Ukraine wants permission from the west to use long-range Storm Shadow missiles to destroy targets deep inside Russia, believing this could force Moscow into negotiating an end to the fighting.
Senior figures in Kyiv have suggested that using the Anglo-French weapons in a “demonstration attack” will show the Kremlin that military sites near the capital itself could be vulnerable to direct strikes.
The thinking, according to a senior government official, is that Russia will consider negotiating only if it believes Ukraine had the ability “to threaten Moscow and St Petersburg”. This is a high-risk strategy, however, and does not so far have the support of the US.
Ukraine has been lobbying for months to be allowed to use Storm Shadow against targets inside Russia, but with little success. Nevertheless, as its army struggles on the eastern front, there is a growing belief that its best hope lies in counter-attack.
Kick them in the balls. They aren’t fighting fair so why should you.
Who fights fair?
The west is stopping Ukraine from doing this for their own good.
The west wants to drag out the war to bleed out Russia.
Seriously Striking Moscow (for example) would almost certainly result in a swift, all out retaliation from Russia towards Ukraine.
The western media might not like to portray it as such, but this is still largely an excursion using older equipment and avoiding mass mobilization, preferring to send “endesirables” like criminals or the poor, for Russia, while Ukraine has been running out of equipment and men.
This is a case of “fog of war” or not seeing the forest for the trees with Ukraine, the west isn’t as biased in their analysis of the situation.
A large portion of the Russian military has been held in reserve for defense, on the grounds that a full NATO invasion could decapitate the regime (a la Iraq in 2003).
Lemmyites are convinced the Russian military is entirely exhausted and these suicide incursions represent territory Ukrainians can actually hold. But there’s much more of a long game at play, as Europe and Russia wage a proxy was of attrition across Central Europe, Central Africa, and the Middle East.
The only thing I’m convinced of is the fact that you’re talking like a Russian psy-ops agent. You may not be one but at minimum you’re doing their work for them.
I’m old enough to remember “Baghdad Bob” from the '03 Iraq invasion. We used to make fun of that shit, but now everyone talks like him.
Russian media insists they’re on the cusp of total victory. Ukrainian media insists the Russians are on the verge of collapse. And disagreeing with either one means you’re a spook.
Your age is really not relevant to the comment you replied to.
You’re resorting to personal attacks against an argument which doesn’t take a lot of effort to check the validity of. Get out of your bubble.
Yeah, the whole “they’re not sending their best” Spiel was debunked in the first 6 months. The Russian equipment losses favored high end stuff at the beginning of the war and has been declining ever since. And the Russians have been activating older stuff ever since. Which is visible in the loss data.
A lot of conscripts are indeed not in the war, but judging by performance of the Kursk defense, there is reason to doubt the ability of these forces. Although quantity is a quality by its own right.
Dude, Russia is not holding back it’s equipment. A lot of it is being tracked behind spotted on parade and such in Moscow and then blown up on the front. They didn’t even have optics for the vast majority of their troops despite the big advantage of the newer AK platform they adopted being that optics fit on them. You’d never see the US, for example, send that many troops to fight without optics, even assuming they’re holding back.
If Russia is holding equipment, they’re stupid. They should have just deployed it to the front and ended the war. They didn’t do this, and the reason is obvious: it doesn’t exist. They’re sending shit from the Cold War to the front because that’s what they’ve got. They aren’t some amazing superpower that’s just playing nice with poor little Ukraine. They want this war over desperately, so they would end it if they could.
That doesn’t mean it’s all the best equipment. Both sides have a lot of equipment moving through the country then blowing up on the Frontlines, the difference is only one is constantly telling the media that they are running out of equipment and men, and that’s Ukraine not Russia.
The US (while not particularly caring for them once they do return) notoriously doesn’t like losing its own militarys lives in war.
Russia is literally sending criminals, unwanted immigrants, and dissidents to the front lines with no expectations of them to return.
Except they did do this initially and they made huge ground gains basically sweeping the entire Donbas region. It wasn’t until Ukraine recovered and changed the dynamic from quick “special military operation” to entrenched warfare when Russia pulled out the older equipment to lessen the effects of their bleeding.
I’ve been alive since (longer than) 2022, I’ve seen the stages of the war and I’ve seen the statements put out from both sides.
I remember when Russia was steamrolling through Donbas and Ukraine was panicking so much they considered a peace deal until Boris Johnson talked them out of it with the promise of continuing support.
I’ve seen the continuous desperate calls from Ukraine for more equipment and the increasing conscription which is upsetting their population.
Then I realize I’ve seen none of that from Russia, and the EU still respects Russias ability, so why would I conclude that Russia is in the same boat as Ukraine with a rapidly expiring military?
They aren’t playing nice with Ukraine, for the 100th time. Idk why y’all insist on this specific childish reduction of “playing nice”.
They are playing strategic with all of NATO. They want to win the war, but they don’t want to show their full hand to NATO, especially if it’s weaker than they want people to believe and would leave them weakened for a potential counter.
Eh, it’s been old equipment and concripts for a bit now, but that’s not what the sent at first.
Trying to take a country using your C team and old hardware and then scaling up if things go badly is a radically bad strategy. It’s a great way to lose your C team, and then send more competent soldiers to fight against a prepared and well defensed enemy.
That might be what Russia did, but if so it’s a show of incompetence about in line with everything else we’ve seen and not some “better slow down” signal.
Yes at the very beginning they just wanted to make a strong push for the “Special Operation” grab and we saw the results, they weren’t good for Ukraine but Ukraine still did better than Russia expected.
When Russia realizes the “special operation” was actually going to have to be a war of attrition, they decided to scale back and basically just hold the area while using up old equipment and draining Ukraine which has much less reserved.
Hence why in the initial attempt at taking the country, as you say yourself, they used newer equipment. They switch to older equipment only when they realized it was going to be a long battle regardless. It’s worth noting the Ukraine was largely using older equipment as well with that being what the west was supplying. Using older equipment first isn’t a unique or rare strategy.
Also Russia doesn’t care if they lose the Z team, they fully expect to go through Z, Y, V etc. The hope is Ukraine won’t be able to last long enough for them to start running into trouble.
Or it’s a great way to weaken the enemy and send the better troops to clean up. The entire C team might be less valuable than half the B team.
I believe it’s both. The entire invasion has been a show of incompetence from the beginning, but Russia just has the ability to out force Ukraine if need be. They just have to feel justified/like that’s their best option.
Attributing loosing or making preposterous strategic mistakes to some sort of 5D chess is a weird choice to make.
I don’t know why so many of you people have such a hard time accepting that the popular conception of Russia as an Eastern counterpart to the US was inaccurate. Turns out that if you consistently invest less in your military equipment and personnel, you have a less capable military. It’s been 40 years since their expenditures have been comparable, and quite frankly it shows.
Using your old equipment for an invasion would actually be a pretty novel strategy. Ukraine consistently used the best equipment available to them. That that was leftover NATO hardware doesn’t mean Ukraine was choosing to hold the good stuff in reserve.
If they’re trying to use a “let the reservists die and then send in the competent soldiers” strategy, it doesn’t seem to be going very well. They’re somehow not holding the territory they took very well, and churning through a lot of what was presumably reserve hardware.
Failing to execute a gulf war 1, and so deciding to chill in a Vietnam situation for … Some reason … for an indeterminate period of time is just not a strategy that any sane strategist would pick.
If Russia has the ability to just handwave their way to victory if things got too rough, they’ve done a pretty terrible job of demonstrating it.
I honestly can’t comprehend what you might have seen of this whole affair that would make you think they had that ability, beyond clinging to the notion that a former superpower must still be a superpower.
They just don’t have the economy or the equipment to be able to afford to burn through endless waves of soldiers like you seem to think they’re intentionally doing.
They didn’t even get air superiority, which is just embarrassing.
Just a heads up, you betray your Russian supporting roots saying the Ukraine so openly. I’m assuming you accidentally typed it by habit, because most of the time you addressed them properly, but they aren’t just some regional dependant of Russia. They are an independent nation.
Russia is losing its troops and equipment. That’s why they aren’t using modern stuff anymore. You can find pictures of the modern stuff destroyed on the battlefield if you’re interested. They sent it in. They just got held back and their equipment was lost. It’s not a mystery. It’s publicly viewable to anyone curious.
Yeah …okay Sherlock Holmes. lol atleast you read it though.
Afaik this is the only time I “betrayed my Russian supporting roots”…with Autocorrect changing a missed T in “that” from “tha” to “the” as in
It’s worth noting that Ukraine was largely using older equipment…
Yes Russia is losing troops and equipment. We know that the troops being sent are largely “undesirables” though so I don’t think it’s unusual to assume the equipment might be as well.
Yes, I stated that they previously used newer equipment when they thought they could just make a rushed victory, but when proven wrong and that it would be a stalemate for a long time anyway and they would have to bleed ukraine and be bled, they chose to bleed mostly older equipment.
I mean, admittedly I’m not in the Russian stock rooms so I can’t say for certain, but neither are you.
I refuse to partake in flippant dismissal of the military might of a power which we know has ramped up production of modern equipment while still mainly using older equipment, because it makes us feel good and safe to do so.
I’m more inclined to think that that Russia is a paper tiger and the mass corruption in the country has fucked up any modern equipment they have to the point of unusability.
And you are certainly free to think so.
I disagree. If Russia didn’t still have plenty left in the tank, Europe wouldn’t be so scared of upsetting them.
Idk why I’m downvoted so heavily for not thinking Russia is a weak baby when the care being taken by Europe and the West with regards to this war suggests that the people who know best agree.
They’re saving their best troops for
if their initial assault failsdefending the borderdefending Moscow city limitsThey’ve always been saving their best for if NATO gets directly involved. Something none of the parties involved (outside of Ukraine themselves) want, because everyone knows that it would be a difficult war and not a stroll through Moscow.
However if Ukraine was to start posing an actual threat to the core of the nation, they wouldn’t continue waiting around being cautious until they lost because of it.
Europe and the west are hesitant to provoke Russia for a reason. Idk why that’s such an unpopular opinion here.
Yeah, nuclear weapons and domestic political concerns around openly escalating a war as opposed to supplying a defensive war. No one is particularly hesitant to admit that Russia has nukes and or that that influences how NATO handles the situation.
People think that looking at the past decades of what’s happened to Russia, and the recent failures they’ve had and concluding that they’re just “holding back” is assinine.
They’re not “just holding back”. They’re just not going all out because of similar “domestic political concerns” as the western countries. It would also come at a much greater cost to foreign politics as you risk upsetting allies who now have to sell that to their own people to justify providing support.
Keeping a steady defense of a buffer zone between them and NATO is a much easier sell than a full military invasion attempt especially if, as you suspect, their full potential isn’t as great as some think. Hence why it started as a “special military operation”
I don’t dismiss that potentially part of the reason they arent going full speed is that their power isn’t as good as they portray and many believe, and they don’t want to expose that weakness.
You asked why Europe would want to avoid pushing Russia too far.
You can either come up with a complicated answer involving Russia having a vast reserve of undemonstrated military might and thinking that anyone found the “denazification” excuse plausible, or you can remember that they have nukes and even with a military that poses no plausible threat or defense to NATO being a nuclear power is a great deterrent.
Why, lacking evidence to the contrary, you would pick the more complicated explanation is a mystery.