- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Summary
Germany warns that Russia is rearming faster than expected, replacing war losses and stockpiling tanks, missiles, and drones.
Putin has redirected Russia’s economy to fuel its military, aided by supplies from Iran and North Korea.
While there’s no clear evidence of plans to attack NATO, Russia is creating the conditions for it.
On the Ukraine front, Russian forces are advancing in south Donetsk, nearing strategic town Pokrovsk, a key supply hub and coal mining center.
Analysts suggest Putin aims to seize land before potential peace talks.
An armchair analyst take here but I think they are gearing up to finally try to take Pokrovsk in the spring.
Folks at lemmy.ml were shouting from the rafters most of last year: Invading Kursk was a mistake! Russia will drive them back, and Pokrovsk will fall any day now! But like Avdiivka, I expect it to be a siege and for it to take a while. If they can take it early enough this year, Russia will again be able to conquer massive swaths of farmland because that’s really the only thing the “throw bodies at the problem” strategy is very effective at. If Ukraine holds out until the late fall, Russia will again be stalled for months, so the pace of their entire army will be “1 regional hub per year”, which I’m not sure is sustainable for Russia’s economy and society.
Honestly the pace of Russian advancement has been slowing down which is understandable because their losses are not sustainable. Their only hope for true victory is if Ukrainian losses are even less sustainable.
This is possible, especially if Germany and the US, the 2 wealthiest partners, cut off or scale back aid. But at the moment Ukraine seems slightly ahead of the attrition game and the US just INCREASED sanctions.
Perun (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EHUQmJCa3aY) just released a video yesterday that went over Ukraine’s war material situation.
TLDW: Ukrainian military equipment is for the most part qualitative better than it was at the start of the war but not qualitative.
Russia on the other hand is qualitatively worse, is running out of reserve war equipment (Soviet stockpiles), and is expected to deplete some of categories of equipment sometime in 2024 (tank stockpile source: Covert Cabal https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K8CcuVCDEUw).