Ukraine Invasion: Part 41

[MagicFox]

Welcome to thread 41 with new guidance thrashed out with regular posters to keep us on track :-) Hope you all approve!

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Regime change will come, just as it did for the Tsars. Russia is likely to break up and the mess will make Iraq look stable.

Thanks, MissConductUS. More reassuring and measured words from Ben Hodges in the WSJ.

https://twitter.com/NatalkaKyiv/status/1668244832702156804 a video put out by the Russians to celebrate Russia day. It's worth watching

@prettybird

"IMHO the Russian nuclear weapons are not in play despite the posturing (like the recent moving of some of them to Belarus)

So that leaves the war remaining a conventional one, so there is still hope for Ukraine."

+++++

I agree that Russian nuclear weapons are not really in play at the moment even as a threat and for the foreseeable future it is conventional .

However much will depend on the outcome of the current counter offensive. The problem with attacking (as the Russians found out the hard way) is it is always more costly and difficult than defending.

If the current counter offensive fails then there is a stalemate scenario not unlike WW1 where each side is too powerful to lose but not strong enough to win. In which case a the only options left are a) negotiated settlement - especially if the Republicans win the US presidential election or b) a regime change in Moscow but as @DdraigGoch neatly summarised :
"Russia is likely to break up and the mess will make Iraq look stable."
And there is no guarantee that the next Russian president won't be more extreme and brutal than Putin is.

So in short the current counter offensive absolutely needs to succeed even if it is just to get a more favourable outcome in any negotiated settlement

It is making progress. What will be will be. How Russia reacts to being pushed back remains to be seen and there's no point tying oneself in knots over that unknown. What is known though is that Russia does not negotiate in good faith and that guarantors can find it hard to guarantee things.

Update on relatives in occupied area: they were flooded but with water appearing and rising from the main inundation, not with a current that washed things away. They are thankfully off to the side enough for that to have not happened. The house has two main levels with the ground floor raised a little. Under that is a cellar/basement with some small windows at ground level. That is where they had been living for safety.

After the explosion of the dam, their lives have changed a lot. Things have gone from getting by under occupation to a more basic survival. There is almost no drinking water and there are corpses in the floodwater. There are also problems with the supply of products, which have doubled in price.

Explosions have become more frequent; shelling is now almost constant. Russian troops are gradually weakening. The house is a little underwater so they can’t live in the basement for now. There’s nowhere else to go so they are upstairs. Now there has been some rain which feels like punishment. The vegetable garden has been destroyed.

I was struck by an article in the DM which a female format line soldier.

Is it utterly sexist to say that females should only be on the front line only if there is a lack of able bodied men capable of fighting?

I am going to get utterly flamed for this but surely men in general are in a better position to fight in terms of physical stature/ability? There is also the grim prospect of what happens to women prisoners of war (grim I know but the Russians don't seem that hospitable )

I completely get that the Ukrainians are bravely fighting as a population for their existence but are we in a position where women routinely fight in front line positions?

By the way I am aware of British women soldiers that have been involved in peace keeping missions and in a dangerous situation but I think there is a difference to being involved in a direct offensive operation with a greater risk to life and limb.

@mids2019 I have to disagree, as although less likely, male POW’s get sexual violated as well. The women fighting today want to fight frontline, and why shouldn’t they? I think they are fabulous.

@Greenshake

God those women are brave!

However there is little sexist part of me that think men (if possible) should be in their place ...

When we a accepted Ukrainian refugees the vast majority I assume we're women and children. Is war the one area where gender equality may be compromised?

The US Army ended the exclusion of women from ground combat roles in 2013. There aren't many (about a thousand I think) currently, but it is allowed.

The nature of war has changed, particularly with insurgencies. Most of the casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were from roadside bombs, not direct enemy fire. Even in a fight like Ukraine, there often is no clear-cut front line. Lots of Ukrainian combat medics are women, and they are often in harm's way.

@MissConductUS

Absolutely. I think the maybe unwarranted shock factor was that the soldier in question was directly on the front line is a seemingly dangerous trench operation. Women have been in the armed forces
for some time but in such absolute front line roles?

@MissConductUS

The woman in question seemed to be storing trenches?

storming

I think watching the BBC tonight what strikes me again is how the counter offensive is covered I the media. We expect our national broadcaster to give impartial factual information as far as possible about conflict but in this instance is it in the national interest to an have bias? I have to admit to being a little perturbed by footage of destroyed Leopard tanks as surely this plays into Russian propaganda? If our media is transparent about Ukranian losses does that not feed into a lowering of Ukranian morale as the populace are made aware of the challenges of war and there may be political consequences? Do we have to in this instance accept our att e media should be biased or at least opaque in the interests of Ukrainian and indeed our own interests?

I do get the impression the counter offensive is going to be hard militarily and there will be significant loss of life. Freedom is never free. The battles ahead are going to be bloody and I think we can think on that without explicit reference. Most right minded people are fully aware of the sacrifices of the Ukranian people going forward.

I am now possibly of the impression the West should have armed Ukriane faster and in more depth initially instead of being wary of nuclear sabre rattling g£blocks by the Russians. It is now clear the Russians are not going to use nuclear weapons and so we should have no fear in supplying the Ukrainians with weaponry that would allow them over whelming advantage in the war theatre . Specifically with regard to air power I worry about the lack of air superiority when launching ground attacks over open territory. Could we have started the supply of aircraft and training sooner and ensured U Ukraine had a functioning air presence before the insight of the counteroffensive?

Maybe disingenuously I am aware of the combined military might of the West especially the USA so why are we wary of supplying arms when geopoliticaly you have to ask the question who else is a clear and present danger?

I understand your concern, @mids2019, but suppose the woman is an officer or non-commissioned platoon leader. She needs to lead the troops, no matter what they do.

I also don't think the UAF forces women into those roles. Some really capable women soldiers want to be in the fight.

I think women on the front line are fine as long as it's voluntary. It's a minority who want to go, but why not?

They know what will happen if they get caught by the Russian soldiers. If they choose to make an informed choice then they should be able to defend their country.

It's a big change from even 50 years ago but one that is not bad imv.

I agree both. The women fighting are absolutely capable but there is still a part of me that wants a male US/British squaddie in their place. Sexist I know and I mean no disparagement of the immense and professionalism of those women soldiers.

@mids2019 completely agree with your last post.

We expect our national broadcaster to give impartial factual information as far as possible about conflict but in this instance is it in the national interest to an have bias?

From what I've seen of the BBC, they've gone so far to be impartial that in fact they've lost the spirit of the truth by not putting context in.

All of your last post I mean, about arming earlier. The slowness at the start was understandable but not now and not for a long time.

The silence over the dam has been devastatingly disappointing.

Women have always played extraordinary roles in war, taking huge risks in intelligence, resistance, communications.
Women's inclusion in armed combat is a minor matter when compared to the risks women have always faced and confronted in war.

It's hard to know where to draw the line mids as a practical matter. Can a woman command a tank, for example?

Flying close air support missions is one of the most dangerous jobs in the air force. Do you recall Kim Campbell? I posted about her on one of the prior threads (she's a Yank who attended Imperial College London as a Marshall Scholar). You can't hold someone like that back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Campbell_(pilot)

There's also the matter of unit cohesion. A ground combat unit does everything together. Each team member has a vital role to play. It would be awful for morale if women did everything except actually fight.

@MissConductUS

it's very difficult to argue against that.

I would say that warfare does direct a powerful lens on gender equality and in a sense I think we allegedly that the vast majority of combatants will be male. Again it can't be emphasised about that women participating in the armed forces are exceptionally courageous with undoubted proffesionalsim. However I do think there is an argument that in front line roles men should be prevalent and maybe exclusive? It may be sexist but I know men maybe from unjustified chauvinism would like to take the place of women in the front line.

Enough above

Presumably women who sign up undergo the same training as men? If this is the case I see no reason why they shouldn’t serve on the front line.

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar did

I agree. I think there has been a possibly overly cautious supply of weaponry of all kinds. In an ideal world it would have been good to see Ukrainians with something anointing to the capability of overwhelming force to possibly totally demoralise Russian forces (which were already suffering from low morale). If the Russians knew that they faced an amount of armament that wou!d mean in effect many of them would be in a suicide mission would there have been a possibility of some kind of route were the Russian forces completely abandoned discipline at numerous levels?

I think the question we will never know i s whether there would have been a nuclear response from Russia if we had put boots on the ground or NATO itself ahead acted in a decisive military manner.