Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

https://www.metaculus.com/questions/9939/kyiv-to-fall-to-russian-forces-by-april-2022/

by torts • 4 years ago

209 406 4 years ago

metaculus.com

disambiguation2• 4 years ago

* Community prediction..

This is basically a survey.

ncr1002• 4 years ago

Not so basic.

Survey with the predictors (humans) being ranked in their impact on the conclusion based on their historical prediction success.

disambiguation2• 4 years ago

Interesting twist. Will be more interesting if its tied to an index fund.

polishdude20• 4 years ago

Ah so the better you do in previous surveys, the more weight it puts into your prediction?

amriksohata• 4 years ago

The Taliban took 2 weeks to take over Afghanistan with little resistance in comparison.

Both Ukraine and Afghanistan have similar land in sqm and population sizes.

Why does anyone expect Ukraine to be taken over in a few weeks when there is bound to be more resistance? You would think atleast double or treble that time.

deutschew6• 4 years ago

lack of natural barriers, the Ukraine, Belarus lands are flat which means very little places to hide for the insurgency.

in Afghanistan the Taliban could hide out in network of caves and there is just no flatten mountains, the Vietcongs could utilize underground networks and dense forests to operate.

One hope for Ukraine is urban warfare, Putin launched two miserable wars against Chechnya and they were decimated from insurgents hiding out in various apartment buildings, it is likely what is stalling the advance in Kyiv.

nwiswell2• 4 years ago

Yes. The terrain for Ukranian insurgents will simply be civilians. How can you tell who is going to shoot you in the back when you turn around?

Unfortunately, we live in a new age and China has perfected facial recognition software, which they will probably have no scruples about providing to Russia. I'm not sure a crowd provides the same kind of anonymity that it once did.

gremlinsinc3• 4 years ago

Ukraine is tundra. Right now it's entering the muddy season.

Russia could only possibly even attack using airforce now, because anything on the ground is going to sink.

Ironically, Xi telling Putin to wait till the Olympics were over probably cost Putin the war, because of all the abandoned vehicles stuck in the mud.

There's a convoy with who knows how many vehicles but it stretches 40 miles and it's never digging out of the mud, most likely it'll be added to Ukraine's assets when things dry out.

Russia is leveling cities, but this is a WIN for urban warfar. In previous wars some people would level their own cities so they had better places to hide and setup snipers at.

Here's a good video outlying why Putin has already lost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ4hvLqNfqo

ncr1002• 4 years ago

Ukrainians accepting their new Russian overlords, is another reason to think the invasion will succeed quicker.

gremlinsinc3• 4 years ago

LMAO, this will never happen. Especially after Russians gunned down civilian refugees during a 'ceasefire'. Russians are defecting from the military left and right if anything the Russians are likely to beg Ukraine to be their new overlords or at least claim asylum.

bufferoverflow2• 4 years ago

Ukrainians will not accept Russian overlords. They hate them. Any puppet government will be killed / removed very quickly. Ukrainians do that very often. Their mentality is very different from russian mentality.

deutschew6• 4 years ago

how much of this was contributed to banning all reporting from the Russian side of things? right now the atmosphere is like if you even remotely suggest that Russia is actually making slow progress despite losses you are viewed as supporting Russia!

Yet what the fixation on Kyiv is doing is it's pulling resources away from the south and Donentsk/Lukansk area where the Ukraine army is in real danger of being completely surrounded.

There is heavy propaganda and disinformation from both Russia and Ukraine but what we've done in the West is effectively ban impartiality. Never before have we seen this level of zealous emotions since WW2.

@JominiW on twitter does a very good explanation of various political and military objectives and the strategic movement of the Russian forces and he's repeatedly called out the dangers of believing the enemy is a paper tiger.

We've seen all sorts of incompetence from the Russian side and Ukrainian forces have done a good job of defending Kyiv but we forget that Ukraine is not just Kyiv, it is slowly being swallowed up from all directions.

This is called target fixation and it's going to shock a lot of people who only follows one side. Best thing to do in an unpredictable and volatile situation is to not fixate on one view.

We will shortly know in the coming weeks what will happen, if Putin makes significant grounds, he has more chips to gamble/make demands. If Putin fails here, he has no choice to escalate in ways that was previously thought unimaginable.

It doesn't help that US/NATO alliance is adamant on not escalating to WW3 yet they sanction every Russian, despite their objections to war and Putin, in some extremely liberal naivete that the Russians will rise up against an authoritarian government who is ready to use small scale nukes if need be.

jatone• 4 years ago

yeah fog of war makes understanding the situation as a 3rd party cumbersome. I've essentially given up and just going to wait and see what falls out.

yladiz• 4 years ago

we forget that Ukraine is not just Kyiv, it is slowly being swallowed up from all directions

Except we haven’t forgotten, news orgs are reporting on things happening outside of Kyiv. Russia seems to have really overplayed their hand because they were barely able to take Kherson after like a week, and can’t even take bigger cities like Kharkiv, even with intense shelling.

Russia may not be a paper tiger, but they sure can’t do much against an enemy many times smaller than them.

soperj2• 4 years ago

Russia may not be a paper tiger, but they sure can’t do much against an enemy many times smaller than them.

How long did it take for the US to take Afghanistan?

deutschew6• 4 years ago

they sure can’t do much against an enemy many times smaller than them.

Neither could the US.

Another factor here is that Ukraine isn't Afghanistan or Vietnam where natural barriers offer chance for insurgency to hide out, regroup.

Russia here can absolutely level cities and buildings and it is impossible to construct underground tunnels in flat lands known for its ability to soak up water (the tunnels would not be structurally safe), and it is far too late now in this stage of the war.

An incompetent large army vs a competent large army makes little difference when the fighting environment is against the defenders (no mountains or jungles to hide out in).

The best chance at insurgency would be to start digging but again the soil in Ukraine makes this a challenge, my prediction is that we could see something similar to what Hamas is doing in Palestine in the form of human shields, swaying public media through casualties, urban warfare at best but unlike IDF which does to a certain degree exercise in minimization of collateral damage (ex. calling occupants in the apartment building to evacuate before bombing Hamas launching rockets) where as Putin/RF has zero qualms about collateral damage.

The Western sanctions have only esclated tensions, have emboldened Putin even more, as they've given him nothing to lose. When you corner a wild animal like Putin you will get bitten.

There's just no way out for him except to escalate from what I can see since Ukraine has rejected giving up DNR/LNR/Crimea. Neither side is willing to budge so this will simply continue to lead to human suffering on both sides.

NicoJuicy2• 4 years ago

ban impartiality

What ban was impartial?

jcadam7• 4 years ago

If Putin fails in Ukraine, he'll be forced from power in Russia. He has no reason to give up and every reason to continue until he can claim at least some sort of victory.

deutschew6• 4 years ago

What is clear is that Putin is highly paranoid and has been since taking power and he's willing to commit crimes against humanity to stay in power.

He's already announced he is willing to use nukes if threatened and NATO will not respond unless multiple re-entry vehicles carrying nukes rain on their cities. He could do a lot here by using small scale nukes that don't create huge fallouts even.

If you were Putin, does it not make sense that his least trusted, potentially disloyal officers, generals would be on the frontlines and hope they don't come back?

matthewmacleod• 4 years ago

I think you're overreacting. There is literally an article on the homepage of The Guardian today that explicitly talks about the over-focus on Kyiv https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/kyiv-deadlock-...

astrange• 4 years ago

The accounts I follow (like @OSINTtechnical) are careful to point out that Russia is doing relatively well in the south of Ukraine but I’ve never seen a believable analysis that they actually are doing well, and I’ve looked. The ones out there are base contrarianism, usually disproven in the next day or two. In particular they assume Russia somehow controls land by driving straight past it so it gets marked red on the map.

Still, it doesn’t change their ability to flatten any city they want. And the lack of any good successor government in Russia to allow the current one to collapse, so they have nothing to lose.

In the end it’s all Larry Summers’ fault, like everything else in the world.

simion314• 4 years ago

I just checked and you can access Russian state media, so have at it please https://ria.ru - I don't speak Russian but from my research this is state owned media, please if others know better can we prove that if you really want to read Russia propaganda it is still possible, you just need a bit more effort then opening FB or twiiter or your TV

Kliment• 4 years ago

I understand Russian. Looking at ria.ru over the past few days there is barely any mention of the war, certainly no details, there's much more mention of sanctions but only some weird stories about their origin and motivation.

NoboruWataya4• 4 years ago

right now the atmosphere is like if you even remotely suggest that Russia is actually making slow progress despite losses you are viewed as supporting Russia!

Only on Twitter and Reddit. Look at conventional media and they are mostly discussing Russian gains in the south, while occasionally mentioning that their advance has ground to a halt in the north.

CRConrad16• 4 years ago

what we've done in the West is effectively ban impartiality.

WTF is there to be "impartial" about?

rdtwo2• 4 years ago

Do people put money on this because 4:1 odds are pretty good. If definition of fall is a mission accomplished type photo op I’d take those odds. If it’s prolonged stable holding then I probably would not

garyrob• 4 years ago

26% is closer to 3-to-1 odds. :)

babyshake• 4 years ago

Prediction markets for real money that relate to violent outcomes are a very dangerous territory ethically. You could bet the Kyiv will fall and then provide support or resources to the Russian forces, for example. A more practical example would be something like an assassination prediction.

somedude895• 4 years ago

If you have the sort of influence or resources to make something like an assassination or war happen, then it's really easy to make money on those things already, for example by shorting certain stocks. And I'm sure that's already been happening for a while to some extent.

DennisP• 4 years ago

It'd have to be a very liquid market, to make it profitable to provide enough support to make a material difference.

I'm not convinced assassination markets are practical. If you make a prediction that a person will be assassinated on a particular day, and put money on it, you'll make the odds for that day spike up, thus warning the target to take new and unpredictable precautions.

If you try to counter this effect with less specific predictions, then more people will take your side of the bet so you'll get worse odds.

ryeights• 4 years ago

Does PredictIt make markets on the outcomes of military conflicts? That would pose some interesting ethical dilemmas...

quickthrowman• 4 years ago

I don’t think anyone is going to change their war plans to earn $850 on a PredictIt contract, let’s be real here.

jessriedel2• 4 years ago

To be clear, Metaculus is a prediction aggregation platform, not a prediction market. There's no money at stake, only reputation.

https://www.metaculus.com/about/

It's well recognized, including my Metaculus users and admin, that money can provide a powerful incentive for accuracy which they do not use (presumably because this would be a very different, more legally encumbered platform). However, they attempt to make up for this by having many more predictions and, crucially, but weighting more heavily the predictions of people whose predictions have been more accurate in the past.

s1artibartfast16• 4 years ago

IT looks to me like there is some money to be made:

https://polymarket.com/market/will-nato-expand-in-2022

2OEH8eoCRo03• 4 years ago

The insurgency in Iraq was also a minority- most supported the US. I like to imagine that Russia will have a much more difficult time in Ukraine where they are almost universally despised.

usaphp• 4 years ago

The insurgency in Iraq was also a minority- most supported the US

Russians also think that most Ukrainians support Russia, it doesn't mean it's true. Same with believes that most Iraqis supported US.

wizwit999• 4 years ago

No party in Iraq "supported" the US. There were various opportunists with different priorities.

mdoms2• 4 years ago

Literally the second sentence of the article. Is it that hard to read before commenting on an article?

This question will resolve positively if it is publicly reported by at least three reputable media sources or from direct statements from at least four Permanent UNSC members that the majority of Kyiv's raions are under Russian military control by April 1, 2022.

Kranar2• 4 years ago

That doesn't help in anyway and in fact makes things even more ambiguous. On what basis would three "reputable" media sources report that the majority of Kyiv's regions are under Russian military control?

yesenadam• 4 years ago

Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jcadam7• 4 years ago

Zelensky is starting to sound like he's open to considering some of Russia's stated terms (no pursuit of NATO membership and cession of eastern Ukraine). That doesn't sound like things are going especially well for him.

ch4s3• 4 years ago

It's a lot better than the regime change that Russia was initially aiming for. Fighting a large neighboring power to a standstill and suing for peace is quite the success.

otherme1237• 4 years ago

Basically what Finland achieved in the heroic Winter War. True, Finland lost some terrain, but I don't think anyone would find the aftermath as a soviet victory, when the original desire was to anexate the whole country.

bufferoverflow2• 4 years ago

What are you talking about? Zelenski just declined such an offer from russia.

jcadam7• 4 years ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/where-zelensky-is-open-...

Along with "cooling down" to the idea of joining NATO, Zelensky told ABC News that there's room for negotiating on the occupied territories and unrecognized republics.

Read between the lines.

Koshkin• 4 years ago

Such is the interpretation by the Russian media of what Zelensky said in a recent interview with ABC.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/zelenskyy-interview-david-mu...

gremlinsinc3• 4 years ago

I think Zelenskyy should take: No eu/Nato membership (face it, he's months or years from qualifying anyways), and he leaves Donbask, and Crimea (for now), but does NOT agree to disband any military, and is allowed to secure his own borders.

In otherwords he can still ramp up, then the west simply continues squeezing Putin and Russia for a year, or 3... then he can either go take back Crimea/Donbask regions, or perhaps wage a coup inside Russia -- get the oligarchs to agree to a Democratic Merging of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia with Zelenskyy as President for the first two terms, and with a path towards NATO and EU membership - which would be a HUGE finger to China and a big win for Democracy.

This essentially gives both sides a ceasefire but western pressure on Russia slowly strangles them to the point of collapse, and Zelenskyy can then basically take over, as he's basically a Hero for many in Ukraine and Russia and even Europe and USA. I mean a comedian turned President against Putin and he's holding his own pretty well - it's David vs Goliath.

IMHO that's the best option. As for this war, whether Zelenskyy does this or not. Putin has lost Russia. It's a matter of time before he's deposed after this blunder. Russia will never win in Ukraine.

Option B: Hold out a month, and basically Russia might be at the point they'd give him Crimea, Belarus, and Donbas if the west just eases up a tiny fraction on sanctions.

axg11• 4 years ago

You’re letting your imagination run a little too wild here. Depending on which polls you believe, 20-50% of Russians support this invasion. There is no end scenario where Russians are content being ruled by a non-Russian, even in a newly formed democratic state.

k__2• 4 years ago

I think, they should do the exact opposite. Join EU on a quick path and call Putin's nuclear bluff.

I'm not happy about it and can't sleep right for days anymore, because I fear a nuclear escalation. But I don't want to live in a world where such a situation could happen again and again. There are many slavic countries this fascist hungers for.

otherme1237• 4 years ago

Maybe Zelenskyy doesn't like thousand of Ukraines dying for some inflated ego, potentially millions. That solution, and specially if acompanied with guarantees of no further agressions if Ukraine doesn't enter NATO or EU, is a win for the country, and a pyrric victory for Putin: his credibility is gone forever, and all he got is a small piece of terrain. Enough to sell internally as a win, but hardly anywhere else.

Chris20482• 4 years ago

if accompanied with guarantees of no further aggressions

Which Russia cannot provide since they already promised not to invade.

DyslexicAtheist• 4 years ago

I think he won't be able to sell anything for a win because Russia is financially finished. The only way this can play out is by the oligarchs killing Putin, apologizing to the world, replacing the public face of Russia with a new puppet, so they can continue earning. Putin has stopped the machine. That's the only rule in organized crime (and business) that must never be violated. You don't stop the machine. If Putin were a CEO of a legit "Russia Inc" then he is directly responsible for that business collapsing. There is no universe (criminal or legit) in which that scenario goes well for the leader.

Steltek2• 4 years ago

In terms of human lives, it's the right deal. Past that, it's the worst possible scenario: Ukraine's territory is not rightfully and completely restored while Russia's economy is nearly irrecoverable, leading it to become nothing more than a resource vassal state to China.

pmoriarty19• 4 years ago

"if acompanied with guarantees of no further agressions if Ukraine doesn't enter NATO or EU"

Such guarantees are worthless.

It's also clear that the rest of NATO is not willing to directly fight against Russia to save Ukraine, so NATO membership for Ukraine is just as worthless.

bpodgursky• 4 years ago

I mean, this outcome would be pretty close to the status quo belle ante. It doesn't feel like a L for Ukraine.

tyrfing3• 4 years ago

There's really never been a scenario where Ukraine wins unconditionally. Russia has started backing off on their terms - it's not going well for them either. What makes a negotiated settlement very likely at this point is that Russia has started to make serious concessions and reduced their demands primarily to territorial claims.

brimble3• 4 years ago

If Russia can get them to give up NATO and EU ambitions, and get them to start supplying water to Crimea, they can sit back and wait until they can claim Ukraine by other means (as they already tried once, and as Belarus has gone). Conceding on that, at this point, is just delaying the Russian takeover somewhat. If Russia can't get that out of them, I expect them to demand such large territorial concessions that what's left will have, at best, 1/2 the GDP it used to (not even counting damage from the war). That diminished state will go on to head toward EU and/or NATO membership, but it won't represent the kind of relief valve from European dependence on Russia that a free and prosperous united Ukraine might (which is a big part of why Russia wants to carve them up or conquer them to begin with).

pmoriarty19• 4 years ago

"Russia has started to make serious concessions and reduced their demands primarily to territorial claims"

Could you link to an article which shows a Russian official making such concessions or reducing their demands?

From my own reading, Russia has just been reiterating the same demands they had all along: for Ukraine to recognize the breakaway republics and for Ukraine to give up hopes of ever joining NATO.

paxys3• 4 years ago

Cession of eastern territories and Crimea is probably not going to be too difficult a decision, considering Russia controls them anyways and did so even before the war.

Demilitarization of Ukraine, NATO membership and relations with the west in general are all going to be very contentious, and it's hard to see a solution here that both sides will accept.

pmoriarty19• 4 years ago

I don't see why NATO membership for Ukraine is so contentious, considering NATO has already made it crystal clear that they won't fight Russia directly over Ukraine.

lostmsu• 4 years ago

I bet you he is only prepared to give up Crimea. That's the only area where referendum to join Russia could actually be fair and passed.

Jeema101• 4 years ago

That does seem like it's probably gonna be the trickiest part of the negotiations, doesn't it?

Zelensky has said he is open to neutrality, but the problem is that he would need some sort of security guarantees moving forward. Demilitarization of the sort Russia originally envisioned is probably out of the question in any case, so that would solve part of it.

Maybe some solution involving international peacekeepers and demilitarized zones could work. Or escape clauses where Ukraine is permitted to annul their neutrality in the event of future aggression by Russia.

NoboruWataya4• 4 years ago

Demilitarisation is an absolute non-starter, I don't see how any sovereign nation could ever agree to that. I assume Russia are putting it on the table so it can be traded away for something else.

If what you say is true about Ukraine being willing to trade away Crimea and the eastern territories, then I don't think an agreement is necessarily that far away. Your initial demands in a negotiation are rarely your red lines.

The most contentious point (again, assuming you are correct that Ukraine is willing to cede the above-mentioned territories) will be bloc membership. Zelensky could possibly give some informal guarantee that he has no interest in NATO membership, but having your own foreign policy is a fundamental part of being a sovereign state, so being coerced into promising they will never join this or that bloc is kind of incompatible with Ukrainian statehood. And down the line they will definitely be eyeing EU membership.

Personally I would be sad to see territory ceded to Russia as it would reward their brutal and criminal tactics. I am also highly sceptical of Russia's willingness to abide by its obligations under any peace agreement. However, I appreciate that for Ukrainians especially, ending the bloodshed is the most important thing.

dragonwriter2• 4 years ago

Cession of eastern territories and Crimea is probably not going to be too difficult a decision, considering Russia controls them anyways and did so even before the war.

Before the recent escalation of the 8-year war it controlled Crimea and the breakaway “People’s Republics” in Donbas and Luhansk each controlled a small fraction of the territory they claim; before the war Russia and their pawns controlled nothing in Ukraine's claimed and generally internationally recognized borders, that was the proximate problem Russia (which shortly before that time had controlled the Ukrainian government as a puppet) sought to rectify with the war.

JimBlackwood3• 4 years ago

I’m sure his interests are in ending a war that’s costing civilian lives. If the expectation is that Russia will increase the severity of their fight, you cannot keep fighting at all cost. I fully think Ukraine can outlast Putin, but at what cost?

Like he said to NATO in regards to the no-fly zone “How many civilians need to die? Give me a number, I’ll start counting.”

Similarly here; how many civilians are Crimea and the two eastern provinces worth? If you have a number we’ll start counting. We’ll get there before Putin falls.

kaitai• 4 years ago

As ch4s3 and otherme123 state in sibling/niece comments, it's not bad. There is a reality here that countries on Russia's border face, that can be hard to understand if you live elsewhere. All victory against/agreement with Russia is temporary. Neighbor countries need to negotiate a space that allows Russia to save face and also gives the neighbor country room to maneuver and live relatively freely. Parts of western Europe and the US preach an uninhibited national freedom, that every country should be free to do what they want without their neighbor nations interfering. This is not reality, and I speak as a citizen of a country neighboring Russia. It's like thinking on a family level that your parents should fully respect and accept you no matter how far you stray from their traditions -- sure, it's a nice modern idea, but it's not how it works unless you have an amazing relationship where you can talk through your position with respect. Russia is just not there yet. No little country next to Russia is going to talk through their national ideals and national hopes & dreams with Putin and receive his blessing, encouragement, support, unconditional acceptance. Nah, it's more negotiating an abusive relationship where you can't get out. It's nice that the whole world tells you "leave, it doesn't have to be that way, you can do better!" but geography is geography. There is no leaving.

"Better a scanty agreement than a robust battle"

dragonwriter2• 4 years ago

Zelensky is starting to sound like he's open to considering some of Russia's stated terms (no pursuit of NATO membership and cession of eastern Ukraine). That doesn't sound like things are going especially well for him.

If I was President of Ukraine, and wanted to convince the West of the urgency of a radical step escalation in military assistance, I might want them to perceive me as starting to waver in the face of the assault.

If I was President of Ukraine, and wanted to convince the Russians that good faith humanitarian corridors that weren't simply routes to captivity in Russia/Belarus and maybe even a general cease fire for negotiations while the Western sanctions continued to hollow out their war capacity were good ideas, I’d want to project the prospect of an acceptable resolution through negotiations.

CodeGlitch• 4 years ago

Here's my prediction:

Russia will take control of all or most nuclear power plants and other infrastructure. At which point it's only a matter of time until the people of Ukraine will surrender with no water or electricity.

As it stands the West can do nothing.

In the case that NATO starts shooting, the sarcophagus over Chernobyl can be bombed (Putin can blame Ukrainians here).

It seems to be that there's no way out for the Ukrainians :(

khazhoux• 4 years ago

I agree. I fear Ukraine will “win” when Russia retreats from the scorched, destroyed-to-rubble ruins of their nation.

pvaldes• 4 years ago

Getting rid of the Russian interference forever would be still pay back. We must remember that Germany was fully destroyed to rubble also and now is the largest economy in the EU.

Under the correct environment things can recover surprisingly fast.

sillysaurusx4• 4 years ago

Russia can't do that. They have no way of moving supplies from Russia into Ukraine. That means Russia's operational capabilities are limited to five days, at which point their troops are stranded.

tablespoon5• 4 years ago

Russia will take control of all or most nuclear power plants and other infrastructure. At which point it's only a matter of time until the people of Ukraine will surrender with no water or electricity.

I doubt Ukraine will surrender as long as it can supply its forces with food, drinking water, and ammo.

As it stands the West can do nothing.

The West can do a lot of things that it chooses not to do out of fear. IMHO one of the biggest mistakes it has made has been to be very, very clear about what it won't do, while letting the Russians be very, very unclear about what it won't do. The result has been the Russian leadership is not afraid, and has taken advantage of the freedom that affords to bomb the shit out of Ukraine.

If NATO had massed soldiers in Poland in January and been deliberately ambiguous about its intentions, it's quite possible that Russia might not have invaded Ukraine at all (and then mocked the NATO by saying "LOL guys, we were really just doing exercises").

nxm• 4 years ago

Please elaborate on what else the West can do? No fly-zone is a non-starter

WJW4• 4 years ago

The west can do for the Ukrainians what Pakistan has been doing for decades for the Taliban: provide safe havens, supplies and weapons to small insurgent groups doing guerilla strikes against the Russians. The Ukraine is so large that to keep it occupied would take hundreds of thousands of troops and Russia cannot afford to keep up such mobilisation for long. They have a few months at most and properly beating an insurgency takes years if not decades.

I don't really buy the Chernobyl argument either. If the NATO starts shooting the Russians already have nuclear weapons to act directly. No need to crack open an old nuclear plant and hope the wind doesn't change.

pessimizer• 4 years ago

The west can do for the Ukrainians what Pakistan has been doing for decades for the Taliban: provide safe havens, supplies and weapons to small insurgent groups doing guerilla strikes against the Russians.

This would be a great tactic to reduce Ukraine to a pile of smoking rubble over a couple of decades of war. I'm not sure that's a great outcome for Ukrainians.

Trasmatta• 4 years ago

In the case that NATO starts shooting, the sarcophagus over Chernobyl can be bombed (Putin can blame Ukrainians here).

Bombing Chernobyl would make zero strategic sense.

CRConrad16• 4 years ago

Bombing Chernobyl would make zero strategic sense.

OTOH, starting a nuclear WW3 would also make zero strategic sense, and still the West is worried about him doing that. So maybe worrying about this is also valid.

paxys3• 4 years ago

Nuclear fallout in Ukraine is going to affect Russia more than it affects "the west". It makes zero strategic sense to start bombing nuclear plants.

InTheArena• 4 years ago

Armies have momentum. Germany almost lost in 1941 when Barbarossa failed. Hitler managed to keep his armies from disintegrating, but it was a near thing. Japan's armies went far further then they had any right too in the same period, because of the perception of invincibility, higher morale, and everyone underestimating them for racial reasons.

It's very clear that the Russians badly screwed up their logistics chain - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4wRdoWpw0w for a good obvious breakdown. But they also dramatically underestimated the morale of Ukrainians and also badly miscalculated NATO's response. NATO is flooding UKR now with drones, anti-tank misles and surface to air missles.

They also have failed to have clear armor and air supremacy. They have fed some of their most "elite" VDV units into a meat grinder by sending them directly into Kyiv without any support, under the thesis that the Ukrainians would leave them uncontested, or where not able to maintain a reasonable response.

Nevermind that Ukraine is mobilizing quickly (pre-war calculations where 30 days to build a effective force), while 75% of Russia's strike forces are in theater, and 95% are committed to battle.

Because of all this - Russia is in a no-win scenario. To hit their goals will result in sanctions staying in place - and eventually destroying the Russian economy or alternatively leaving them as a vassal state of China. If they retreat, they may save their army, avoid a vietnam scenario, but Putin will loose face, and Demcoratic forces will be revitalized inside of Russia.

Or they just stay where they are at. Inching ever close to Kyiv, but never winning any strategic victory.

Forces are pushing towards stasis right now.

I'd never bet on it - it's disrespectful to the dead and those fighting for their futures, and there are armies in the south that are a big problem - but I don't see a path for Russia to get what it wants. The question is how long will the sunk cost fallacy rule?

twblalock2• 4 years ago

The Russian government knew there would be sanctions no matter what happened. They had already decided to accept those even in the event of victory.

They aren't in a no-win scenario either. Kyiv cannot hold out forever. The Russians have an overwhelming numeric advantage and they can simply wait out the defenders, using that time to fix their supply lines.

It's tempting to exaggerate a Russian setback into a total collapse or a defeat. That's wishful thinking.

xxpor2• 4 years ago

Kyiv cannot hold out forever.

I agree with that, but if it takes going Full Grozny or Idlib on them, what's the point, other than saving face?

sorokod• 4 years ago

I am not sure that Russia has a government in the commonly accepting sense of the concept.

As to simply waiting out, a clock may be ticking for Russians as well as for the Ukrainians. Probably not the same clock but still...

gvb• 4 years ago

Kyiv cannot hold out forever.

They don't have to. They only have to hold out longer than the Russians.

In the north, the Russians are running out of supplies and their logistics is halted so they are not going to get more supplies any time soon.

In the south, Russia appears to have better logistics and they are still moving, but slower and slower. Their southern logistics is the railroad through Crimea - that is a major weak point. They have been trying with all their might to take Mariupol which would give them an alternative (albeit road-based) logistics path but have been fought to a standstill there too.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has an open logistics path through Poland all the way to the front lines (uncontested by Russia, unlike Russia's logistics paths which are long and vulnerable) and military supplies are pouring in.

Ukraine is getting stronger and the Russian troops are running out of men, diesel, food, and probably ammunition.

darawk• 4 years ago

They certainly knew there would be sanctions, but I don't think they estimated they would be this harsh. Almost nobody in the west even thought they'd be able to unite enough to do what's been done. These sanctions have got to be far harsher than anything they anticipated.

tguvot• 4 years ago

actually it looks like they planned for a quick victory in a couple of days and slap on the hand like they got in 2014. they didn't anticipated this mess and this level of sanctions.

inglor_cz2• 4 years ago

"The Russians have an overwhelming numeric advantage"

They don't, quite to the contrary. A tight siege of a city of three million would require some 500 000 troops, give or take. (Germans had 750 000 soldiers encircling Leningrad.) That would be three times as many as Russia committed to the entire theater of war.

Russian logistics are strained. They can't simply mobilize millions and somehow flood the Ukrainian territory with them.

tada1316• 4 years ago

From 0 day, I was shocked by Ukrainian elite twitter/facebook forces. They even continue fighting from Poland/Moldova, they never were affected by broken supply chains or blockades. I don't see any viable Kremlin alternative for this, so maybe with time they will take over and we will finally see democracy in Russia.

kspacewalk23• 4 years ago

and Demcoratic forces will be revitalized inside of Russia.

Now there's a good prediction market - who will replace Putin if he's gone soon. My money will be on the kinds of people who will make Putin himself look like a liberal democrat.

antihero• 4 years ago

Reminds me of the time Trump won and I'd "hedged my emotions" - chucked £50 on him winning when he had 1/10 odds, so figured my friends and I could spend the £500 (that I eventually won) drink our sadness away in the pub that evening. Worked an absolute charm.

harambae• 4 years ago

I also bet on the politician I don't want to win, with the thinking that I'll be happy either way.

But in this case there's no actually money on the line, that's not how the linked website works. (PredictIt and others won't take bets on the issue, it appears.)

akomtu• 4 years ago

Putin is dumb or desperate (maybe trying to score a quick victory because of some more pressing matters). All he needed to do is to assemble a big enough chunk of his army at the borders, do some maneuvers from time to time, pepper it with threatening rhetoric to keep everyone stressed, but never attack. This "psychological siege" would tank the economy of Ukraine and he could demand progressively bigger concessions. The west would've only expressed a "strong disapproval", but ignored the situation otherwise.

jacquesm• 4 years ago

Hindsight is ...

paxys3• 4 years ago

What you described is exactly what Putin has been doing over the last decade, and the result was simply pushing Ukraine more towards the west and NATO, exactly the opposite of what he had intended.

throwaway_4ever• 4 years ago

You have little idea how impossible it is to keep a large force deployed along the border like that full time. Huge untenable monetary cost and morale drops precipitously where intelligence communities know it's not a threat if they've been sitting there a year+.

beepbooptheory• 4 years ago

I just have no confidence that we can really know anything for sure one way or another. The media so far (in the West) ranges from tangibly self-conscious to overt propaganda, much of which is proven false a day later. There is no harm in this in itself, propaganda is as much part of the war as any other part, I get that, but I at this point I wouldn't be surprised that Russia is doing much better than what is being reported, or the opposite. I don't know, this is not a bet I would take.

bostonsre• 4 years ago

What are some examples of "propaganda" that proved to be false a day later?

imwillofficial2• 4 years ago

Ghost of Kiev

Snake Island Soldiers Dying Heroically

Nuclear Reactor Shelled, Radiation Rising

teaearlgraycold• 4 years ago

Not what you're asking about, but I'd classify the filtering for what people want to hear as propaganda. Why is so much of the news I see about Ukrainian battle victories while Russians are clearly advancing on multiple fronts? There could easily be more coverage of Russian victories than Ukrainian if we were shown a random sample of phone footage.

I'm not complaining - these things have a tangible effect on morale. But it is propaganda.

breakingcups• 4 years ago

It took a little longer, but the mobile crematoria were stated as fact pretty early on.

drcode• 4 years ago

The incident with the nuclear reactors seemed to involve an administrative building, not the reacor(s) themselves (As far as I can tell, hard to determine the truth from my chair in the USA)

otherme1237• 4 years ago

There was a saying in falling Germany in 1944: "each day our victories are closer to Germany than the previous day".

You can follow the bombings, for example: if Kyiv is being shelled (and reported in Russian media), it's not under Russian control. If the shelling last for days, the city is holding.

If some city was being shelled, but there are no more news about it, but the news are a nearby and further city is being shelled, the first city is probably under Russian control.

Following that kind of info, it seems the Russian invasion is crawling, and not running as intended. Russia is not doing much better (but not as bad as "reported" in Reddit, for instance).

pmoriarty19• 4 years ago

"It seems the Russian invasion is crawling"

During WW2, the siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days. Ukraine has only been under attack for 13 days.

dekhn3• 4 years ago

I think you can look at the maps that major establishment newspapers publish and see that the Russians are making significant land headway in many parts of the country. Each day they grind a little bit more, to the point where kyiv is facing two distinct military axes.

however, I don't think the western press is missing any deep details about russian fighting. The fight for Kyiv may end up looking like a reverse Stalingrad.

time_to_smile2• 4 years ago

no confidence that we can really know anything for sure one way or another

Not only is this true from a general sense of "fog of war" and misinformation, but even in a purely statistical sense, these numbers aren't compelling. As a stats person, both 0.9 and 0.26 are probabilities that basically reflect nothing more than a vague sense how the outcome will go.

In a classical NHST this degree of confidence would not pass even the most lose definitions of "statistical significance".

And in a more Bayesian setting, being 90% and 26% sure of rain both mean you'll bing an umbrella. Having a 90% chance of survival and a 26% chance of survival means are both too risky for almost all scenarios.

But for whatever reason, when predicting things like outcomes of an election or outcomes of a war, people start applying `round` to their probabilities.

At work if I see that I'm either 90% sure or 26%, I report that we still don't have enough information to say anything particularly interesting or to justify any major risks. So even if we had reliable information about the situation, these numbers aren't interesting. Since we don't, they're useless.

oezi4• 4 years ago

I am not sure I follow. Are you saying that a 90% chance of not needing an umbrella is the same as a 26% chance?

These are vastly different probabilities which mean that you might be wrong 9 out 10 days, or right 3 out of 4 times.

As another example: I bet most companies would die to turn up conversion rates up even 1 or 2 percent.

When dealing in risk management where probabilities should start in 1 in 10 or 1 in 100, then I could agree that 90% risk of failure isn't to different from 26%.

Kinrany• 4 years ago

There is no harm in this in itself, propaganda is as much part of the war as any other part

Huh? War is incredibly harmful to civilian infrastructure, and propaganda is similarly harmful to our ability to communicate.

Putin's propaganda loves this trope: "we can't know for sure, it's all propaganda, you have no choice but to pick a side. We're totally the good guys though, so be a good little soldier, spread our memes and ignore all other sources".

Contrary to what some people would like you to believe, you can know things without first-hand experience and you can be certain without having 100% proof.

Listening less to known liars also helps.

sirspacey• 4 years ago

I agree with you.

And I ran a simple experiment on Google News.

I simply removed a news source (using the three dots) when an article presented by it was:

1. Easily proven inaccurate (with a Google search) 2. Pure speculation (no actually reporting of change to “facts on the ground”)

I don’t have a single major news source left in my feed.

I highly recommend curating sources by their trustworthiness.

nugget2• 4 years ago

My partners and I have a couple hundred employees in Dnipro, Ukraine. Most of the employees have relocated to Poland or western Ukraine, some are sheltering in place, some are fighting. We started to source supplies last week, especially for those who are sheltering in place or fighting. During discussions with various parties across the supply chain it became clear that an enormous effort was underway by hundreds/thousands of organizations (Governments, NGOs, companies, individuals) to flood Ukraine with every conceivable item they might need to support combat operations. Almost all of the commercially available weapons systems, ammunition, and body armor that we could find was already headed to Ukraine. We decided to focus on battlefield/first responder medical kits and supplies since those items were needed, but hadn't been mobilized as much. "Soldiers win battles, logistics wins wars." I heard that last week and it stuck with me.

tada1316• 4 years ago

What about food?

bobowzki• 4 years ago

An army marches on its stomach.

pmoriarty19• 4 years ago

There is a great risk of massive starvation in besieged Ukranian cities, where it's too dangerous for sheltering civilians to venture out and procure or supply food.

q1w22• 4 years ago

They are also getting fresh soldiers.

I saw a claim from a Canadian vet in Kyiv that 40,000 foreign fighters were already in Kyiv. The Canadian was part of a 500-man exclusively Canadian urban battalion. There was also a report on BBC that Russia had summoned foreign ambassadors in Moscow to complain about foreign volunteers traveling to Ukraine to fight against Russia [1].

I've also been on Telegram channels helping American vets organize, fund their flights to Poland, equip, and then drive them to the Ukrainian border.

These are highly motivated well equipped men - many are veterans. Assuming these data points are accurate, then Russia's odds of victory are going down by the day as more western men and supplies enter Ukraine each day than Russian men and supplies.

[1] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/west-sends-mercenaries-to-fi...

dekhn3• 4 years ago

Eventually the question becomes "if these guest fighters are successful, at what point do they consider going north through the contested border and attacking Russian (or, more likely, Belurussian) cities?"

jjulius3• 4 years ago

There was also a report that Russia had summoned foreign ambassadors in Moscow to complain about foreign volunteers traveling to Ukraine to fight against Russia.

I am absolutely dying laughing at the absurdity of such a complaint (if true), lol.

pmoriarty19• 4 years ago

That's really dangerous. I'm not sure that Russia will care to distinguish between current and former military personnel when it considers whether NATO countries have intervened.

mockingbirdy2• 4 years ago

I'm part of a team that does (very small-scale compared to the big NGOs) logistics (food, clothing, baby stuff, hygiene, everything) and provides/mediates shelter in the North East of Germany and sending food, first aid kits and medical supplies to the borders/directly to Ukraine with the supplies and support of the people of the city I'm living in (I'm managing one of the provisional warehouses). We have bus companies driving people and other things.

If you'd like to work together, I'd love to talk. Petrol has become pretty expensive, so pooling resources makes a lot of sense.

95% of everything is logistics. Fully agree with the quote.

nugget2• 4 years ago

Yes, happy to talk with anybody involved in similar efforts so definitely reach out. My contact information is in my profile.

We are mostly sourcing supplies from the US at this point. Tampa is our pack/repack and pallet departure point. We have pallet space aboard flights from Florida through Germany to Poland and Romania, available every other day or so. We have trucks in Cluj, Romania but not in Poland. Romanian and Polish Governments have waived customs and we have a direct line for whatever other needs arise - they've been incredibly supportive - perhaps worried about Putin's further ambitions. Someone we know flies with the pallets from US departure and stays with them until they're handed off to someone else we know inside Ukraine who distributes to support and defense units in country. There is a lot of fraud involved in mass mobilization and cross-border transport so this level of accountability is important to us.

Very few people in Ukraine thought Putin would invade, and even if he invaded, almost nobody thought he would cross the Dnieper river (in the south) and make a run for Kiev. The Ukrainians we know, very "ordinary" people, have dug in. There is no concept in their minds of a negotiated peace that leaves Russia in control of Ukraine. They would rather fight it out. As a result it feels like it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. We are focused on combat medical supplies at this point but as time drags on there will no doubt be a great need for food, clothing, and similar items you mentioned.

suifbwish• 4 years ago

All Ukraine has to do is:

1. Offer immediate provisional citizenship/asylum to anyone who immigrated to fight.

2. Anyone in their prisons, offer them clemency if they agree to fight (bad idea I know but it works)

yetihehe• 4 years ago

I'm not really sure about 1 (there are already many fighters from over the world), but they did 2. Unfortunately for this war, there aren't that many people in prisons there.

UberFly• 4 years ago

The Dirty дюжина

mariuolo• 4 years ago

Offer immediate provisional citizenship/asylum to anyone who immigrated to fight.

Ukraine is not a wealthy country. Who might consider citizenship so desirable to risk his life over it?

thesmok3• 4 years ago

1. Already done, more than 10k foreign people arrived in Ukraine, some are already fighting https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russ...

2. Already done for people with military experience.

nikolay• 4 years ago

This sounds like they want their capital destroyed like Grozny. Ukraine got played by the US, which misled it that they will fight together against the Russians.

chinathrow• 4 years ago

Almost all of the commercially available weapons systems, ammunition, and body armor that we could find was already headed to Ukraine.

Except fighters and drones.

cozzyd• 4 years ago

I wonder if some corrupt Russian general stands to make a lot of money from this type of bet

helpseeker• 4 years ago

Information from either side is to be taken with a grain of salt, although Ukraine is winning the social media ops-game hands down.

I think since after the 1st week of troop movements it's pretty clear:

- Russia aims at encircling cities, draining the resistance there, forcing them into negotiations and so that enemy combatants can evacuate into western Ukraine (like they did in Syria)

- Ukraine aims at short-term luring them into cities (e.g. preventing humanitarian corridors, creating negative pr) and long-term building up an insurgency (turning Ukraine into Russia's 2nd Afghanistan).

A recipe for humanitarian disaster.

The upside: Russia doesn't seem intent to even set foot in western Ukraine.

s1artibartfast16• 4 years ago

Information from either side is to be taken with a grain of salt, although Ukraine is winning the social media ops-game hands down.

At lest in the west where our information is censored to provide a Pro-Ukrainian perspective.

I can only guess at how the social media ops-game is playing out in Russia and China within their own propaganda bubble.

oezi4• 4 years ago

Can you clarify how are our information censored in the west? Like specifically what kind of information is actively suppressed by a government actor?

swagasaurus-rex• 4 years ago

Hint: they blame the USA and NATO for Putin invading

kspacewalk23• 4 years ago

Ukraine aims at short-term luring them into cities (e.g. preventing humanitarian corridors,

In what way is Ukraine "preventing" humanitarian corridors? Ukraine is requesting them daily, but Russian troops keep bombing them and disrupting the evacuation of civilians, daily.

thiagoharry4• 4 years ago

In Mariupol there are accusations against Azov Battalion that they are preventing people to leave the city. For the defensive side it is useful to have human shield preventing attacks. In the Internet there are also videos of people being shot trying to leave the city.

https://twitter.com/oulosP/status/1498365157747081218

AlwaysRock2• 4 years ago

100% this. I remember the USA's "Mission Accomplished" line/speech and the years of American propaganda that followed which said we were doing great things in the middle east. In reality we blew up a lot of people (soldiers and civilians), cities, and spent a shit load of money to accomplish what?

I'm very skeptical of any news coming from either side currently.

SiNiquity• 4 years ago

There's a limit to open mindedness. Ukraine is not "luring [the Russian military] into [its] cities," they're defending their cities from an invading force.

frankharv3• 4 years ago

I would say we toppled a dictator. It is a role we fulfilled as world police. High strength aluminum tubes speech was just an intelligence blunder.

koonsolo• 4 years ago

So what are all those Belarusian military doing there at the border?

I think they officially said they were doing exercises and will not invade Ukraine. So no worries.

tdiff• 4 years ago

My personal impression is that Russian propaganda targets internal audience mostly, so its not fair to compare it to the Ukranians one.

xdennis4• 4 years ago

You'd be surprised. While most people here in Romania are anti-Russia, some believe their propaganda that there's no war in Ukraine. They literally think that all the videos from Ukraine are fake.

It's sort of like the Cambridge Analytica thing. We live in bubbles, and we're unaware that in some bubbles the Russians are completely winning the propaganda war.

The overzealous covid response further fragmented society and led to further distrust of the media. This created a huge opportunity for Russia.

For now, it's not significant enough to matter, but it might come to bite us in the ass.

maxlamb• 4 years ago

Ukraine is not “luring” Russia into cities. Putin made quite clear he wants a regime change, so Russia must capture major cities to meet its goals. That would be like rephrasing “Thieves robbed bank” to “Bank lured thieves with cash”. That’s some bizarre victim blaming way of phrasing things.

dzikimarian4• 4 years ago

Ukraine aims at short-term luring them into cities (e.g. preventing humanitarian corridors

I'm living relatively close to Ukrainian border, and helped moving Ukrainians further into the country. That's really weird not single one mentioned, that he has issues leaving due to other Ukrainians. Actually exact opposite.

Even weirder multiple people are parroting this today on HN.

keewee7• 4 years ago

Even weirder multiple people are parroting this today on HN.

HN is read by many influential Silicon Valley people. It's definitely the target of Russian psyops.

CRConrad16• 4 years ago

The upside: Russia doesn't seem intent to even set foot in western Ukraine.

That seems to have changed since you wrote this five days ago.

legulere• 4 years ago

Why would you put such a low prediction on that website when you can predict a percentage in the range of [41%, 59%] and have guaranteed points?

Imnimo• 4 years ago

Because your goal is not to maximize your chances of getting at least one point, it's to maximize the expected number of points you get.

shuntress4• 4 years ago

Under news stories like this, it's worth remembering that actions have consequences and high level political decisions matter.

Remember that Trump was impeached for threatening to cut off military aid to Ukraine in exchange for a personal favor. The very same military aid that has likely prevented the outright capture Ukraine by Russia.

tim3332• 4 years ago

It's certainly been going better for the Ukrainians than I thought at the start - I thought the tanks would roll straight into Kyiv. Now they seem stuck and Russia lost 30 helicopters last night and today Poland agreed to give all their MIG29s. I guess this isn't really just Russia vs Ukraine but to an extent Russia vs the free world.

inglor_cz2• 4 years ago

This is a pretty wild swing, indicating that "Fog of War" is a very real thing.

env123• 4 years ago

I'll tell you straight-up: this was written to increase morale for Ukraine. Whether Kyiv fall or walled up to Russian forces has yet to happen. It's still too early in the siege to make up these predictions

I could imagine Russian propaganda pulling up statistics saying Kyiv will fall soon

Also, too many people here do not understand geopolitics - the aim of invading Ukraine is to speed up the process of Russia's demands:

- Ukraine never joining NATO

- Donbas and Crimea ceding to Russia w/ Ukraine losing claim to them

It's not about fully invading Ukraine and ceding the whole state, because that would be a bigger problem for Russia if it does so

Prediction that Kyiv falls to Russian forces by April 2022 goes from 90% to 26%

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