The Ukraine War thread

[Which Tyler]

Someone made a good point that doing this means that rather than just Russia grabbing land and any peace involves them keeping it, any ceasing of hostilities at the moment would involve Russia actually giving up some of their territory as well.

There's that.
There's simply sending a message (both to Russia and to Allies) that the Ukrainian army is still a force, and still needs help.
There's an element of distraction, hoping that Russia would send troops there from Ukraine to sort the issue, creating an exploitable weakness in the Russian lines in Ukraine.
There's even the possibility that it's a bit of Russia (the closest bit to Kyiv) that's relatively hard for Russia to reinforce, is important for Russia's rail connections into Ukraine, and is suitable to use heavier equipment like Tanks, that the lines in Ukraine are ill-suited for. IF the plan is to take and hold, it also straightens the line of defence where Russia bubbles into Ukraine a bit. Further, it's showing actual Russians that the Ukrainian military aren't these satanic Nazis they've been portrayed as (and from the sounds of things, actively better for the Russian on the street than the previous Russian army had been).

Of course ,the real reason will be partly all of the above, and plenty of other reasons in both the risk and benefit columns, adding up to making it worth a shot.

 

[McTallshort]

Someone made a good point that doing this means that rather than just Russia grabbing land and any peace involves them keeping it, any ceasing of hostilities at the moment would involve Russia actually giving up some of their territory as well.

If anything it's thrust the war back into the headlines after an almost complete media black out flowing the events in Gaza which for some reason grabbed all the headlines.

I'm still holding my judgement on this. There are lots of western experts who offer opinions without understanding the Ukrainian political or cultural needs of fighting this war.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I don't think Ukraine are looking try hold the land until an eventual peace agreement. Most likely these are pseudo guerrilla tactics, they have identified they could cause maximum damage with their forces by striking here compared to having them in a meat grinder.

I think once Russia redeploys here and gets to turn it into another meat grinder, Ukraine will just try to make it cost them as much as possible but will retreat. The issue is when they retreat, they need to make sure they keep their forces in that border to ensure the Russians then don't just continue advancing into Ukraine.

 

[General Melchett]

If nothing else it's a morale boost to those still fighting in Ukraine and another red face for Mr Security who seems better at keeping himself secure than his people and borders. Prigozhin exposing him last year showed major vulnerabilities which perhaps gave Ukraine something to feed off. No doubt the local propaganda machine will be cranked up to play it all down coupled with more empty threats against the west.

If this ceasefire deal can be agreed in Gaza then that'll be a big boost to Ukraine as it puts their needs back at the forefront.

 

[McTallshort]

 

[Amiga500]

I'd say its not an absurd exaggeration to say this war is likely to see the first completely autonomous killing of a human combatant by an AI guided robot.

Various developments in the area include armed robodogs, machine gun totting buggies and of course, the well known UAVs - all it needs is offboard image recognition and we're at robot vs robot territory.

 

[McTallshort]

UK citizen dies in Ukraine hotel strike where Reuters team stayed

Ryan Evans, who was part of a Reuters news team, was killed in Kramatorsk in a strike on a hotel on Saturday.

www.bbc.co.uk