Regime Change: The Convoy

I keep hearing about the convoy.

NowThis @nowthisnews

Satellite photos from a U.S. space tech company indicate that Russia's military convoy outside Ukraine stretches for 40 miles

A forty mile convoy is something else, and would be a really stupid idea if Ukraine had air power, in which they would have been destroyed. That Russia is able to deploy such a long convoy is a sign of where things stand, despite bungling the first few days. War is not like football (and I mean football, i.e., soccer) where you’re done in 90 minutes plus overtime. Urban warfare is particularly bad - it can can last for ever and turn brutal beyond imagination. The siege of Stalingrad lasted a little over five months but cost over two million lives.

The Russian style of land warfare is now structured around their BTGs (battlefield tactical group) but from what I have heard, the BTG’s haven’t been deployed in this war yet.

Why not?

When the BTG style of warfare dominates, it’s bound to cause heavy casualties and extensive damage. Wikipedia says:

The combination of different weapons systems including heavy ones at a low organisational level allows heavy artillery bombardments to be laid on more easily and makes them available for use tactically.

The precursors of the BTGs were deployed in Putin’s first war in Chechnya which he inherited it from Yeltsin. This is what Grozny looked like during the second Chechen war:

Not a pretty sight. And here’s Aleppo:

It’s possible Kyiv and Kharkiv will look like this if they don’t surrender soon.

Dmitri Alperovitch @DAlperovitch

Now that the Russians have switched tactics from pursuing a rapid victory on the cheap (failed miserably) and reverted to the mean of leveling Ukrainian cities to the ground like they did with Grozny and Aleppo, the goals of the operation are likely changing as well 🧵

Dmitri Alperovitch @DAlperovitch

Putin also can't pull back now without losing face - having talked about Ukraine (with its mythical nuclear weapons) as an existential threat to Russia. Now that he has already incurred the severe economic sanctions costs and diplomatic isolation, he has to show something for it

But it’s unlikely the Ukrainians will surrender. And unlike the Chechen and Syrian rebels, Ukraine is an internationally recognized state whose fighters will get high end equipment from NATO. Two heavily armed adversaries going at each others throats for months on end…? Some experts are saying Putin doesn’t have that much time and will need to raze Kyiv to the ground on the double.

Dmitri Alperovitch @DAlperovitch

Putin's only hope now is likely to rapidly unleash utter brutality on the Ukrainian people (which he has already started on by shooting MLRS rockets into Kharkiv and other cities) in order to get major concessions from Zelensky in the negotiations

These are speculations, and there’s enough moral hazard for Dmitri and other pundits since they are not going to suffer the consequences of their predictions. But it’s clear the war is escalating and escalating fast.

What’s the endgame? Is there one? Two potential directions below 👇🏾

Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb

Wars generate chains of unintended consequences, so you know when they start (if you trigger them) never when they end. Their duration is also fat-tailed.

Omar @omar_ghyad

Every Lebanese person who lived in the war knows that saying the war is expected to finish next week is a bad omen. https://t.co/cD0uqCCtMj

Alexey Navalny @navalny

1/12 We - Russia - want to be a nation of peace. Alas, few people would call us that now.

Alexey Navalny @navalny

12/12 Everything has a price, and now, in the spring of 2022, we must pay this price. There's no one to do it for us. Let's not "be against the war." Let's fight against the war.