War in Ukraine, technical and military aspects only

[Stuart Galbraith]

Cyber attack.

Terrorism.

Commerce war.

Destruction of undersea cables.

Its a distinctly limited kitbox, but I wouldnt say there isnt anything left before the play the nuke card. How hard would it be for a Russian submarine to 'go rogue' and start plinking container ships mid atlantic? It might look unlikely to us now, but stop and think of the sheer mayhem that it would cause, with shippers being reluctant to risk moving anything thorugh the atlantic. It would be weeks, months before they could put convoys together.

 

 

 

[Roman Alymov]

44 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Cyber attack.

  Doublethink again - Russia was accused of cyber attacks many times, so if you believe in this claims - it is not "escalation" but business as usual.

45 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Commerce war.

Sanctions?

46 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Destruction of undersea cables.

And undersea pipelines?

47 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

How hard would it be for a Russian submarine to 'go rogue' 

That is old trick played by Poles more then a century ago

"Shortly after the end of World War I, German troops abandoned the territories they occupied, which are now part of Lithuania. The trail of German boots has not yet cooled down, and various political forces have already made attempts to fill the power vacuum. As a result, in February 1919, the Lithuanian-Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic was formed, with Vilna as its capital.
However, events continued to develop with breathtaking speed. Already on April 19, Vilna was captured by Polish troops. A year later, at the height of the Soviet-Polish war, the Red Army expelled the Polish occupiers from Vilna. In July 1920, the RSFSR recognized the independence of Lithuania and for the first time transferred Vilna and the surrounding region to it.
The defeat of Mikhail Tukhachevsky's armies near Warsaw had grave consequences not only for the RSFSR, but also for Lithuania. The head of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Jozef Pilsudski, whose childhood was spent in Wilno, was eager to see the city with the region as part of Poland. Warsaw conducted a multi-pass combination to capture Vilna. It began with the fact that on October 8, 1920, a division under the command of another native of the Vilna Region, General Lucian Zheligovsky, "rebelled". She occupied Vilna without encountering resistance from the Lithuanian authorities and their armed forces.
Pilsudski formally distanced himself from Zheligovsky's allegedly "arbitrary" action. However, on October 12, he told the diplomats of France and Great Britain who came to him that "his feelings are on the side of Zheligovsky." The attempts made in 1921 to resolve the conflict diplomatically failed. Lithuania has severed diplomatic relations with Poland. On January 8, 1922, elections to the Provisional Sejm of Central Lithuania were held. On February 20, he decided to join the Vilna region as part of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
On March 15, 1923, a conference of the Ambassadors of Great Britain, Italy and Japan accredited in Paris, chaired by a representative of the French Government, established the Polish-Lithuanian border. She secured the Vilna region for the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In turn, the Soviet government, in a note dated April 5, 1923, declared to Poland that it did not recognize the decision of the conference of ambassadors. Since everyone remained of their own opinion, it is not surprising that throughout the interwar period Warsaw had bad relations not only with Moscow, but also with Kaunas (then the capital of Lithuania)." ( Беспамятство Литвы: в прибалтийском государстве вычеркнули из... | Интересный контент в группе хранители истории (ok.ru) )

51 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

...... and start plinking container ships mid atlantic? It might look unlikely to us now, but stop and think of the sheer mayhem that it would cause, with shippers being reluctant to risk moving anything thorugh the atlantic. It would be weeks, months before they could put convoys together.

But that is completely useless. What is the practical sence of destroying container ships from China, loaded with goods from China)? Atlantic trade is no more the most important route on the planet - South China sea is.  And China is not interested in desruption of "business as usual" as every next day of it is making Chinese better prepared for possible conflict with US&Co. It is in China's interests to keep West busy with war in Russia, but they do not need escalation now. And Russian leadership would not dare to start conflict that would harm China interests (at least untill they got conditional surrender deal fixed with West - unlikely to happen as Western politicians are not competent enough for that).

[Josh]

3 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

But what more of an escalation can Russia actually do at this point, minus the nuke card? 

Nukes is my primary thought and concern. Attacking NATO outright does not seem to be workable right now.

[TonyE]

48 minutes ago, Josh said:

Nukes is my primary thought and concern. Attacking NATO outright does not seem to be workable right now.

There's also the Dniepr bridges, which have been left alone until now.

[Roman Alymov]

10 minutes ago, TonyE said:

There's also the Dniepr bridges, which have been left alone until now.

No need to blow bridges actually, as Ukraine (andf some EU members) are dependent on NG supply from Russia and pressing few buttons could switch this supply off without bombing anything. But our Gov is shy to do it.....

[urbanoid]

6 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

No need to blow bridges actually, as Ukraine (andf some EU members) are dependent on NG supply from Russia and pressing few buttons could switch this supply off without bombing anything. But our Gov is shy to do it.....

The level of EU dependence on Russian NG is rather low nowadays - in 2023 the deliveries were ~5 times smaller than in 2021. 

[glenn239]

3 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

  Doublethink again - Russia was accused of cyber attacks many times, so if you believe in this claims - it is not "escalation" but business as usual.

Any idea what Russian doctrine is for the scenario Josh describes - would the Russian strategic rocket forces allow the USAF to must for a massed strike, or would it destroy the bases?

[glenn239]

32 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

No need to blow bridges actually, as Ukraine (andf some EU members) are dependent on NG supply from Russia and pressing few buttons could switch this supply off without bombing anything. But our Gov is shy to do it.....

Ukrainian logistics would become much more difficult with those bridges, would it not?

[Josh]

50 minutes ago, TonyE said:

There's also the Dniepr bridges, which have been left alone until now.

That has always puzzled me.

[Josh]

7 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Any idea what Russian doctrine is for the scenario Josh describes - would the Russian strategic rocket forces allow the USAF to must for a massed strike, or would it destroy the bases?

I do not remember describing such a scenario. I did methat there’s a lot of old, less capable AGM-158s lying around for donations to Ukraine.

[Roman Alymov]

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

Ukrainian logistics would become much more difficult with those bridges, would it not?

There is no such thing as "Ukrainian logistics" - Ukraine is over since 2022, now it is NATO logistics. It would became nightmare without Dniper bridges (not because it would be impossible to transport ammunition etc. - amount of it is in fact very limited, not even close to WWII volumes - but because entire territory will be effectively cut in two parts in all aspedcts like food etc. and it is hard to catch and use cannon fodder in starviing country especiually in winter time). But let's start with pressing the buttons...

[crazyinsane105]

2 hours ago, Josh said:

That has always puzzled me.

It would basically cut off Ukraine’s land forces from being able to effectively resupply. The Russians have more than enough Iskanders to drop each bridge several times over at this point if need be. The fact they haven’t is simply bizarre 

[Yama]

We have seen that destroying bridges with missiles is not so easy, it's a narrow target so small deviation causes a miss, and targeting the supports is difficult without on-site aiming (ie. LGB). 

Still, Russians probably should try to attempt it - even partial damage to some bridges would reduce maximum loads and thus traffic - but it wouldn't be as simple as just firing off few Iskanders.

[Roman Alymov]

3 minutes ago, Yama said:

We have seen that destroying bridges with missiles is not so easy, it's a narrow target so small deviation causes a miss, and targeting the supports is difficult without on-site aiming (ie. LGB). 

See Dneproges dam in Zaporozh'ye, still causing major transport problems after being damaged by cruise missiles. And note dam is much stronger construction than bridge.

   But political considerations are, probably, more impoortant than military ones. 

[Josh]

32 minutes ago, crazyinsane105 said:

It would basically cut off Ukraine’s land forces from being able to effectively resupply. The Russians have more than enough Iskanders to drop each bridge several times over at this point if need be. The fact they haven’t is simply bizarre 

I cannot disagree. It is perhaps the single most baffling aspect of the war. Air defenses around those bridges are fairly robust, but as Crimea has demonstrated a concerted effort should be capable of overwhelming even the most modern defenses.

[Josh]

15 minutes ago, Yama said:

We have seen that destroying bridges with missiles is not so easy, it's a narrow target so small deviation causes a miss, and targeting the supports is difficult without on-site aiming (ie. LGB). 

Still, Russians probably should try to attempt it - even partial damage to some bridges would reduce maximum loads and thus traffic - but it wouldn't be as simple as just firing off few Iskanders.

This. It would not be an easy target set but there would be plenty of room for partial success, even if dropping every single bridge was difficult. It seems to me Iskanders have the required accuracy more or less, and Kh-101 as well.

[Stuart Galbraith]

The only explanation that springs to mind, is that Russia still hopes to advance over them.

[Roman Alymov]

1 minute ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

The only explanation that springs to mind, is that Russia still hopes to advance over them.

You must be kidding. Pro-Ukrainians would blow them up long before first Russian tanks approach them.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I said that was probably the plan. I didnt say it was a GOOD plan.

[Roman Alymov]

5 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I said that was probably the plan. I didnt say it was a GOOD plan.

This plan is too idiotic even for Russian political elite. More likely, keeping the bridges safe is part of some dirty deal (spomething like "We are not allowing our Army to bomb your bridges and continue supplying you with NG in exchange for you not blocking our NG flow into South Europe".

[TonyE]

9 hours ago, Josh said:

This. It would not be an easy target set but there would be plenty of room for partial success, even if dropping every single bridge was difficult. It seems to me Iskanders have the required accuracy more or less, and Kh-101 as well.

Russians did use an Iskander on the southern side of the Antonovsky bridge at Kherson in july 2023 against an ukrainian landing party that was sheltering beneath it. It was a direct hit and it demolished that part of the bridge causing it to collapse.

[TonyE]

10 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

It would basically cut off Ukraine’s land forces from being able to effectively resupply. The Russians have more than enough Iskanders to drop each bridge several times over at this point if need be. The fact they haven’t is simply bizarre 

As Roman mentions sparing the bridges might very well be part some backroom dealings, wether ongoing or potential future ones, alternately they are saved for now as future red line retribution fodder. 

[ink]

I imagine the Russians and Ukrainians are talking to each other all the time at all levels. I remember meeting a young Ukrainian chap in Belgrade early in the war, who told me that when he was crossing the line near Mariupol, the Russians and Ukrainians were constantly chatting on the radio and even joking with each other and being relatively friendly (in the "ha ha, we're going to kill you tomorrow" sense).

[Roman Alymov]

19 minutes ago, ink said:

I imagine the Russians and Ukrainians are talking to each other all the time at all levels. I remember meeting a young Ukrainian chap in Belgrade early in the war, who told me that when he was crossing the line near Mariupol, the Russians and Ukrainians were constantly chatting on the radio and even joking with each other and being relatively friendly (in the "ha ha, we're going to kill you tomorrow" sense).

Well, it is common situation for civil war - with family members or former classmates / military academy graduates fighting against each other etc. Syrsky, current commander of UkrArmy, is actually "Russian" (from Vladimir region, Central Russia, graduated from Moscow military academy, his family still living in Russia). A lot of people on pro-Russian side are "Ukrainains" (from what was Soviet Ukraine, or even former citizens of Ukraine).

Edited September 16 by Roman Alymov

[ink]

5 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

Well, it is common situation for civil war - with family members or former classmates / military academy graduates fighting against each other etc. Syrsky, current commander of UkrArmy, is actually "Russian" (from Vladimir region, Central Russia, graduated from Moscow military academy, his family still living in Russia). A lot of people on pro-Russian side are "Ukrainains" (from what was Soviet Ukraine, or even former citizens of Ukraine).

Oh sure, I'm not disagreeing that is common in civil wars - just thought it worth mentioning is all.