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ramana wrote:In one segment a Portugal expert after complaining about Arnab style made significant remarks about US knee on Western Europe.
I didn't get his name in the din!
Leftists, Congies and BIF are celebrating forwarding a clip where the guy goes on to lecture Arnab, and called Arnab as acting against India's interests. Arnab gave him back, and that guy just dropped off.
Video appeal from Ukraine by Indian student, who is also village pradhan in UP’s Hardoi, lands her in trouble as officials say it will be probed how gram sabha bank account operated in her absence and if there were any financial irregularities
Tanaji wrote:Poor dog has no idea what is in store for him. India is no place for Huskies and malamutes.
Kaahe ko chinta karte ho bhidu...uska dekhbaal ho jaayega. Ladai-jhagde ke beech galti se goli khaakar "kutte ka maut" marne se to accha hai "daddy-mummy" ke saath bach nikla. Kya samjhe ?
^^On a more serious note, the GOI is going out of its way to airlift the students at tremendous expense (that's a good thing, of course). In general, the Indian students going to Ukr and other European countries for medical school etc are not exactly "poor"...most of them would be paying about 1 cr or so for a medical university seat. Technically, the goremint could ask for a refund/service fee later (as a lot of other countries do), but its great PR and future election votes to do this for free. Each student's positive experience with the GOI action will probably influence at least 100 votes in their social/media circle.
Nitin Gokhale tweeted that Russia gave a 6h window today to get all indians out of Kharhiv, but no more. If needed indians there can seek refuge in enclaves created by RA paratroopers.
After that hellfires will rain on anyone resisting RA in Kharkiv. The window must be over by now.
Many students in UKr may have education loans or parents debt. Instead of making them pay, GoI should get them to sign an undertaking to serve for 1 year in rural govt hospitals with basic remuneration. As doctors or support/admin staff as per their qualification. Link to aadhar & passport to track compliance. Or serve 1 year in our armed forces in suitable capacity on basic pay.
srikandan wrote:India should make an effort to be part of all possible financial systems including one that is native. Obvious that any such system will force countries to cooperate as multiple SWIFT like systems is a wonderful thing for drug lords and criminal mafia, and every rich country out there will speak against this kind of laundering while ensuring that only the flows that hurt them are stopped. Being part of multiple systems allows better policing of transactions, if such a thing is possible.
Perhaps the BRICS financing system is an effort whose time has truly come:
I am surprised to see that Russia is dragging this forever. The more they delay, the biggest chances of failure. I think that strategically Putin has lost the plot and has surrounded him with just yes men. I don't see a clear objective with this invasion and nation re-building thing, every-time a large power has tried to invade, change the regime and rebuild the nation they have failed. Russia is no exception, The Ukrainian speaking majority hates the Russians and this will turn into a prolonged insurgency that Russian's can't overcome with a weak economy.
Ideally, Putin should have done minor incursions, brought the heavy firepower to the border areas, do some border exercises, declared Donetsk independent and then got Ukraine to negotiate. Stretching this to a long drawn war is a recipe for failure.
srikandan wrote:India should make an effort to be part of all possible financial systems including one that is native. Obvious that any such system will force countries to cooperate as multiple SWIFT like systems is a wonderful thing for drug lords and criminal mafia, and every rich country out there will speak against this kind of laundering while ensuring that only the flows that hurt them are stopped. Being part of multiple systems allows better policing of transactions, if such a thing is possible.
Perhaps the BRICS financing system is an effort whose time has truly come:
Easier said than done.... Today any financial system needs the Europe, USA or China. A BRICS system certainly needs China and that won't help us in the event of war with either China or Pak. China wont mind weaponizing anything against us.
Maybe better to view that question in reverse: what kind of locally-focussed infrastructure(s) that India develops can, over time, be sold as an alternative to western systems to countries that are locked out of western systems -- don't see India leveraging anything western for its benefit, that cannot also be shut down by the west. If India's "customers" are all "western", then that only increases their leverage over India, not decrease it.
It is highly unlikely that India will face sanctions in near future as India's main geo-political interest currently is safeguarding Chinese LAC, safeguarding Indian Ocean SLOC and perhaps bombing Pak in case of a major terror attack. First two are defensive position so no question of sanctions arise and we have already established precedent to attack Pak in case of terror strikes.
Having said that, west has exposed all its card this time wrt sanctions and India needs to priorities and prepare for say few decades later. First and foremost is establishing a desi MIC. Should be our #1 priority. Even more then basic priorities like Health and Education and Infra. Second should be to create some major leverage against West in one or two critical areas. India has acquired a critical mass in IT Services and will need to maintain this strategic advantage. But we need few more. FDI is another area esp in Infra and Tech. Ask them to build roads, ports, airports with offer that they cant refuse. Ask them to come and build tech like semis, materials, biotech etc. with attractive concessions like 20-30 year tax holiday. We only need few and so we can be generous.
In the mean time we also need to build an invisible hand to keep our desi sepoys on leash. We can allow them to bark but not bite. Just like West, for foreseeable future, our major challenges will be internal, not external. Only good thing is while we have already seen the worst of these, It is just getting started in West. While our citizenry is now aware of its dangers, masses in the West are still blissfully oblivious.
Sorry for OT, I just saw Arnab and Tarek Fateh beating American media and military-industrial complex, calling out Ukranian racism against black and brown people.
Arnab asked the Americans on the panel "Why is your stock market going up" (paraphrasing).
Arnab has taken a clever position: He sympathizes with Ukraine, and beats Russia and America black and blow.
KL Dubey wrote:^^On a more serious note, the GOI is going out of its way to airlift the students at tremendous expense (that's a good thing, of course). In general, the Indian students going to Ukr and other European countries for medical school etc are not exactly "poor"...most of them would be paying about 1 cr or so for a medical university seat. Technically, the goremint could ask for a refund/service fee later (as a lot of other countries do), but its great PR and future election votes to do this for free. Each student's positive experience with the GOI action will probably influence at least 100 votes in their social/media circle.
Making them pay will be very bad optics
We have 1.1 million students abroad. Not sure what 230 of them are doing in Pakistan
Big moves made by Russian force today as per reports. In the North/ Northwest area there are reports of Russian convoys East and West of Kyiv. The capital city by all reports is close to being encircled. In the North East there are reports of a para drop near Kharkiv.
In the South East Mariupol is surrounded making it possible to link up with Donbas region, and make it a continuous line all the way to the Black Sea. As a response Ukrainian forces in the East could pull back to consolidate.
The Russians have also accelerated on a South - South West axis and are engaged in Kherson city.
Major cities are now under siege - Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Kherson. Artillery and Missile bombardment has ramped up with significant increase in military and civilian casualties.
Looks like Russia's goal is to liberate Donetsk and Luhansk from the US-supported Ukrainian nazis and acquire stable water supply for Crimea. (going by the cities that are under Russia siege and how they line up on the map)
So what happened to the 20B$ worth of anti-tank weapons supplied to Ukraine by the US, and the tanks seem intact outside Kyiv so far. Maybe it was not just anti-tank weapons handed to the Ukrainian Nazis, and the Russians know that?
Last edited by srikandan on 03 Mar 2022 02:09, edited 1 time in total.
Everyone is perplexed with the absence of RuAF. Does Russia expect NATO to get involved and saving air assets ?
I bet they'd have gamed the involvement of NATO on Ukraine side... Putin is not stupid to not consider that...
The below article seems to be the most widely cited at the moment.
TLDR- (a) Russians did not have that many quantities of precision guided munitions, (b) lacked targeting pods that would enable identifying friend from foe in close quarter situations (c) face problems in joint operations with ground forces. Conclusion is that write also expects RuAF to be much more active but also use unguided munitions from here on.
Take that FWIW. I get the sense that even the author isn’t totally convinced that he has found the answer. But for the moment it’s the most detailed attempt to analyse.
US and NATO have ruled out any direct air involvement including enforcing a no fly zone, operating their own fighter aircraft or even allowing Ukranian planes to take off from their territory. Because that would be casus belli and maybe WW3. The Soviets made that clear and they west knows that it would rightly be so.
For someone who was able to cobble up an expeditionary deployment over at Syria and maintain high tempo operations for weeks, these western claims of lack of equipment for a romp across a terrain that is familiar and close by makes no sense. As are logistics issues being highlighted (that video of an armored vehicle waiting for its fuel and being trolled by some Ukrainian is cited as proof in lots of analysis). Tanks do wait in between advances for fuel tenders to catch up, while the rest of the squadron advances in a staggered fashion. All those are now psyops material for world wide audience
Other than keeping a clean image against bombing of civilian heavy cities, there might be some tacit agreements between factions of ukranian gov and Russia about not destroying specific infrastructure.
This war seem to be analyzed using the whole absence of proof is proof of absence logic. There is zero Russian POV of events or even contesting of western analysis. Odd for a nation that is vigorously accused by US establishment of destabilizing US elections etc at the highest levels using fake news etc
Don’t know what is the putin administration’s game plan on this, but it sounds similar to Kashmir’s internet cutoff to prevent infiltration of toolkit-donkeys via social media platforms
In chess paralance, Russia is past the Opening. Its pieces are developed. Game progressed to the middle game.
Can Russia withstand economic pressures? That is probably as important as its military, and resulting political objective.
A protracted middle game is more agaimst Russian interests. It would aim to spend only that much time in the middle game to get a good end game. Ukraine will try to drag the middle game.
I also noticed that Nepal and Bhutan voted with the Western world/ Ukraine, while Bangladesh and Even Sri Lank abstained. It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall to understand the Nepalese and Bhutanese voting the way they did.
Good points raised by Lt. Gen. Ata Hasnain. Speaks of how Russia carried out strategic deception well pre-invasion (kept most people guessing about whether he would invade), but doesn't seem to have done as well on the operational deception side e.g. encirclement of cities instead of selected axis of attack. Also mentions that inexperience in offensive operations may have contributed to some mistakes e.g. lack of link-up of follow-on forces at the airport near Kiev, lack of bridging equipment to account for blown bridges.
Even better points are raised about the higher direction of war - the changing strategic aims and what to avoid now e.g. destruction of Kiev.
Last edited by Anoop on 03 Mar 2022 02:36, edited 1 time in total.
For someone who was able to cobble up an expeditionary deployment over at Syria and maintain high tempo operations for weeks, these western claims of lack of equipment for a romp across a terrain that is familiar and close by makes no sense. As are logistics issues being highlighted (that video of an armored vehicle waiting for its fuel and being trolled by some Ukrainian is cited as proof in lots of analysis).
Syrian ops is far different, we are talking operation with around 4k troops. Where as in this we are talking about close to 160-200k . Lot of these issues were seen during Georgian conflict and during Chechnya II but because of Russia was able to throw superior #s they weren’t a problem. People forget this operation is largest one done by Russia/USSR post WW2 even in Afghanistan they didn’t deploy more than 110K troops at once.
Baikul: I also noticed that Nepal and Bhutan voted with the Western world/ Ukraine, while Bangladesh and Even Sri Lank abstained. It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall to understand the Nepalese and Bhutanese voting the way they did.
It was reported that the US just provided a 500M$ "road fund" to Nepal, possibly as an alternative to Chinese BRI, so that may account for Nepal's vote.
John wrote:
Syrian ops is far different, we are talking operation with around 4k troops. Where as in this we are talking about close to 160-200k . Lot of these issues were seen during Georgian conflict and during Chechnya II but because of Russia was able to throw superior #s they weren’t a problem. People forget this operation is largest one done by Russia/USSR post WW2 even in Afghanistan they didn’t deploy more than 110K troops at once.
John, the lack of information is quite odd. But 160-200k sounds like something that is doable for a country that is OEM for almost all of the equipment they are using and also does serious peacetime wargames with large formations. Georgia and Chechenya II are quite sometime back and even the most skeptical western analysts agree that they have upgraded their equipment and C4I since then.
Also a request: can you provide some links on some of the interesting data you post here, particularly downings of aircrafts and how various weapons fared. The lack of clarity on various things is troubling. FWIW, I honestly expected the Ukranians to put up severe resistance much before the outskirts of Kyiv, a la the brutal fighting around Grozny, based on the weapons tranches that were provided for them.
KL Dubey wrote:^^On a more serious note, the GOI is going out of its way to airlift the students at tremendous expense (that's a good thing, of course). In general, the Indian students going to Ukr and other European countries for medical school etc are not exactly "poor"...most of them would be paying about 1 cr or so for a medical university seat. Technically, the goremint could ask for a refund/service fee later (as a lot of other countries do), but its great PR and future election votes to do this for free. Each student's positive experience with the GOI action will probably influence at least 100 votes in their social/media circle.
Making them pay will be very bad optics
We have 1.1 million students abroad. Not sure what 230 of them are doing in Pakistan
They are Kashmiri jihadis sponsored by Hurriyat with wink and nudge by Mehbooba/UPA types (mostly prior to Article 370 revocation, but GOI did take a long time to clamp down on it and not sure if they even have done so fully), likewise the students in Turkey. A lot of these 'students' in Pakistan came back as militants via the LOC, and the people in Turkey are basically Pakistani/Muslim Brotherhood propagandus to a large extent.
ramana wrote:The experts perplexed are from countries that supplied Manpads and ATGMs to Ukraine.
They forget bear won't do the same again.
Raman Garu, we do see lots of heli insertion ops that have a greater risk of manpads.
I have 2 theories
1. Russia does not want to do shock and awe attacks to destroy Ukraine like they did in Syria
2. They expect a NATO involvement at some point
Zelensky acting tough might eventuality force RuAF to get involved
Mihir provided a link to Cross-Domain Coercion: Russian Art of Strategy. which I linked in the Operational Art thread in Mil Forum.
Basically, they have changed their strategy after all the urban combat they have gone through.
Don't reduce cities to rubble.
I suspect that NATO provided different weapons than they announced.
It would seem Ukraine forces had plenty of ATGMS. We dont see many burning hulks of tanks.
Anoop wrote:
Good points raised by Lt. Gen. Ata Hasnain. Speaks of how Russia carried out strategic deception well pre-invasion (kept most people guessing about whether he would invade)
I have to disagree on this one Anoop ji. Aam Aadmi might not have been aware, at a governmental and intelligence level US, UK, China and few other nations knew this was happening. In fact, US issued a warning sometime back in December itself that Russia was planning for an Ukraine operation.
Below WaPo link is the first I read in December and by end of December there were news items out mentioning of an imminent attack.
Arnab gave him back, and that guy just dropped off.
My heart cringes thinking of them.
