René Duba Profile picture
Jul 5, 2024 • 13 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
đź§µIt is getting more simple by the day to fight Russia in Ukraine.

Ukraine's allies must use their overwhelming economic and technical potential to help Ukraine.

Europe alone is 10 times larger than Russia in terms of technical and economic potential.

What does that mean?

1/ Image
Let's look at it systematically:

Why simpler?

Because many alternatives have fallen away for Russia.

Before february 2022, Russia did large scale exercises near Ukraine's borders. They played out a large scale tank battle with their more modern equipment.

All gone now.

2/ Image
Russia is now unable to wage a major tank battle. They now repair old T62 tanks for front line service, some of which cannot even shoot. Russia lost 8152 tanks amongst which almost all of their modern ones. No tank battles for Russia anymore.

What else? Air Force?

3/ Image
in February 2022, Russia could bombard many targets in Ukraine. And they did.

Could they do the same today? Not anymore.

Russia lost air dominance. They lost radars, including advanced radar planes, Russia lost air defence, including their best. Russia lost 360 jets.

4/ Image
Navy?

We all know what happened to the Black Sea fleet. Russia withdrew from Crimea to a harbour in Russia itself and they hardly dare to go out at sea.

Russia lost its flagship, many other larger and smaller missile carriers and their landing ships.

Taking Odesa? No way.

5/ Image
Elite troops?

For some reason or other, Russia sent their elite troops, VDV, Spetsnaz and other career military into losing battles. When things were going wrong, Russian generals propped up their Z troops with elite fighters and that was the end of them.

They're gone.

6/ Image
Stupid, because they lost their best.

The Russian generals didn't withdraw on that front, which would have been the wise decision, but they probably wanted to show to their leaders that they did everything they could: sending their best troops. And then losing them.

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This all begs the question: what is it that Russia can still do?

Russia is still dangerous. Its abillities have been reduced, making war simpler, but not less hard for Ukraine.

Russia is good at "rubble and meat", at glide bombing, missile barrages, propaganda and EW.

8/
EW = electronic warfare.

Ukraine's strategy of eroding Russia's fighting force has been extremely successful. So has it's strategy of 'remote fighting' been: drones in the air and at sea.

Ukraine has also developed a formidable surface skimming missile, the Neptune.

9/ Image
Having said that, Ukraine lacks stuff that the West has. Stuff that they dearly need and cannot yet produce themselves.

1. Missiles to stop Russian glide bombing
2. Counter battery systems to wipe out Russian artillery
3. Ammunitions to drive Russians from dug in positions

10/
4. Massive mine clearing capabillity
5. Missiles to stop Russian supplies by bridge, road, air and railroad.
6. Effective AD by a substantial increase of Patriots, NASAMS, SAMP/T, IRIS-T and Skynex against drones.
7. Underground bunkers for planes and electric plants.

11/ Image
All in all:
Much of the same of what Ukraine already received, but about 10-20 fold the amount plus permission to strike any relevant military target in Russia.

Point 3 (ammo to drive Russians from dug in positions) is a separate chapter: DPICM, incendiary, bulldozing...

12/
Conclusion:

Russia can be stopped by providing Ukraine with massive firepower in all relevant areas as well as adequate air defence for cities and power plants.

Simple, conventional, but massive.

Only ONE thing has to change: our mindset.

13/13

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More from @ReneDuba

Sep 5
Since the beginning of the war, Russia has been borrowing Rubles from Russian banks in exchange for Government bonds in Rubles. Banks are forced into buying these paper promises (no collateral).

1. It means that savings and pensions are being converted into worthless paper.

1/
2. It also means that Putin's war chest is empty. Officially it is claimed there is still money in the national welfare fund, but this may not be true.

3. By september Putin already surpassed the level of 2024. Het already borrowed the equivalent of €34 bn.

2/
4. Borrowing is steeper every year (i.e. higher sums & starting earlier).

5. You can also see that Putin can extract only a certain volume every year from the Russian banks. The line goes flat in december.

3/
Read 5 tweets
Aug 21
Contrary to the information that Americans are being fed by Russia, Europe doesn't lack an army. Adding things up, the US Army has 452689 active duty personnel, adding the National Guard and reservists, you get 954875 uniformed personnel, yet Europe has twice as many soldiers.
1/
And the European army is well equipped. Lots of US gear too.

Before the war in Ukraine it could be argued that there wasn't enough ammunition for more than a few weeks of intensive fighting, but ammo production has geared up. Besides the US had exactly the same problem.

2/
What if Russia would have attacked a NATO country in Europe? NATO would probably have given the Russian army a knock-out blow. And very quickly too. That was the strategy all along.

Then what's the problem in Europe?

NATO with the US was like a jig-saw puzzle.

3/
Read 6 tweets
Aug 11
What is the truth about the story of 'the US paying for Europe's defence'?

Why does the US have a higher defence expenditure than other NATO countries?

How is that story being used politically?

1/
1. Historically, the US basically didn't want European countries (outside of the UK and France) to be independent military powers: they had support roles to the US army.

2/
2. In Trump's FSB-written talking points, Europe is being depicted as the minor military force in Europe and the US delivering the bulk. Reality is: Europe has 2.1 million well equipped soldiers, the US only 80.000 (less nowadays).

3/
Read 12 tweets
Jul 31
Putin's Russia is not after any rational advantage of a military land grab in Ukraine. If we expect rationality, in the sense of a positive cost->profit outcome like 'realists' assume, we won't find any. Instead, private and domestic reasons may explain the Kremlin's choices.

1/
We should instead consider:
1. Putin's private motives
2. Paranoia from the KGB kitchen
3. Stories (for the home front) in which Russia is threatened
4. Perceived cultural/racist superiority on which Russian imperialism floats.

2/
More on 1: Putin's private motives.
Putin started this war amidst a wave of social discontent, part of which centered around corruption and self-enrichment of Putin's elite. We remember Navalny exposing Putin's palace and that video being widely downloaded.

3/
Read 9 tweets
Jul 22
Why do some in the West get Russia so wrong?

I mean: fundamentally wrong.

And not just average people who have other jobs, but the very people whose job it is to gather intelligence and make sense of it, like Isa Yusibov mentioned:



Why is this?

1/ Image
The basic error in the West is that they attribute rationality to Kremlin leaders.

They're wrong. Kremlin leaders can perfectly _MIMIC_ rational thought, but that's not the same.

Their lead ideology is imperialism and their modus operandi is sabotage, bluff and opportunism.

2/ Image
Behind their imperialism is a sense of cultural superiority based on 'greatness', the country is great, so if over time they were able to dominate it all, they themselves must necessarily be great as well.

Do Russians themselves believe this?

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Read 6 tweets
Jul 15
People are very much interested in how cheaply Ukraine is able to kill Shaheds.

Everyone sees that Ukraine kills them in high numbers.
Does taking them out cost more than it costs Russia to make them?

1/ Image
The answer is no. Ukraine destroys the Shaheds at a fraction of Russia's cost to build one.

Let's break it down:

Russia produces the simplest Shaheds for around 15.000 USD.

Ukraine shoots down 80% of them with plain air defence machine guns.

At what cost?

2/ Image
Ukraine shoots Shaheds down with air defense machine guns (very effectively and very cheaply).
12.7 mm (.50) rounds as bought by governments are well under 1 USD. A few bursts = a few hundred dollars.

3/ Image
Read 6 tweets

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