressive manner on Russian soil.
As for Russian escalation, having their own soil attacked could be used as a powerful motivational tool for Putin. Their special military operation could escalate into an war of defense of the motherland.
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They already claim the "annexed" regions as Russia, including Crimea. All of which have been attacked successfully. Hell, Kherson was abandoned and the Russian media was confused if they could even talk about it because of the laws about "defamation" on the books now. Let's not forget someone flew an explosive drone into the Kremlin earlier this month which even Putin doesn't seem to care much about, and last year someone blew up the Nordstream. Putin heavily implied the Brits did it and....apparently he isn't that mad about it considering he just kind of shook his fist at London, made one of many imponent nuke threats and then just kinda got bored of the whole thing or something.
The problem being that Putin keeps talking Red Lines and then nothing really changes. Hell, Putin apparently didn't bother with the Nuclear Threat over Ukraine getting F16s. Now there's talk that Sweden might provide Gripens as well.
It's possible he's realized he has no capability to escalate without pulling out the nukes and he already knows that's gonna bring the hammer down if he does. These raids seem to be particularly embarrassing because it's showing not only can't Russia win a victory beyond a bloody 10 month assault to take Bakhmut, they can't even properly prevent rebels from running back and forth across the border. Even worse, now they have to figure out how keep reinforcing the front lines but also find forces to protect their towns near the border.
I'm not privy to their force distribution but I suspect they're getting stretched very thin. They have to know Ukraine is preparing a counterattack at any time so pulling anything off the line could result in another Kharkiv Rout or Ensure there's no way to respond and plug holes in the line.
I've been saying it for a while now. You can't just burn through tanks and vehicles with impunity. Eventually you're gonna find yourself with no reserves and I suspect that's what's going on here. Russia is very likely running dangerously low on operational reserves. That's why the parade looked so sad. That's why they can't seem to prevent raiders from running across the border to belograd. Pretty much everything that can be committed probably already is and throwing more mobliks into the mix doesn't seem to be doing much.
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Apparently the people they've have to defend their border towns were sent to the front line. Which, ok, might sound obvious, but they might have been qualified to defend towns from minor border incursions, they weren't trained in big combined warfare attacks because that wasn't supposed to be their job.
Yes, but at least they have some form of experience or training relevant to the army (firearm use, drill, etc.), which is better than average citizens. They're obvious resources to recruit from before dragging people out of farms, factories and offices.
Apparently the Russians were arming the cops during the early hours in the incursion because they had literally nobody else available(even the border guards either melted or ran). One commentator pointed out that this is something the VDV(Airborne troops) should be optimal to handle and as far as I know they were never deployed.
Which lends credence to the idea that the VDV either isn't doing so well these days(apparently they took heavy losses last year) or they're committed to Bakhmut and can't be moved elsewhere.
And a veterinary clinic, to boot. But hey, I'm sure those cats were totally Nazis.
I used to complain that the Russians In Modern Warfare 2 shooting down evac choppers with gleeful abandon was a bit stereotypical and cartoonish.
I owe Infinity Ward an apology.
Remember when Nazis as bad guys in games set in the modern day seemed silly? I miss those days.