5 Reasons Why Leftists Should Defend Russia | New Eastern Outlook

[Savannahmann]

159. I think it's obvious that Russia is supporting the Rebels.

I'm a man with twenty years experience in the Transportation field. I know a bit about logistics. Napoleon said that an army marched on its stomach. That was true when marching was the main means of transportation, and the rifle ruled the battlefield. Today, it's tanks. Tanks don't march on food, they float on a sea of diesel fuel. For example, the T-62 tank has a range of about 280 miles on roads on one tank of fuel. That is more than 100 gallons of fuel. So figure they're getting about two miles per gallon. If you have five tanks, that means you need a tanker truck every two hundred miles to move those tanks, or at least once a day for local operational needs. Thousands of gallons of fuel when you include trucks and vehicles for the soldiers to move with the tanks.

So where are the rebels getting thousands of gallons of diesel fuel every single day to keep the trucks and tanks mobile? They're not buying it from the local gas stations. They're not stealing it in sufficient quantities to keep going. Someone is supplying them. There are a finite number of someones who can, or would do it. On the eastern edge of Ukraine, there is only one viable suspect.

Tanks look amazingly strong, but in truth they're rather fragile. They have lots of parts that wear out often. Tracks for example, the metal links wear out rapidly holding up the massive weight of a tank. The rubber shoes wear out even faster. Those tracks require servicing to repair and replace worn items. That means a logistical pipeline bringing parts in so experienced mechanics can repair the vehicles. Since they are tanks built in Russia, there aren't many places you can get a good supply of parts. You basically have to use Russian parts and there is again that only one suspect. I suppose you could use some Chinese parts since they've built most of that equipment under license, but the Chinese would have to transport the parts across Russia to deliver them to the Ukraine. So Russia would be involved anyway.

Ammunition for the soldiers. A soldier can go through a couple hundred rounds in less than a day. If you have ten soldiers, that is two thousand rounds. If you have a hundred soldiers fighting, that is twenty thousand rounds of ammunition, or a lot of weight, and a lot of ammunition. Where are the rebels getting all that ammo? Someone is supplying them. They're not ordering it online and awaiting the arrival of Fed Ex. Even if they captured a military base with millions of rounds of ammo, they would burn through that in a month or two.

By comparison, the US Military was using 1.8 billion rounds of ammunition per year during the height of the Iraq war. http://www.omgfacts.com/lists/5347/An-estimated-250-000-bullets-are-used-per-insurgent-killed-in-Iraq-and-Afghanistan

Think about that for a moment. 1.8 billion rounds of ammunition per year. That required a steady stream of ammunition flowing into the combat zone. Trucks moving every day with more bullets to shoot. Even if the Rebels are using a fraction of the ammo the Military was using in Iraq, you are still left with a lot of bullets to move around.

Winter in Eastern Europe is not a day at the beach. It's bitterly cold. History tells us about the difficulties faced by both the Nazi's and Napolean's armies wintering in Russia. The ukraine is not much better. Cold means you need heat. Fires at the most basic level, which means chopping down trees in time to let them season to burn. Oil or diesel fired stoves, gasoline powered stoves. In other words, more fuel for the troops.

Shall I touch on food. Let's say that each soldier is eating a pound of food a day. Combat is a very active time, and you could easily need that much food, back to Napoleon's marching on the stomach thing. What that means is if you have a hundred soldiers, you need a hundred pounds of food every single day. Then you have the civilian population to feed. If you let them starve, they'll no longer support you. If you let them freeze, they'll no longer back you and will side with whoever can give them food, and warmth for their children.

So even the most basic examinations of the logistical demands of an army fighting a mechanized urban warfare model requires that someone is supporting the Rebels. The list of suspects is astonishingly short. Basically, there is one suspect available with the materials the Rebels need, and the ability to transport it to the Rebels.

So the denials of the Russians that they are supporting the Ukrainian Rebellion fails the most basic smell tests. It's a lie. Why would they do that? Why would they expend that kind of treasure on an area? Prestige? Regional power? The why is more complex, but obviously they are. Now, why would a Left leaning Liberal like myself want to support someone who is lying about their actions? If Russia said we are doing this because we want the Ukrainian people to be free I'd look askance at them. Russia does not have a long history of trying to free an oppressed people.

So no, common sense tells me that the Russians are in this thing up to their necks. I don't know if that includes active support from their military, in other words Russian soldiers fighting. I do know that there must be active support on the Logistical front because there is no other explanation for the continued ability of the Rebels to fight. If they were working off of captured materials, they could fight a Guerrilla action, but not urban warfare using tanks, trucks, and foot soldiers.