[Goose]

Sanctions are not the only thing crushing Russia's economy, it's also the broad pullout of many western companies and many young educated Russians leaving the country. Sanctions could end tomorrow and these things would not change. Russia is already low on many of their precision munitions, and it will be years not months before they can replenish their equipment and missile losses from only a month of fighting. I also would guess that sanctions preventing military tech transfer are the last to go (but also will have a lot of leakage).

Very true. With the current chip shortage things would be difficult even without sanctions. With them it is a nightmare. I am not so sure how low Russia is on precision guided weapons. They are a big country and I would expect they have quite a few facing China right now. They can undoubtedly scrape some together, but to what end?

The most dire predictions seem to assume that the first month of war didn't happen and that the Russian military is still some juggernaut, but in fact we have learned that they have difficulty mounting a large combined arms offensive, they do not control the air and don't appear to be close to doing so, and they have depleted a large portion of their guided munitions and suffered very high combat casualties that Russia can only reinforce with weaker troops.
Meanwhile Donbas is where Ukraine has their best regular forces and most prepared defensive positions. Not sure where you get the idea they can't move forces around- Russia does not control the sky and Ukraine is on home territory with interior lines, they should be able to move forces much better than Russia can, even if it's just with civilian autos.

The Russian military started out as an organized force that was equipped and trained to move large quantities of troops. They failed at it. Now imagine doing the same thing with civilians who have no training and are not organized for such movements. They also have no organic transport and have to organize that too. I think you greatly underestimate the difficulty in doing so. Couple that with the fact a lot of the troops signed on to defend their homes. Plenty of them probably are not prepared to adopt an expeditionary posture, and may of them are probably not physically fit enough to do so.
Russia doesn't control the sky over Ukraine, but they do over Russia. Ukraine uses it's air force to lure Russians into missile boxes. They aren't able to do that in Donbas because it isn't deep enough. If Ukraine could operate aircraft in that area, they certainly would have tried to help Mariupol. Russia has been bombing the hell out of it. They have air supremacy in that area because it is under a missile umbrella based in Russia. The good Ukrainian troops in the Donbas area are in fact in danger of being cut off. The ones in Mariupol are surrounded. Certainly they have fought well, but at great cost the Russians are prevailing in that area.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-tro...32320.html
Again, if Ukraine can cut off Crimea, that would be a big deal, but it doesn't appear they have the combat power to do it.

Maybe Ukrainian forces have suffered heavy losses and are on brink of collapse. It's not impossible that Russia can make big advances if they concentrate their power. Probably they could have seized much of Donbas if that was their goal from the start. But that is not the situation now.
Russia apparently cannot secure their bases on their own soil. Big explosion at Russian ammo dump in Belgorod earlier. Ukrainian journalist claims Tochka missile, but sabotage or Russian carelessness could be reason as well.
In addition to Soviet antiair missiles and perhaps jets, hopefully we can facilitate more deliveries of Tochka missiles to Ukraine. Seems Bulgaria is only NATO country that still has any. Would doubt we hear about a delivery of this sort if it were to happen of course.

I have been in favor all along of supplying offensive missiles to Ukraine. Right now, they do not have any effective ways to project power at a long or medium distance. Bulgaria has a few Tochka missiles, but not enough to do lots of damage even if they are all still serviceable. I am not sure NATO has decided what their policy is in this area. Would Putin go off the rails if NATO supplied an adequate number of MLRS systems to Ukraine? If yes, then what else can NATO provide. Otherwise, Ukraine is in a world of hurt offensively.
The fact that NATO has not delivered a pile of S300 systems to Ukraine (as far as we know) is troubling to me. If we had, I would expect to me seeing results of it at least. We should be able to do that. It is not like we can keep it secret, because the radars will give their existence away. The Russians can count.

[Goose]

Sanctions are not the only thing crushing Russia's economy, it's also the broad pullout of many western companies and many young educated Russians leaving the country. Sanctions could end tomorrow and these things would not change. Russia is already low on many of their precision munitions, and it will be years not months before they can replenish their equipment and missile losses from only a month of fighting. I also would guess that sanctions preventing military tech transfer are the last to go (but also will have a lot of leakage).

Very true. With the current chip shortage things would be difficult even without sanctions. With them it is a nightmare. I am not so sure how low Russia is on precision guided weapons. They are a big country and I would expect they have quite a few facing China right now. They can undoubtedly scrape some together, but to what end?

The most dire predictions seem to assume that the first month of war didn't happen and that the Russian military is still some juggernaut, but in fact we have learned that they have difficulty mounting a large combined arms offensive, they do not control the air and don't appear to be close to doing so, and they have depleted a large portion of their guided munitions and suffered very high combat casualties that Russia can only reinforce with weaker troops.
Meanwhile Donbas is where Ukraine has their best regular forces and most prepared defensive positions. Not sure where you get the idea they can't move forces around- Russia does not control the sky and Ukraine is on home territory with interior lines, they should be able to move forces much better than Russia can, even if it's just with civilian autos.

The Russian military started out as an organized force that was equipped and trained to move large quantities of troops. They failed at it. Now imagine doing the same thing with civilians who have no training and are not organized for such movements. They also have no organic transport and have to organize that too. I think you greatly underestimate the difficulty in doing so. Couple that with the fact a lot of the troops signed on to defend their homes. Plenty of them probably are not prepared to adopt an expeditionary posture, and may of them are probably not physically fit enough to do so.
Russia doesn't control the sky over Ukraine, but they do over Russia. Ukraine uses it's air force to lure Russians into missile boxes. They aren't able to do that in Donbas because it isn't deep enough. If Ukraine could operate aircraft in that area, they certainly would have tried to help Mariupol. Russia has been bombing the hell out of it. They have air supremacy in that area because it is under a missile umbrella based in Russia. The good Ukrainian troops in the Donbas area are in fact in danger of being cut off. The ones in Mariupol are surrounded. Certainly they have fought well, but at great cost the Russians are prevailing in that area.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-tro...32320.html
Again, if Ukraine can cut off Crimea, that would be a big deal, but it doesn't appear they have the combat power to do it.

Maybe Ukrainian forces have suffered heavy losses and are on brink of collapse. It's not impossible that Russia can make big advances if they concentrate their power. Probably they could have seized much of Donbas if that was their goal from the start. But that is not the situation now.
Russia apparently cannot secure their bases on their own soil. Big explosion at Russian ammo dump in Belgorod earlier. Ukrainian journalist claims Tochka missile, but sabotage or Russian carelessness could be reason as well.
In addition to Soviet antiair missiles and perhaps jets, hopefully we can facilitate more deliveries of Tochka missiles to Ukraine. Seems Bulgaria is only NATO country that still has any. Would doubt we hear about a delivery of this sort if it were to happen of course.

I have been in favor all along of supplying offensive missiles to Ukraine. Right now, they do not have any effective ways to project power at a long or medium distance. Bulgaria has a few Tochka missiles, but not enough to do lots of damage even if they are all still serviceable. I am not sure NATO has decided what their policy is in this area. Would Putin go off the rails if NATO supplied an adequate number of MLRS systems to Ukraine? If yes, then what else can NATO provide. Otherwise, Ukraine is in a world of hurt offensively.
The fact that NATO has not delivered a pile of S300 systems to Ukraine (as far as we know) is troubling to me. If we had, I would expect to me seeing results of it at least. We should be able to do that. It is not like we can keep it secret, because the radars will give their existence away. The Russians can count.