This is an interesting take. Are you basing that on the assumption of threat to NATO's supremacy?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
China is definitely a far greater long term threat in that regard.
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This is an interesting take. Are you basing that on the assumption of threat to NATO's supremacy?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
China is definitely a far greater long term threat in that regard.
To crosspost with the Trump thread, notice how aligned these psychological impulses are between American and Russian fascisms.
'Cosmopolitan elements are teaching Ukraine, which is Russia, to hate Russians, who are the Real Russians. We must secure a solution to the Ukrainian question before it is too late.'
'Cosmopolitan elements are teaching White children, who are the Real Americans, to hate [racism and sexism], which is our heritage and destiny. We must secure a victory in the Culture War before it is too late.'
It's always been about violent backlash from aggrievance toward loss of dominance, but it hits different to see it iterated up close and personal in so many places and with such escalating detriment.
It's a good time to admit that I was naive to expect for the past years that Putin's fascism would remain "moderate", that this was a stable category for 21st century great politics.
To preface my response to the quoted, the harder Putin fails - not that under any circumstances could Russia be deNazified like Germany or Japan - the less potentiated other authoritarians will be in their delusions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
My premise is that, as of now, both Putin and the typical Russian soldier are prepared to employ total war tactics against Ukraine, which both exacerbates the humanitarian aspect of the conflict during and after, and dims Ukraine's prospects in the conventional struggle. Of course I want Ukraine to win, and not at the cost of WW2-scale human or infrastructural damage.
Given some of the firmer numbers I laid out in an earlier post (cf. the Pentagon's estimate today that 10% of the pre-staged invasion force has been neutralized), the Russian manpower/formation pool capable of conducting major offensive operations - as opposed to holding villages - is limited. The more and faster come the Russian KIA and WIA, the sooner the front stabilizes. With bountiful UAV and strike fighters in Ukraine's inventory, equipment NATO is likelier to deliver the longer the conflict drags, a static Russian army can't win a war of attrition.
Therefore I wish Ukraine could kill Russian soldiers at a higher rate than it has been.
Remember the front line as it stands allows Ukraine to maintain lines of communication to all its cities somehow, except for the conquered south (Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol.) Not even Sumy is truly cut off yet last I checked. The fight becomes much harder the more Russia can consolidate its front, at least until it reaches the Dnieper cities.
I'm frightened of the DNR/LNR fighters though. They started out more experienced than most Russian soldiers, have reportedly been responsible for much of the ground taken in Donbas so far, and are even pretty good at propaganda. No way Putin garrisons them in Donbas if they clear the provinces.
(I think the West should pressure Ukraine, in favorable scenarios, to abandon their claim on Crimea. At best it could be demilitarized.)
I've seen an article which says that Putin talking points have crossed from English speaking alt righters to Russian speakers, with the added credibility of having come from English speakers. Who, of course, got their material from Putin. Also instructions from Russian agencies to emphasise Tucker Carlson and other bought alt righters as much as possible. Anglo-American politics has been thoroughly infiltrated by Russia, and their followers have invested too much pride in their beliefs to question their talking heads.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
On what are you basing this premise?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
I do not think Ukraine can win this conflict militarily. For Russia, this is not a quick land grab. They consider NATO in Ukraine a grave threat to their own security. If push comes to shove, chances are, they will up the intensity as much as they need to win.Quote:
Given some of the firmer numbers I laid out in an earlier post (cf. the Pentagon's estimate today that 10% of the pre-staged invasion force has been neutralized), the Russian manpower/formation pool capable of conducting major offensive operations - as opposed to holding villages - is limited. The more and faster come the Russian KIA and WIA, the sooner the front stabilizes. With bountiful UAV and strike fighters in Ukraine's inventory, equipment NATO is likelier to deliver the longer the conflict drags, a static Russian army can't win a war of attrition.
Therefore I wish Ukraine could kill Russian soldiers at a higher rate than it has been.
Remember the front line as it stands allows Ukraine to maintain lines of communication to all its cities somehow, except for the conquered south (Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol.) Not even Sumy is truly cut off yet last I checked. The fight becomes much harder the more Russia can consolidate its front, at least until it reaches the Dnieper cities.
I'm frightened of the DNR/LNR fighters though. They started out more experienced than most Russian soldiers, have reportedly been responsible for much of the ground taken in Donbas so far, and are even pretty good at propaganda. No way Putin garrisons them in Donbas if they clear the provinces.
There is a breaking point for Russia, certainly, but is much further than people believe it is, and I'm not sure reaching it would be a good idea anyway.
I tend to agree that Crimea is gone (and as a population is happy to remain gone!), but demilitarise Russia's only warm-water military port?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Sarmatian:
Russia is the greater geopolitical threat because of its cultural traditions for authoritarian rule, it's cultural 'chip on the shoulder' about being viewed as kulturny, and its (admittedly not without some justification) quasi-paranoic attitude towards international relations.
China, by contrast, is prone to bureaucratic oligarchy, views itself as the acme of culture (turning it's focus inward from time to time for long stretches of history), and has a culturally 'long-term' outlook.
Mind you, that may leave China the eventual hegemonic ruler of all of us -- but not any time soon. For the most part China absorbs, it does not conquer. After all, the Mongols conquered China...right up through and until they became Chinese.
Quote:
The West must push for a negotiated settlement to end the Ukraine war and may have only a two-week window to achieve it, Tony Blair says.
The former prime minister argued the key disputes – over Nato membership, the stationing of Western weapons and the futures of Crimea and Ukraine’s eastern regions – could be settled in talks.
Mr Blair said he understood the view that “Putin deserves nothing but total defeat”, but warned: “The burden of this struggle is being borne by Ukrainians, not by us.”
He pointed out that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has pursued “ad hoc” talks – but called for the US and Europe to throw their full weight behind that effort.
And he warned: “The next two weeks may be the last chance to achieve a negotiated settlement before the assault on Kyiv becomes worse, the Ukrainian people become hostile to any negotiation, or Putin faces a binary choice between “double down” or retreat.”
God, Blair is always just such a nitwit. Putin committed the majority of his country's military to a conventional war against a country he claims is an existential threat to his own, and has backed up his position with nuclear threats that many authorities in the West insist are credible. Obviously whatever was on offer before the war did not satisfy Putin. Thinking it serious to offer it again is, what was the colloquial term...?Quote:
However, “Ukraine would require binding guarantees from the West to contemplate giving up on Nato membership”.
Equally, it might be possible to “construct a process” to decide the future status of Crimea and the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Mr Blair argued.
That was “provided Putin doesn’t add a demand to keep the territory he is currently taking with considerable brutality in the corridor between Rostov and Odessa, a demand Ukraine could never accede to”.
On Nato ruling out military involvement, Mr Blair wrote: “I accept the reasoning behind our stance.
The increasing violence of the invasion in terms of both conventional warfare and security techniques, as documented by changes in available video documentation and media reports, as well as the Russian government's intensifying post-textual rhetoric to justify the war. Namely, that not only is Zelensky a genocidal Nazi who may pose a nuclear threat to Russia in the future, he is already a nuclear, and chemical and biological, existential threat to Russia under the active management of the United States. Zelensky's cry of genocide against Ukraine was a ridiculous exaggeration, but it might well become reality soon. I'm seeing multiple recommendations on Russian TV to begin executing "provocateurs", which is to say anyone offering any resistance or unrest.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
Some toplines from English-language media reports in the past couple of days:
Russia: 'The USA is harvesting Slavic DNA in Ukraine to develop bioagents targeted against ethnic Russians'
US/UK: "Both sides report progress in the fourth round of negotiations"
Russia: 'In light of the Kiev regime's desperate terror bombing of the people of Donetsk, there is no point in negotiating with such a ruthless group'
Depends on what you mean by winning militarily. Without direct NATO intervention the best outcome for Ukraine would be to keep Russia from the outskirts of Kyiv, secure Odessa, and maintain some foothold east of the Dnieper. Putin's breaking point is far from view, but what I'm trying to say is that the Russian military's breaking point is closer. Over the medium-term, Ukraine can replenish its supplies and equipment better than Russia, and train up quality replacements better than Russia. The main thing is to not lose major formations in pockets and sieges while giving up as little territory as possible. After that, the case is that Ukraine's parameters for "victory" loosen up as Russia will be unable to win militarily for their own part. The alternative for Putin is total mobilization of the Russian population and economy, which at this rate might genuinely imperil his authority.Quote:
I do not think Ukraine can win this conflict militarily. For Russia, this is not a quick land grab. They consider NATO in Ukraine a grave threat to their own security. If push comes to shove, chances are, they will up the intensity as much as they need to win.
In summary, stalemate is good for Ukraine while it is in total mobilization and Russia is not. It can't reach stalemate without inflicting horrendous losses to Russia in the coming weeks.
TLDR: It is easier for Ukraine to not lose than to win.
I perceive that you're referencing Putin's nuclear escalation threats. My opinion on that is the US should set the rules of engagement publicly and transparently. That is, even a single nuclear detonation by Russia would be preemptively warned as prompting immediate and irrevocable retaliation against a single Russian target, probably a military target in Siberia. This is the only way to deter Putin (and moreover, his inner circle), since his moving first without the West settling on a plan would leave us visibly disorganized and weakened as we struggle for a meaningful response - so Putin might indeed leap as his adventure becomes more fraught. The violation of the nuclear taboo would be so catastrophic for world politics in the 21st century that we should be aggressive in preempting it. Otherwise, logically speaking, if Western governments are so concerned about "World War 3" then they should cease all military support for Ukraine and encourage its people to take an unfavorable settlement. But of course that's rubbish. We musn't be blackmailed.Quote:
There is a breaking point for Russia, certainly, but is much further than people believe it is, and I'm not sure reaching it would be a good idea anyway.
A lot of leaders and analysts in the West seem to be willing to be blackmailed, based on how they've responded to the idea of NATO escalation. They prioritize not "inciting" Putin and take it for granted that he isn't bluffing. Well... if they're correct in their assessment of Putin's psychology, if Vladimir Putin is the sort to take this to the brink no matter what, as these Western analysts/governments are assessing, then of course we must eliminate him at some point as the unexaggeratedly-worst, most dangerous tyrant on Earth - EVER. By this characterization the existence of Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to the West (and the rest). So better act sooner than later, because if one believes all this about Putin, there will be a later. The only alternative in this framework is appeasement, cutting off aid to Ukraine to bring it to capitulation, because the foregoing analysis of Putin implies that he will go nuclear to protect his power whether NATO looks set to beat him, or Ukraine can do it on its own. So why support Ukraine beyond the extent to which it could lose as slowly, yet assuredly, as possible?
Yet as I said I'm not seeing that sort of logical process in those who fear WW3 above all, which leads me to believe that opponents of escalation are either deceptive or not calculating risk rationally.
(There are of course those advocating for the withdrawal of Western support to Ukraine in order to expedite the end of the conflict, but most of them are in China and India.)
Versailles demilitarization didn't remove all of Germany's military infrastructure. A demilitarization of Crimea would involve treaty limits on the number of troops and ships that could be based there. Again, in the best-case scenario for Ukraine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
There is a more down-to-earth framing one could use, which is that, going by the near-consensus expressed by Western politicians and analysts, Putin is the type of autocrat who would go nuclear out of fear or out of sour grapes spite. That condition, if applicable, is a much more immediate geopolitical threat than civilizational analysis could identify.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
I think this war reveals, as it is the nature of wars to be revelatory or even apo-calyptic, that Russia isn't much of a threat, outside the much-discussed 'nuclear madman' angle or the ability to manipulate elections (which is just a nudge to our internal fascist decay that China could reproduce equally well) particular to its current government.
Well, China certainly has had a much longer tradition of authoritarian rule.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Inward looking is a natural trend when there's lack of clear outside threats. Nevertheless, I can accept that it is a matter of opinion to a large degree. China might indeed prove to be less inclined to militarily oppose NATO.
Outside the typical media hysteria, the numbers don't support that. Up to March 14th, there have been 691 confirmed civilian deaths. The number is likely higher but still very small for a military operation of this size after 20 days.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
I do have access to some Russian media, like Sputnik and RT and I haven't seen such claims. Granted, I might have missed it, but I can state with a rather high degree of certainty that it is not the majority of their reporting.
I think your premise is flawed. You are assuming that Russia won't increase the intensity if need be. Their current pace is more due to the desire to minimize civilians casualties.Quote:
Depends on what you mean by winning militarily. Without direct NATO intervention the best outcome for Ukraine would be to keep Russia from the outskirts of Kyiv, secure Odessa, and maintain some foothold east of the Dnieper. Putin's breaking point is far from view, but what I'm trying to say is that the Russian military's breaking point is closer. Over the medium-term, Ukraine can replenish its supplies and equipment better than Russia, and train up quality replacements better than Russia. The main thing is to not lose major formations in pockets and sieges while giving up as little territory as possible. After that, the case is that Ukraine's parameters for "victory" loosen up as Russia will be unable to win militarily for their own part. The alternative for Putin is total mobilization of the Russian population and economy, which at this rate might genuinely imperil his authority.
In summary, stalemate is good for Ukraine while it is in total mobilization and Russia is not. It can't reach stalemate without inflicting horrendous losses to Russia in the coming weeks.
TLDR: It is easier for Ukraine to not lose than to win.
Time is on their side. They are prepared to withstand this for a few years, if need be. They have the ability to destroy most of NATO military shipments before they reach Ukrainian armed forced.
Not as such. I'm talking about a scenario where Russian economy collapses and the country with 1600 nuclear warheads descends into chaos. Such a scenario would be extremely unpleasant.Quote:
I perceive that you're referencing Putin's nuclear escalation threats. My opinion on that is the US should set the rules of engagemenpublicly and transparently. That is, even a single nuclear detonation by Russia would be preemptively warned as prompting immediate and irrevocable retaliation against a single Russian target, probably a military target in Siberia. This is the only way to deter Putin (and moreover, his inner circle), since his moving first without the West settling on a plan would leave us visibly disorganized and weakened as we struggle for a meaningful response - so Putin might indeed leap as his adventure becomes more fraught. The violation of the nuclear taboo would be so catastrophic for world politics in the 21st century that we should be aggressive in preempting it. Otherwise, logically speaking, if Western governments are so concerned about "World War 3" then they should cease all military support for Ukraine and encourage its people to take an unfavorable settlement. But of course that's rubbish. We musn't be blackmailed.
A lot of leaders and analysts in the West seem to be willing to be blackmailed, based on how they've responded to the idea of NATO escalation. They prioritize not "inciting" Putin and take it for granted that he isn't bluffing. Well... if they're correct in their assessment of Putin's psychology, if Vladimir Putin is the sort to take this to the brink no matter what, as these Western analysts/governments are assessing, then of course we must eliminate him at some point as the unexaggeratedly-worst, most dangerous tyrant on Earth - EVER. By this characterization the existence of Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to the West (and the rest). So better act sooner than later, because if one believes all this about Putin, there will be a later. The only alternative in this framework is appeasement, cutting off aid to Ukraine to bring it to capitulation, because the foregoing analysis of Putin implies that he will go nuclear to protect his power whether NATO looks set to beat him, or Ukraine can do it on its own. So why support Ukraine beyond the extent to which it could lose as slowly, yet assuredly, as possible?
Yet as I said I'm not seeing that sort of logical process in those who fear WW3 above all, which leads me to believe that opponents of escalation are either deceptive or not calculating risk rationally.
(There are of course those advocating for the withdrawal of Western support to Ukraine in order to expedite the end of the conflict, but most of them are in China and India.)
Even if Putin's existence is an "existential threat to the West", Putin is 70 years old. He won't live forever. Even if someone would subscribe to the narrative pushed by the western media and TV analysts, would escalating the conflict be the most sensible approach?
Then, there's the fact that outside media hysteria and politicians picking up brownie points, everyone knows that Putin and Russia are not existential threat to the West. Everyone understands why Russia did this. The surprise came from the fact that no one believed they had the balls to do it, and they will eventually back down and accept the fait accompli, like they did several times in the past. That narrative is a bit flawed, and one has to wonder who is in charge of US foreign policy regarding Russia, as Russia made good on the promise that Ukraine and Georgia are red lines twice before this already.
Of course, this conflict doesn't hurt US much. They can theoretically keep fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. For Europeans, it is much less pleasant.
Well, the only NATO country China has militarized tensions with is the United States. After all, NATO is centered on the Atlantic Ocean. And the only points of concern the US really has in China's neighborhood are Taiwan and South Korea. The US would never go to war over Vietnam, and maybe not even over the Philippines (imagining a Chinese excursion there). There really is more contact area in Europe, which is why it is and was so useful to consolidate everyone into a single cooperative faction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
Ukraine has already reported many thousands of civilian fatalities (such as at least 2500 in Mariupol), and even that is a likely underestimate. Every day sees hundreds of deaths at a minimum. Casualty rates will increase even without Russian deliberate targeting as the conflict goes on and residential buildings get demolished, and we know they're deliberately targeting civilians, for example by their repeated shelling of humanitarian corridors. Clips are clips, but of course there are also a number of well and lesser-known clips of Russian soldiers killing individual civilians.Quote:
Outside the typical media hysteria, the numbers don't support that. Up to March 14th, there have been 691 confirmed civilian deaths. The number is likely higher but still very small for a military operation of this size after 20 days.
Russians don't watch/read Sputnik and RT in Russia, those are for the international audience. Some of the sources for claims about bioweapons and the like are TASS and Major General Konashenkov, spokesperson for the RF Ministry of Defence. Look for the content promoted on their mainstream news programs, whose primary audience is Putin's natural social base.Quote:
I do have access to some Russian media, like Sputnik and RT and I haven't seen such claims. Granted, I might have missed it, but I can state with a rather high degree of certainty that it is not the majority of their reporting.
By the way, a quick search on Russia Today and Sputnik English language pages reveals 10 (RT) and 7 (Sputnik) stories on bioweapons in the past week, and I'm not going to bother to look up the nuclear, chemical, or genocide/terrorism angles. The far-right in America is very loudly promoting these narratives, which noise in turn cycles back into Russian media.
We'll wait for the evidence.Quote:
I think your premise is flawed. You are assuming that Russia won't increase the intensity if need be. Their current pace is more due to the desire to minimize civilians casualties. Time is on their side. They are prepared to withstand this for a few years, if need be.
They haven't demonstrated that ability yet, and they may want to deploy it soon given the lower bound for their ground force fatalities has risen in 20 days to par with what the US lost in 20 years of the War on Terror.Quote:
They have the ability to destroy most of NATO military shipments before they reach Ukrainian armed forced.
Russia descending into chaos in this sense would be nothing more than some North Caucasian and Siberian ethnic territorialities seeking greater autonomy. Russia's nuclear arsenal won't be any less secure than it is now. The core Russian state has enough institutional and national identity that it wouldn't dissolve into feuding warlord statelets. Even Syria is by now almost entirely divided betwen two major factions, and Russia is a lot more cohesive than Syria.Quote:
Not as such. I'm talking about a scenario where Russian economy collapses and the country with 1600 nuclear warheads descends into chaos. Such a scenario would be extremely unpleasant.
If Putin's threats are taken as credible, deterring NATO intervention to avert Russian victory, then they would remain credible in the absence of a decisive victory in Ukraine even when Ukrainians are the ones doing all the fighting. In other words, the nuclear threat is essentially generated by the continuation of Ukrainian resistance. And to be clear, this resistance will persist regardless of NATO's actions.Quote:
Even if Putin's existence is an "existential threat to the West", Putin is 70 years old. He won't live forever. Even if someone would subscribe to the narrative pushed by the western media and TV analysts, would escalating the conflict be the most sensible approach?
Given that we want Ukraine to preserve its independence and integrity, if one credits Putin's threats, one should expect that threat to manifest eventually. The logic is pretty straightforward. If Putin is bluffing, we could lick him right quick. If Putin is not bluffing, he needs to be eliminated as someone too dangerous to live.
But I don't really want to escalate the conflict to war between NATO and Russia at this point, even if I'm more inclined to dismiss Putin as a bluffer or judge him deterrable (in nuclear matters). I just want everything short of war. The Cold War began with Russian pilots killing American pilots, and ended with American special forces killing Russian conscripts...
The US government warned everyone that Russia planned to invade, and given the widespread disbelief in the face of warnings to the morning of the war, I doubt everyone understands why Putin did this.Quote:
Then, there's the fact that outside media hysteria and politicians picking up brownie points, everyone knows that Putin and Russia are not existential threat to the West. Everyone understands why Russia did this. The surprise came from the fact that no one believed they had the balls to do it, and they will eventually back down and accept the fait accompli, like they did several times in the past. That narrative is a bit flawed, and one has to wonder who is in charge of US foreign policy regarding Russia, as Russia made good on the promise that Ukraine and Georgia are red lines twice before this already.
We have red lines too. If Turkey can have a security corridor in Syria, why doesn't Poland deserve one when it's absorbing the same number of refugees (2 million so far just in Poland)? If China's red line was the Yalu in 1950, why isn't Poland's the Bug or the Dnieper? Putin can still partition Ukraine with difficulty, but he would be an utter fool to think he has the power to take the whole thing. Foolishness isn't to be pardoned in geopolitics.
I think there are more Ukrainians than Russian soldiers to exchange, but the measures I reach out for in my musings are exactly designed to further imbalance the ratio in favor of Ukraine.Quote:
Of course, this conflict doesn't hurt US much. They can theoretically keep fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. For Europeans, it is much less pleasant.
China is certainly the bigger long-term threat but as they have stuck to economic bullying and grey-zone escalations but not outright conflict it is right for the US to focus on Russia which is blatantly attacking a neighboring country. To allow Russia to do so with few consequences would be to encourage it to happen again elsewhere, perhaps they take Moldova, Finland, central Asia, and the Caucuses.Quote:
Well, China certainly has had a much longer tradition of authoritarian rule.
Inward looking is a natural trend when there's lack of clear outside threats. Nevertheless, I can accept that it is a matter of opinion to a large degree. China might indeed prove to be less inclined to militarily oppose NATO.
From what I understand those things have been circulating on 'social media' instead of the mainstream news. Sorta like how in the US the anti-vac things are spread mostly on social media sites.Quote:
I do have access to some Russian media, like Sputnik and RT and I haven't seen such claims. Granted, I might have missed it, but I can state with a rather high degree of certainty that it is not the majority of their reporting.
From what seems to be happening, minimizing civilian casualties hasn't been a priority for about two weeks.Quote:
I think your premise is flawed. You are assuming that Russia won't increase the intensity if need be. Their current pace is more due to the desire to minimize civilians casualties.
Time is on their side. They are prepared to withstand this for a few years, if need be. They have the ability to destroy most of NATO military shipments before they reach Ukrainian armed forced.
I'd argue also that time is not on their side as the economic repercussions continue to pile up as well as the casualty rates. The fact that the Russians have had to ask Assad and others for help and troops is a pretty clear indicator that the casualty rate is unsustainable.
On the point of destroying most NATO shipments before they reach the Ukraine, that seems to be clearly false. The Germans only started shipping Panzerfaust-3s after the invasion started and they've made it to the front lines, same with other equipment for other contributing nations. Considering the fact that Ukraine still has an air force somehow and manages to conduct limited sorties against the Russians everyday despite the Russian air force operating off home bases and infrastructure I severely doubt the Russians have the capacity to destroy most shipments of anything other than large easily tracked hardware, stuff that hasn't been sent, yet.
It doesn't hurt the US much but it is forcing the US to devote significant things to Europe at a time when it'd prefer to focus on China. Were the US to not give this the attention it deserves it would undermine confidence in NATO at a time that the EU and its member states are too weak to be a deterrent on their own. Perhaps in a few years when Germany's renewed defense investments pay off the US can focus on China but for now we are firmly involved in Europe again.Quote:
Of course, this conflict doesn't hurt US much. They can theoretically keep fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. For Europeans, it is much less pleasant.
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
https://www.understandingwar.org/sit...20Mar%2015.pdf
In military terms it seems that the Russia attack has culminated. They have no reserves to continue a general offensive until they start to clean up the various front lines. If they can take Mariupol and push back the Eastern front of Ukraine they can shorten their lines and perhaps take the offensive elsewhere again. Their offensive in the NE will not make any further progress until they can take Sumy and Kharkiv as those currently exposed spider webs of supply lines are extremely vulnerable to attack.Quote:
Key Takeaways
• Russian forces are unlikely to launch offensive operations to encircle Kyiv larger
than the scattered Russian attacks observed northwest of Kyiv targeting Irpin on
March 14 and Guta-Mezhyhirska on March 15 within the coming week but may
launch further tactical attacks.
• Russian forces continued to assault Mariupol from the east and west.
• Russian forces did not conduct major offensive operations toward northeastern
Kyiv in the past 24 hours.
• Russian forces attempting to encircle Kharkiv continue to face supply shortages,
particularly regarding ammunition.
• The Russian military falsely claimed to have captured the entirety of Kherson
Oblast on March 15 but did not conduct any major operations toward either
Zaporizhya or Mykolayiv.
• Russia is unlikely to launch an unsupported amphibious operation against Odesa
until Russian forces secure a ground line of communication to the city, but Russian
Naval Infantry retain the capability to conduct a landing along the Black Sea coast.
The Russians haven't take any major cities since Kherson and seem to be limited to small probing attacks. Could be indicators of poor supply, motivation, or just know how as attacking enemy held urban operations requires skill and close coordination unless you intend to just shell them into surrender.
In the meantime, the Western public's cry for more action and support will hopefully push the leaders of NATO and the Biden admin to be more proactive in supplying Ukraine with weapons and training including newer systems. More UAVs, counter UAV devices, mortar systems, and continuous supplies of ATGMs and MANPADs will allow the Ukrainians to continue to attrite the Russians.
If the US and NATO start to supply the Ukraine with those MiG-29s, counterbattery radars, and more potent air defense systems it may be possible for the Ukraine to begin to seriously damage the protective factor of Russian artillery. If the Ukrainians find a way to suppress or neutralize Russian artillery in certain pockets (Kiev and NE in particular) then they may have the ability to attack the exposed lines of supply and communication of the Russians and start to isolate Russian units enabling them to be attacked or expend supplies to the point of ineffectiveness.
In the long run, a negotiated settlement is absolutely key of course, but it needs to be Zelensky driving it as if it's the West pushing for him to accept terms that are too harsh it will still have the morale effect of betrayal. I could see Crimea being recognized as Russian and parts of Luhansk and Donetsk as well though not the whole Oblasts.
Denying the Russians victory makes negotiations possible, if the Ukrainians manage to actually cause irreversible local defeats and retake territory that may drive the Russians to a negotiated settlement.
Edit:
Home » Russian Aggression »
Russian soldiers are refusing to redeploy to Ukraine, citing reasons including unwillingness to become ‘cannon fodder’
https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/03/...ographic-proof
The source above is of course biased but if the above are true then the morale is certainly as bad as seems to be reported. Formal refusals to return to the front are quite something, especially if the reasons listed are essentially failures of the army to assist the common soldier as opposed to moral reasons.
Ok, guys, I'm not going to go point by point on this, I will just summarize my position.
I certainly believe Ukrainian officials are vastly exaggerating civilian deaths when they speak to the media, and I'm even going to skip the part of weapons being distributed to tens of thousands of civilians in Ukraine.
For Russia, this is a carefully planned operation. They perceive NATO in Ukraine as a grave threat to their security. They will not stop until they achieve their goals. It is very hard to predict duration, but based on what;s going on. I think realistically we can expect some sort of settlement in May or June.
Russia's major goals are recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and firm political guarantees about Ukraine not joining NATO. I think Ukraine still has a chance of keeping Donetsk and Lugansk if they show a willingness for a constitutional change that would allow those regions to be self governed, although probably with Russian peacekeeping force stationed there for a time.
It's a fair position and I think we all know we won't see where things are until this concludes due to the fog of war etc...
The Ukrainians are undoubtedly upping the estimates in civilian casualties and in damage they are doing to the Russians, with Russian media banned in the West and Russia banning facebook, twitter, and instagram it's created an internet dominated by Ukrainian info operations.
Estimates from 6 March by UN and Red Cross though: OHCHR said that 1,123 civilian casualties in Ukraine have been verified: 364 killed, including 25 children, and 759 injured. The casualties are undoubtedly a lot higher though but hard to count and verify in a war zone. Also, this is from ten days ago, a lot has changed in Russian targeting of cities in that time.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03...0759%20injured.
As for the operation, as an outside observer this looks to be a poorly planned operation due to some extremely optimistic intelligence assessments on the part of the Russians. Just like the US was wrong in Iraq, Russia was wrong about the Ukrainians ability to resist. Zelensky's leadership has also galvanized his country and the West against Russia.
You are right about their worry about NATO, however this attack has resulted in a strengthening of NATO and closer ties among the local neutrals. Russia may get the Ukraine to be neutral in regards to NATO but I think Ukraine intends to stick with EU accession at some point so not true neutrality.
As for duration, well no one knows, your estimate seems about right as the Russians are not making a lot of progress and the Ukrainians can't push them back with the current equipment they have.
As for the Russian demands, well they've changed drastically in tenor the last few weeks. If regime change wasn't a goal though then why the attack toward Kiev and the Northern cities? Russia's only real successes have been in the South. We'll see how it plays out though, I don't think the Ukraine will want the separatist parts of Donetsk and Luhansk any more as they are just fuel for potential future conflict and would hinder any EU accession.
I appreciate your contrary opinion, no need for the backroom to just be an echo-chamber.
What's to stop the EU/NATO from arming and training the Ukrainian military in preparation for round 3? Ukraine can even pay for it in token amounts, or with the aid of loans that are never meant to be repaid. Ukraine can modernise in every facet in contrast to a still-sanctioned Russia, whilst being formally neutral and not a member of EU/NATO. And unlike Afghanistan, I doubt the Ukrainians will skim off the military aid in the knowledge that Russia will be preparing for another round.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
I don't think Russian position has changed drastically. The goals always wereQuote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
1) demilitarization (read: limits on armed forces)
2) military neutrality
3) Crimea recognition
Political and economic considerations were not a part of equation at any point. Obviously, Russia would prefer Ukraine in their own economic zone, but those were never red lines for Russia. There are multiple statements from Russian officials from the last decade that they don't mind Ukraine joining EU.
Regarding poor planning and execution... well, it is certainly a possibility. The problem I have with that is that we don't really know what the Russians expected. No one ever said it would be an easy operation. It was western analysts who said that Russia expected no resistance.
On the other hand, this operation was very carefully planned by Russia. They worked it out with China to get their backing. A major meeting between Putin and Xi happened on the 15th December, with Xi declaring that Russo-Chinese relations are "more than an alliance".
On the same day Russia delivered their demands to NATO.
They have also carefully prepared with OPEC to ensure oil production isn't increased, thus ensuring that the West pays for their own sanctions to a degree.
All that tells me they didn't expect this will be an "quick in an out" operation, like the one that happened in Crimea. Ukraine is a huge country with a large population, and most of that population is very anti-Russian at the moment. They knew that Ukraine has been upgrading their army and had NATO equipment and instructors, for years now. I do not think anyone was naive enough to think this would be quick and easy.
Well, it will probably be based on verification. After demilitarization, it would be impossible for Ukraine to increase their combat capabilities without Russia knowing about it. That would include tight limits on foreign military involvement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Most importantly for Russia, that would certainly include Ukraine being legally forbidden from allowing any NATO military equipment on its territory.
Such treaties are usually in effect as long as they are enforceable. So, we can probably expect it will for sure be in effect for at least a few decades, and after that it will depend on the balance of power in the region and the world.
I believe your estimate of the Russian goals to be fairly accurate. It fits the data/scope of operations I am seeing. I am sure it was planned and thought out, but so were the Schlieffen Plan and Hull's Invasion of Canada -- no plan survives contact with the enemy and the Russians do not appear (so far) to have been well prepared to adapt to changes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
As to Ukrainian exaggerations, it is almost a cliche to note that truth is an early casualty in warfare. Some of this is purposeful deception and some of this is misperception. I believe the Russians to be using deception to a greater degree, but believe both nations assessments are inaccurate for a myriad of perceptual reasons.
Commenting further on the point of civilian casualties. I would ask if you have seen some of the images of cities on the frontline. There are kilometer-swathes of flats and houses ruined or even leveled, WW2-style. Several million civilians were and still are resident in these cities. It's basically infeasible to only produce hundreds of deaths with such tactics, which we also know killed countless thousands in Syria. Thousands of civilians were killed in the Battle of Mosul, amid less intense fighting, and over a slower advance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
Just one mass grave.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1502759855689457665 [VIDEO]
This is all before you take into account the known deliberate targeting of individual civilians, which includes shooting at almost every single humanitarian corridor. It remains to characterize today's worst incident, the likely killing of hundreds of civilians in a bombing on a Mariupol theater designated as a civilian space.
Why launch an extremely costly invasion for all that when it would have been easily achieved by negotiations in 2014? Ukraine's military poses no independent threat to Russia, and barely existed in 2014. Putin made a mess for himself by annexing Crimea, even when Russian military basing there was under no threat. He could have negotiated a favorable arrangement with a new Ukrainian government 8 years go, a path he very deliberately foreclosed. Unless we do judge Putin insane, the rational explanation is that his goals were more maximalist.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
I've always understood the goal to be political and economic domination over Kyiv, which are the motives claimed by Putin and relayed through state media to the Russian public, and are demonstrated by such actions as the abduction of Ukrainian politicians and activists, and the attempt to install a Kherson People's Republic.
Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea and the creation of Novorossiya after the Ukrainian people rebelled when he directed his puppet to reject EU integration. NATO and EU membership, or the pursuit of it, have always been linked, with the notable exception of the UK.Quote:
Political and economic part were not a part of equation at any point. Obviously, Russia would prefer Ukraine in their own economic zone, but those were never red lines for Russia. There multiple statements from Russian officials from the last decade that they don't mind Ukraine joining NATO.
It was inferred by the lack of supply, organization, and preparation for a conventional conflict, and the insistence on driving unsupported columns into city centers (a tactic limited to the first week for some reason). While this could also reflect an overall lack of capability on the Russian military's part, the consensus that Putin did not expect protracted conventional resistance is well-founded. There was also that captured document implying a 15-day timetable for the operation.Quote:
Regarding poor planning and execution... well, it is certainly a possibility. The problem I have with that is that we don't really know what the Russians expected. No one ever said it would be an easy operation. It was western analysts who said that Russia expected no resistance.
It remains possible that Putin's goal was always something very limited, but such scenarios do not conform to Occam's Razor, and anyway cannot really redeem Russian performance in its particulars.
To couch my words in a balanced manner, the level of careful planning on the part of the Russians, or how much Putin even allowed to be performed below the political level, remains unclear. (An example of Russian planning, though one I can't verify in mainstream media, is that rented storage space in Kyiv was filled with a stockpile of Russian dress uniforms.)
Has the backing proved more than moral yet?Quote:
On the other hand, this operation was very carefully planned by Russia. They worked it out with China to get their backing. A major meeting between Putin and Xi happened on the 15th December, with Xi declaring that Russo-Chinese relations are "more than an alliance".
Cite?Quote:
They have also carefully prepared with OPEC to ensure oil production isn't increased, thus ensuring that the West pays for their own sanctions to a degree.
Quote:
OPEC, Russia Agree to Keep Boosting Oil Output, Jolting Prices
OPEC and a group of Russia-led oil producers agreed to continue pumping more crude, betting that pent-up demand in a post-lockdown world will outweigh any hit to economic activity by the recent permutations of Covid-19.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers led by Russia said Thursday they would raise their collective production by another 400,000 barrels a day in January. The group agreed earlier this year to boost output in such increments each month until production reaches pre-pandemic levels.
The White House had put pressure on the group to accelerate that pace. Many market watchers, meanwhile, expected the group, which calls itself OPEC+, to pause in opening taps any wider. That expectation came amid the uncertain economic impact of new travel bans going up to curb the Omicron variant and fresh lockdowns in places like Europe, which is suffering through another wave of the older, Delta variant.
Since 2014 Russia has always, as far as I know, opposed production cuts, even when the OPEC loosening in 2014-15 dovetailed with sanctions to cause considerable stress to the Russian economy. It took some conflict with the Saudis at the beginning of the pandemic for Russia to agree to a cut. The Saudis are set to return to pre-pandemic quotas in a few months under current protocol. Record profit margins are a more likely barrier to dipping into their limited spare capacity than some secret pact with Russia.Quote:
Oil Price Rise Blamed in Part on OPEC, Russian Output Shortfalls
PEC and its Russia-led partners have promised to increase oil production to pre-pandemic levels this year but are falling short of those public commitments, stoking fast-rising global crude markets.
Last month, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its Russia-led allies increased their collective production by 250,000 barrels a day, or 60% of what the two groups promised for the month, according to the International Energy Agency. Overall, the group is pumping 790,000 barrels a day below its publicly stated targets, said the Paris-based watchdog, which advises industrialized nations on energy.
[...]
OPEC+ cut its production deeply in early 2020 by a collective 9.7 million barrels a day, equivalent to about 10% of global demand at the time. The group has since agreed to restore 6.4 million barrels a day of those cuts. It has promised to further increase output each month by 400,000 barrels a day until the group is back at pre-Covid-19 pumping levels.
[...]
In December, Nigeria, a top African producer, pumped 460,000 barrels a day below its quota, after a malfunctioning barge triggered the shutdown of a major export terminal. In Angola, technical issues and a lack of investment have sent production to 17-year lows.
Last month, Russia pumped below its OPEC+ quota for the first since the group cut output. It had promised to boost output in the month by 20,000 barrels a day, but instead cut output by 10,000 barrels a day, the IEA said, blaming slower-than-expected development of some fields. A Russian Energy Ministry spokesman said he couldn’t immediately comment.
The IEA cut Iraq’s sustainable capacity estimates by 140,000 barrels a day due to lingering bottlenecks in aging southern infrastructure. Pipelines are frequently targeted by insurgents or fail due to lack of maintenance. In the most recent outage, a key oil pipeline to Turkey was knocked out by an explosion blamed on a falling pylon.
Those and other obstacles leave Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. as the world’s only major producers with sizable spare capacity, about 3.25 million barrels a day, according to the IEA.
It would be naive to overestimate the minds of autocrats.Quote:
All that tells me they didn't expect this will be an "quick in an out" operation, like the one that happened in Crimea. Ukraine is a huge country with a large population, and most of that population is very anti-Russian at the moment. They knew that Ukraine has been upgrading their army and had NATO equipment and instructors, for years now. I do not think anyone was naive enough to think this would be quick and easy.
Here's a bit from Putin's latest address:
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status...16136966828043 [video]
Yes, undoubtedly, they will try to wager on a so-called fifth-column, on national traitors, on those who make money here, with us, but live there. Live there not even in a geographical sense of the word, but by their intentions, by their slavish consciousness. I'm not talking about those who have villas in Miami or the French Riviera [*wink wink*], who can't get by without foie gras, or so-called gender freedoms. The problem is absolutely not in that. I repeat, it's that many of such people, by their essence [?], find themselves namely there, but not here with our people. Not with Russia. This is, by their opinion - by their opinion - a sign of membership in a higher caste, a higher race. Similar people are ready to sell their dear mother if only for permission to sit in the entry hall of this uppermost caste. And they want to resemble it, in every way imitate it. But they either forget or don't understand at all, that this so-called higher caste, if it even needs them, then only as consumables, so as to utilize them for the carrying through of maximal damage to our people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCh53fvuqHk
Ukraine's military is the only thing protecting it from Russia, so it seems highly unlikely that they will concede to demilitarization. NATO neutrality on the other hand was always on the table, and even more so now, because if Ukraine can throw off Russia without NATO's direct intervention (assuming this remains the case), why would they need to join NATO?Quote:
Well, it will probably be based on verification. After demilitarization, it would be impossible for Ukraine to increase their combat capabilities without Russia knowing about it. That would include tight limits on foreign military involvement.
Most importantly for Russia, that would certainly include Ukraine being legally forbidden from allowing any NATO military equipment on its territory.
Such treaties are usually in effect as long as they are enforceable. So, we can probably expect it will for sure be in effect for at least a few decades, and after that it will depend on the balance of power in the region and the world.
Ни одной пяди чужой земли не хотим. Но и своей земли, ни одного вершка не отдадим.
Macron seems to be imitating Zelensky chic. He looks pretty good though.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Elon Musk is very good at getting into Twitter fights, and now he's gone and trolled Ramzan Kadyrov into Navy SEALing by proxy at him.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Pentagon reports that Russia has committed 75% of its BTGs to the Ukraine war. Unclear if this refers specifically to Russia's ~170 Army BTGs, or includes VDV and Marines. 75% of 170 would accord with previous estimates of 120-125 BTGs in the AO, but it's a little unclear since we know VDV and Marines have been fighting on the ground as well.
Also assessed was that Ukraine and Russia each have lost 10% of their initial forces, which is rough for Ukraine until more Territorials can be trained.
Biden has agreed to send Ukraine 100 Switchblade loitering munitions!
https://i.imgur.com/Qlx09H0.jpg
Other NATO countries will contribute Starstreak, S-300, SA-8 Osa, and SA-13 Strela systems. NATO also preparing to deploy "substantially" more forces near Ukraine.
Poland is calling for a NATO peacekeeping mission with self-defense ROE in Ukraine, which sounds a lot like the security corridor I keep recommending.
That noble wrath may yet boil over, however slowly. I'm increasingly willing to defer to Biden's diplomatic process.
Meanwhile, Russia is reportedly planning to deforest the occupied regions to reduce cover for insurgents. This form of pillage is what Erdogan and Assad did in Afrin, so the allegation checks out, and fits with long-term plans of annexation or occupation.
As a reminder, here is Ukraine's eco-geography. Green is fantastic guerrilla terrain, and the forest steppe is quite hilly west of the Dnieper. There's a reason we've heard so much about irregular activities along the Kyiv-Sumy axis.
https://i.imgur.com/oN3qytD.png
Two important points to balance:
1. Don't take the step that could lead to rapid escalation until you've prepared for the possibility of going all the way.
2. If the most powerful military, and military alliance, are deterred solely by nuclear posturing, then the potent lesson for all states is that acquiring nukes allows you to do whatever you please. Cf. North Korea.
To offer an example, Russia claimed more TB2 Bayraktar downed than Ukraine ever possessed. Not a single loss has been documented as far as I know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Ukraine claims 430 Russian tanks eliminated. The verifiable number (Oryx) alone is 233.
Demilitarisation? Why on earth would anyone agree to demilitarisation after their neighbour had invaded them and taken chunks of their territory?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
I am not saying that all is going perfectly. We have no way of knowing what they expected. I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that they expected it would be quick and easy*.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Quick and easy in this case is relative. If they achieve their goals after a few months, it could still be argued that it was quick. But, I do not think they expected it would be over in a few days, or even weeks.
I am going by UN numbers. Anything easily verifiable would have already been included in that number. 691* deaths was a figure from two days ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
The real number is probably considerably higher. How much, we can only guess. The lowest estimates for Iraq invasion put the number at around 4000 civilian deaths during 40 days of combat operations. More realistic estimates place civilian deaths at more than 7000, and there are also estimates that go over 10000.
There doesn't seem to be a huge discrepancy between civilian deaths in those two invasions, which points me to think that there's no deliberate targeting of civilians as a policy of the Russian army.
*That number includes civilian deaths in Donbas areas by the Ukrainian armed forces.
One would think that, but any attempts by Russia to do exactly that were rebuffed by US and Kiev.Quote:
Why launch an extremely costly invasion for all that when it would have been easily achieved by negotiations in 2014? Ukraine's military poses no independent threat to Russia, and barely existed in 2014. Putin made a mess for himself by annexing Crimea, even when Russian military basing there was under no threat. He could have negotiated a favorable arrangement with a new Ukrainian government 8 years go, a path he very deliberately foreclosed. Unless we do judge Putin insane, the rational explanation is that his goals were more maximalist.
Well, you've always been wrong.Quote:
I've always understood the goal to be political and economic domination over Kyiv, which are the motives claimed by Putin and relayed through state media to the Russian public, and are demonstrated by such actions as the abduction of Ukrainian politicians and activists, and the attempt to install a Kherson People's Republic.
Russian position regarding NATO expansion has been clear for decades now. In 2008, US ambassador to Moscow wrote to then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
I would disagree with that. Occam's Razor is applied when we don't have enough information, so we assume the simplest answer is more likely to be correct. Since it is has been well documented that Russia's primary concern is not allowing NATO in Ukraine there's no need to even consider using it. And even if we did apply it, your conclusion certainly wouldn't have been within its confines, because it involves a lot of jumping through hoops to get to it.Quote:
It was inferred by the lack of supply, organization, and preparation for a conventional conflict, and the insistence on driving unsupported columns into city centers (a tactic limited to the first week for some reason). While this could also reflect an overall lack of capability on the Russian military's part, the consensus that Putin did not expect protracted conventional resistance is well-founded. There was also that captured document implying a 15-day timetable for the operation.
It remains possible that Putin's goal was always something very limited, but such scenarios do not conform to Occam's Razor, and anyway cannot really redeem Russian performance in its particulars.
There's no need for it to be anything more than moral yet.Quote:
Has the backing proved more than moral yet?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...udi-arabia-uaeQuote:
Cite?
"Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, and his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, are yet to agree to a phone call with the west’s most powerful man – a scenario all but unthinkable during previous administrations."
Opposition to Ukraine in NATO and NATO in Ukraine is not Putin, it is Russia. It is Yeltsin, and before him Gorbachev, and every single policy maker of note in Russia for that last three decades.Quote:
It would be naive to overestimate the minds of autocrats.
Here's a bit from Putin's latest address:
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status...16136966828043 [video]
Yes, undoubtedly, they will try to wager on a so-called fifth-column, on national traitors, on those who make money here, with us, but live there. Live there not even in a geographical sense of the word, but by their intentions, by their slavish consciousness. I'm not talking about those who have villas in Miami or the French Riviera [*wink wink*], who can't get by without foie gras, or so-called gender freedoms. The problem is absolutely not in that. I repeat, it's that many of such people, by their essence [?], find themselves namely there, but not here with our people. Not with Russia. This is, by their opinion - by their opinion - a sign of membership in a higher caste, a higher race. Similar people are ready to sell their dear mother if only for permission to sit in the entry hall of this uppermost caste. And they want to resemble it, in every way imitate it. But they either forget or don't understand at all, that this so-called higher caste, if it even needs them, then only as consumables, so as to utilize them for the carrying through of maximal damage to our people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCh53fvuqHk
In 1997, almost 50 US foreign policy experts wrote a letter to Clinton calling NATO expansion "policy error of historic proportions"
"In Russia, NATO expansion, which continues to be opposed across the entire political spectrum, will strengthen the nondemocratic opposition, undercut those who favor reform and cooperation with the West, bring the Russians to question the entire post-Cold War settlement, and galvanize resistance in the Duma to the START II and III treaties; In Europe, NATO expansion will draw a new line of division between the "ins" and the "outs," foster instability, and ultimately diminish the sense of security of those countries which are not included;"
There was no notion of Putin in 1997.
I do not understand what is your point with the video.
Quote:
Ukraine's military is the only thing protecting it from Russia, so it seems highly unlikely that they will concede to demilitarization. NATO neutrality on the other hand was always on the table, and even more so now, because if Ukraine can throw off Russia without NATO's direct intervention (assuming this remains the case), why would they need to join NATO?
In this case, they will accept it because they have no other choice. Otherwise, they would be committing suicide out of the fear of death.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Biden Announces $800 Million in New Ukraine Assistance
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-anno...p/6488192.html
Seeing that the US is in addition to the above also working to transfer former Soviet air defense systems from several NATO nations to the Ukraine I still can't see why the MiG-29 transfer is off the table. Put the damn planes on a flat bed truck and drive them over if need be, they don't need to be flown from NATO countries to Ukraine. Those S-300 air defense systems are just as big a system and signature for moving over the border and would be a hell of a lot more useful with some fighter aircraft to complement their attacks.Quote:
“This new package on its own is going to provide unprecedented assistance to Ukraine,” the president added. “It includes 800 anti-aircraft systems to make sure the Ukrainian military can continue to stop the planes and helicopters that have been attacking their people and to defend their Ukrainian airspace.”
In addition to the 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems that Biden mentioned, the package includes 2,000 Javelin and 1,000 light anti-armor weapons, and 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems; hundreds of grenade launchers, shotguns and machine guns; thousands of rifles and pistols; more than 20 million rounds of ammunition and tens of thousands of sets of body armor and helmets.
Based on Putin putting the head of the FSB under house arrest and the loss of several Major Generals to combat in the last week there is no doubt that this war is going poorly for Russia and not as expected. Lossing a fifth of the tank force sent in is an absolutely crazy level of losses.Quote:
I am not saying that all is going perfectly. We have no way of knowing what they expected. I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that they expected it would be quick and easy*.
Quick and easy in this case is relative. If they achieve their goals after a few months, it could still be argued that it was quick. But, I do not think they expected it would be over in a few days, or even weeks.
The indicator of the quick and easy though was the use of the VDV to go and seize forward airfields and getting repulsed. Airborne forces are extremely vulnerable without support and so far forward of their own lines so to commit them as happened is an indicator that they expected a much easier fight than happened, just like the Allied powers when they did Operation Market Garden.
The expansion of NATO will always end up being a what if type of event. However, it's not like NATO has invaded and forced these countries into the fold, its those countries not trusting Russia due to a history of mistrust. It's a chicken egg situation, did Russia become revisionist because of NATO expansion or was that going to happen anyway which makes the expansion of a NATO a prudent policy in view of a Russia that remained at odds with the West.Quote:
Opposition to Ukraine in NATO and NATO in Ukraine is not Putin, it is Russia. It is Yeltsin, and before him Gorbachev, and every single policy maker of note in Russia for that last three decades.
In 1997, almost 50 US foreign policy experts wrote a letter to Clinton calling NATO expansion "policy error of historic proportions"
As for Ukraine specifically, I'm happy with them not being in NATO however I'd like them to be eventually admitted to the EU. If Mexico for some reason became a Chinese ally that'd be a certain threat the US and would make sense for the US to oppose however it would not justify the US invading to topple that government or demand neutrality.
The requirements for EU accension are high though so it will take a long time. Having the Ukraine demilitarize though is ludicrous as without outside security guarantees they'd be at the mercy of the will of the Kremlin in regard to anything they choose to do as a nation. The Ukraine didn't invade Russia, or threaten it. All they did was overthrow a pro-Moscow government and put in one that wanted a future with the EU. Russia invading Crimea the moment the government in Kiev wasn't manned by their puppet certainly shows that they had no intention of letting Ukraine decide it's own course.
How prevalent is the theory that airborne infantry exists for the purpose of being rescued by ground forces?Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
thinkdefence.co.uk looked at this a few years ago, and i believe the conclusion was that their use is a niche requirement for specific (and permissive) environments, and outside of that their usage would bring more peril than benefit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
if you're looking at parachute forces, then no more than two companies out of the entire three para 'battalions' are jump qualified.
if you're looking at airborne forces, then 16AAB has long been incapable of being deployed (let alone sustained!), by the RAF trasnport fleet.
I don't particularly disagree with any of that. Furthermore, my knowledge of actual combat operations, equipment and manpower involved is rather limited.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
Still, the point remains that Russia can apply more pressure, if need be. While the western sanctions are hurting Russian economy, Ukrainian economy is basically not functioning. US and EU can not and will not cover the bill of that size.
Russia doesn't have to do much more to get what it wants.
Well, it is certainly an interesting question. Morally, I would certainly support the position that all nations should be able to choose their own path, regardless of what their neighbours think.Quote:
The expansion of NATO will always end up being a what if type of event. However, it's not like NATO has invaded and forced these countries into the fold, its those countries not trusting Russia due to a history of mistrust. It's a chicken egg situation, did Russia become revisionist because of NATO expansion or was that going to happen anyway which makes the expansion of a NATO a prudent policy in view of a Russia that remained at odds with the West.
As for Ukraine specifically, I'm happy with them not being in NATO however I'd like them to be eventually admitted to the EU. If Mexico for some reason became a Chinese ally that'd be a certain threat the US and would make sense for the US to oppose however it would not justify the US invading to topple that government or demand neutrality.
Unfortunately, that's not how it works, even though it should.
Cuba is an example of that. It all thankfully worked out in the end, but US administration was ready to go as far as it took. Soviet missiles on Cuba were a red line for them, plain and simple.
US still has enough political and economic clout that most of the time it does not need to intervene militarily, although they will do that with impunity when it suits their interest. They will usually first try to bribe, or assassinate, or foster a civil war if the usual political and economic isolation doesn't solve the problem.
What Russia is doing here is basically implementing Monroe's doctrine on a much smaller scale.
There will certainly be outside guarantees.Quote:
The requirements for EU accension are high though so it will take a long time. Having the Ukraine demilitarize though is ludicrous as without outside security guarantees they'd be at the mercy of the will of the Kremlin in regard to anything they choose to do as a nation. The Ukraine didn't invade Russia, or threaten it. All they did was overthrow a pro-Moscow government and put in one that wanted a future with the EU. Russia invading Crimea the moment the government in Kiev wasn't manned by their puppet certainly shows that they had no intention of letting Ukraine decide it's own course.
It depends how you look at it. Zelensky did call on his western allies to force Russia to return Crimea. The options discussed were purely diplomatic. But, if you're in position of Russia, and all NATO members recognize Crimea as Ukrainian territory, Ukraine joins NATO and activates article 5, on the account that a foreign country has troops in its territory - what happens then? Russia can not fight NATO, so their choice is either accept NATO demands or destroy the world.
Calling Yanukovich a Russian puppet is pushing it. He was a democratically elected president of Ukraine. His approval numbers were abysmal around 2014, but so were pretty much all of Ukrainian politicians, due to widespread corruption. His predecessor, Yuschenko, a western darling, was polling in the single digits before Yanukovich was elected. It was a trend. A highly inefficient and corrupt government institutions tend to have that effect. And every time a new face is elected, people are initially overjoyed that it is finally turning around, and they end up leaving the office with abysmal rating.
In regards to neutral status, Finland's example suggest it is quite possible, even if they were at war twice in recent years before that agreement was signed. USSR forced them to lease several naval bases after WW2 for 50 years. After the agreement was signed in 1955 or 56, can't remember, in which Finland agreed to neutrality, USSR cancelled the lease, returned all naval bases to Finland, demilitarized the border and there was a generally very prosperous relationship. Finland was free to pursue economic ties with both the West and USSR and develop in peace. It lasted over 70 years, and is currently still going on. I assume it will still go on unless Finland joins NATO.
I know people in the West tend to see NATO almost purely in a positive light, but for the rest of the world, it is not so. Objectively, NATO countries have started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats etc... since WW2, by a very large margin.
And he remained in power until he pulled the Ukraine off the path of joining in the EU leading to the Euromaiden revolution.Quote:
Calling Yanukovich a Russian puppet is pushing it. He was a democratically elected president of Ukraine. His approval numbers were abysmal around 2014, but so were pretty much all of Ukrainian politicians, due to widespread corruption. His predecessor, Yuschenko, a western darling, was polling in the single digits before Yanukovich was elected. It was a trend. A highly inefficient and corrupt government institutions tend to have that effect. And every time a new face is elected, people are initially overjoyed that it is finally turning around, and they end up leaving the office with abysmal rating.
Zelensky didn't have overwhelming support either until it was clear he was willing to stay in Kiev and not flee to the West. Had he fled as offered by the US, who knows how long Ukraine would have had the political will to continue resisting.
Neutrality is fine with me but not a disarmed neutrality.Quote:
In regards to neutral status, Finland's example suggest it is quite possible, even if they were at war twice in recent years before that agreement was signed. USSR forced them to lease several naval bases after WW2 for 50 years. After the agreement was signed in 1955 or 56, can't remember, in which Finland agreed to neutrality, USSR cancelled the lease, returned all naval bases to Finland, demilitarized the border and there was a generally very prosperous relationship. Finland was free to pursue economic ties with both the West and USSR and develop in peace. It lasted over 70 years, and is currently still going on. I assume it will still go on unless Finland joins NATO.
If you put the window back to:from WW2 to present I think the Warsaw pact actually has a worse history in regards to interfering and propping up every revolution in the third world. Not to mention when France left NATO in the 60s they weren't invaded, the US just closed it's bases there. Not like the USSR invading Hungary or Czechoslovakia to keep them in the Warsaw Pact. Propping up and funding a communist revolution movement in almost every African and South American country certainly wasn't the kindest, nor was the US supporting the cruel dictatorships that tried to fight those communist revolutions.Quote:
I know people in the West tend to see NATO almost purely in a positive light, but for the rest of the world, it is not so. Objectively, NATO countries have started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats etc... since WW2, by a very large margin.
If the window is post USSR, then yes, NATO countries have been involved in more wars and interventions but not necessarily as NATO. I know the intervention in Yugoslavia/Serbia is a touchy subject, the next 'NATO' war was the reaction to 9/11 which involved fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Libya was the only real 'adventurism' of NATO.
I think it's important to separate NATO and the US though because US foreign policy is not equal to NATO. There's no shortage of flawed US interventions but that doesn't equal NATO. Same with France and the UK, their intervention in former colonies does not equal NATO. That's why the Falkland War did not get NATO support behind the UK just some intel support from the US an France pausing their exocet missile sales to Argentina.
Bottom line though, NATO is not a direct threat to Russia as nuclear deterrence will prevent any direct NATO aggression. Russia demanding to keep a sphere of nation's that don't necessarily want to be vulnerable to Russian bullying isn't exactly fair either.
It's not like NATO is posturing itself right now to march on Kaliningrad and hit the Russians while they're tied down in Ukraine. No one is advocating retaking Crimea to punish the Russians. NATO and the EU are instead helping the Ukraine to the best degree possible short of direct intervention fight off unwarranted Russian aggression. The troops sent to the east of the alliance is because those countries very understandably fear Russia trying to reclaim its old empire.
Imagine Austria demanding South Tirol from Italy and an annexation of Slovenia, it'd be ludicrous. Pulling up old maps of when country X controlled countries Y and Z doesn't justify invasion. This is why the efforts to support Ukraine are so important in keeping any future deals with Taiwan to remain in the peaceful realm. If the PRC ever undertakes reforms that make Taiwan want to join them again cool, the PRC invading to rule something they've never ruled and only the last dynasty of China conquered is not acceptable.
The demand for disarmament makes me think of the Sudetenland. A negotiated settlement that removes the most significant obstacles to a future repeated push.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
Whatever the settlement turns out to be, Ukraine needs to be rapidly and heavily re-armed in anticipation of a future Russian attack. It's happened twice already, and we can expect another once they've re-armed and regrouped. Even if NATO does not directly involve itself, we owe it to the Ukrainians to be as well resourced as we can manage it so they can fight on our behalf. All the equipment we don't use any more, but which is still a level and more above nothing.
How do you confront the evidence against this? Your only evidence for it is that you don't believe the Kremlin could be so stupid or arrogant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
It is a fact, protested by the UN, that the Russians have been targeting civilians, on many occasions, documented by reporters and third parties on the ground, as well as the actual victims. That is what we know so far.Quote:
There doesn't seem to be a huge discrepancy between civilian deaths in those two invasions, which points me to think that there's no deliberate targeting of civilians as a policy of the Russian army.
And for reference, after two weeks the Iraqi Body Count project was estimating
Major conventional fighting would basically end in Iraq by three weeks after D0, with the fall of Baghdad, so most of the civilian casualties must have been priced in by the time the quoted estimate was published. The IBC would in a few months revise its estimate of civilian casualties upward by an order of magnitude.Quote:
The site estimates between 574 and 733 Iraqi civilians have died since the attack began.
In Mariupol, the city government - people on the ground - claimed two days ago that 2400 civilian deaths had been confirmed. This is in a city that has been under siege, under heavy bombardment, for 2 weeks. Here is some aerial footage of Mariupol.
One would have to muster very strong evidence to discount such a figure as "vastly exaggerated."
I did not disagree that Russians dislike NATO as a concept. The problem for your construction was always that the Russian government's actions have not been consistent with a limited opposition to Ukrainian NATO accession, which was not a remote possibility in February 2014, when Putin ordered the seizure of Crimea and the partition of Ukraine hours after Yanukovych's flight. While these and subsequent encroachments are not consistent with the goal of mitigating a perceived security threat from Ukraine, they are consistent with colonialism.Quote:
Opposition to Ukraine in NATO and NATO in Ukraine is not Putin, it is Russia. It is Yeltsin, and before him Gorbachev, and every single policy maker of note in Russia for that last three decades.
And yet, consistently, the Kremlin has reacted to Ukraine moving toward the EU, whereas NATO accession was never a short-term or medium-term prospect from the perspective of the US or of actual Ukrainian governments since 2014. At the same time, from 2014 to the declaration of war, Russian media and political discourse up to the President's office has objected to Ukraine's economic and cultural "separation" from Russia.Quote:
Well, you've always been wrong.
Russian position regarding NATO expansion has been clear for decades now. In 2008, US ambassador to Moscow wrote to then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
At some point we must admit that the NATO angle is discredited as propaganda for outsiders.
...Quote:
I would disagree with that. Occam's Razor is applied when we don't have enough information, so we assume the simplest answer is more likely to be correct. Since it is has been well documented that Russia's primary concern is not allowing NATO in Ukraine there's no need to even consider using it. And even if we did apply it, your conclusion certainly wouldn't have been within its confines, because it involves a lot of jumping through hoops to get to it.
The only choice we have is to assess the Russian government and military by their words, actions, and results, not alternate universe hypotheticals. What I described is what's going on; we have a lot of information. The Russian government gives such-and-such reasons for its invasion. The Russian media presents such-and-such stories to justify the government. The Russian military's tactics are such-and-such, their losses are such-and-such, their progress on the ground is such-and-such. It's all verifiable. When assessing a situation one must account for a well-documented set of facts; it is never fruitful to generate facts from first principles. A comprehensive explanation that captures what we observe involves various manifestations of malice, corruption, and incompetence.
I just referenced early-year reporting that shows that OPEC+, led by Russia and the Saudis, just prior to the invasion agreed to gradually return their output to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2022, and the Saudis continue to produce up to their quota, which is indeed for their part already at its pre-pandemic level.Quote:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...udi-arabia-uae
"Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, and his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, are yet to agree to a phone call with the west’s most powerful man – a scenario all but unthinkable during previous administrations."
Especially when the Saudis now only have about 1 million bpd in spare capacity, whereas in late 2019 they maintained 2 million bpd spare capacity (with overall OPEC spare capacity being over 3 million bpd, as opposed to non-Saudi OPEC having no spare capacity today). From all the information I have in front of me your theory is not much more credible or substantive than the Republican Party theory that JCPOA was designed to enable Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
https://i.imgur.com/sgrXufZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/YYzw89v.png
That when Putin says he upholds fascism, we ought to believe him, and ought to have believed him all the other times he advanced Russian ultranationalism in the vein of Ilyin, Galkovsky, and Dugin, and worked to rearrange Russian society on the basis of their conspiratorial, anti-liberal hierachies. The final metastasis into imperial expansion was by those qualities a barely-repressed matter of time - we just dared to hope otherwise. When Putin claims he is fighting for the "right to be and remain Russia", take him seriously and literally.Quote:
I do not understand what is your point with the video.
The video meme alludes to the classic nature of the rhetoric of self-purification and purges of cosmopolitans to strengthen the nation and its cohesion.
The Monroe Doctrine was abandoned nearly 100 years ago, and the US has not attacked another country to annex territory since the 19th century. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the watershed event that henceforth guaranteed geographic buffers between superpowers in terms of nuclear missile deployments up to the present day, and foreclosed the possibility of Ukraine hosting American missiles even if it or the Americans wanted it, which neither ever did, and which the Russian government never believed they did.Quote:
What Russia is doing here is basically implementing Monroe's doctrine on a much smaller scale.
This "smaller scale" is the largest military operation in Europe since WW2, with whose instigator it shares common designs.
This was never a possibility, including for the reason that NATO traditionally does not consider candidates who have compromised territorial integrity and maintain claims on territory they don't control. That disqualification is precisely what Putin triggered by severing parts of Georgia in 2008. The idea that Ukraine had to be destroyed following Russia's attempt to conquer it for fear that it would expeditiously be admitted to NATO for the purpose of activating the alliance's self-defense clause against Russia is very obviously a false pretext. Not that it is too false for the Russians to wield in concept, but it is not even one the Russians themselves invoked.Quote:
It depends how you look at it. Zelensky did call on his western allies to force Russia to return Crimea. The options discussed were purely diplomatic. But, if you're in position of Russia, and all NATO members recognize Crimea as Ukrainian territory, Ukraine joins NATO and activates article 5, on the account that a foreign country has troops in its territory - what happens then?
Germany cannot sustain its economy without expanding, so either it abandons remilitarization or conquers the world.Quote:
Russia can not fight NATO, so their choice is either accept NATO demands or destroy the world.
:thinking:
As the Russians used to say, смерть фашизму.
The actual Finnish people unsurprisingly hated the imperial yoke of Finlandization, and they did not demilitarize - they maintained a strong, well-motivated conscript army to deter the Soviet Union. Poetically, today a majority of Finns report backing NATO accession for Finland for the first time in its history.Quote:
In regards to neutral status, Finland's example suggest it is quite possible, even if they were at war twice in recent years before that agreement was signed. USSR forced them to lease several naval bases after WW2 for 50 years. After the agreement was signed in 1955 or 56, can't remember, in which Finland agreed to neutrality, USSR cancelled the lease, returned all naval bases to Finland, demilitarized the border and there was a generally very prosperous relationship. Finland was free to pursue economic ties with both the West and USSR and develop in peace. It lasted over 70 years, and is currently still going on. I assume it will still go on unless Finland joins NATO.
This is false on two accounts. First, it conflates NATO with the specific, independent, policies of the United States (and sometimes the UK and France). Second, it ignores that the USSR, and later Russia, match the US on the score of "started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats."Quote:
I know people in the West tend to see NATO almost purely in a positive light, but for the rest of the world, it is not so. Objectively, NATO countries have started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats etc... since WW2, by a very large margin.
In Europe, it's really just Serbia and Russia who hate NATO, and they hardly count.
Entirely agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Monty
Russia fears the single market, and most particularly the possibility that its economic 'near abroad' will be annexed away behind a regulatory curtain.
It's ability to maintain its own economic independence - from both china and the west - is entirely dependent on keeping hold of a zone of satellite nations that it can trade into: Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine(!!!), the 'stans.
NATO is irrititating, but it can never be an aggressive threat to a nuclear armed nation.
And your evidence is? Was there a statement from any high ranking Russian official that it would last a few days?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
They may have hoped it would be quick and easy. They may have underestimated Ukraine's ability to resist, but they weren't banking on it.
They're not going "oh my God, it's been longer than 10 days, what are we going to do now????". They were prepared for this, and they will not back down.
Well, if we take that US army during Iraq and Russian army now employ similar precautions to preserve civilian lives, I would expect civilian casulties in Ukraine to be higher due to two factors primarily. First, Russian army is less high tech than US army, and second, Ukrainian army is much more competent than Iraqi army.Quote:
It is a fact, protested by the UN, that the Russians have been targeting civilians, on many occasions, documented by reporters and third parties on the ground, as well as the actual victims. That is what we know so far.
And for reference, after two weeks the Iraqi Body Count project was estimating
Now, if the Russian are deliberately targetting civilians, how many civilians do you think they would have been able to kill so far, considering they have effectively encircled several major cities, with total population in the millions. You mentioned "total war" tactics. Do you know how many civilians died in total war situations, when a major city was within artillery range?
Well, we will see after the war is over.Quote:
Major conventional fighting would basically end in Iraq by three weeks after D0, with the fall of Baghdad, so most of the civilian casualties must have been priced in by the time the quoted estimate was published. The IBC would in a few months revise its estimate of civilian casualties upward by an order of magnitude.
I have seen similar exaggerations in the past. Civilian deaths are often used as a way of propaganda, by inflating numbers and sometimes even deliberately causing them. A true and tried tactic in Sarajevo was to close a street, fire a couple of shells from a motorized artillery, move and open the street for traffic again. Croatian army placed artillery on top of hospitals and schools. Serbian army in 1999 place AA guns in schools (empty at that time, thankfully). NATO didn't take the bait most of the time, but Serbian AA wasn't really much of a threat to NATO planes.Quote:
In Mariupol, the city government - people on the ground - claimed two days ago that 2400 civilian deaths had been confirmed. This is in a city that has been under siege, under heavy bombardment, for 2 weeks. Here is some aerial footage of Mariupol.
One would have to muster very strong evidence to discount such a figure as "vastly exaggerated."
Most of all, I'm taking into account cui bono. Killing of civilians galvanizes the rest of the population and boosts the will to resist, makes them less likely to surrender, and makes the rest of the world even more hostile to your position. I also have trouble believing that either Russian or Ukrainian army would deliberately target civilians. For the various hastily formed Ukrainian units, their civilians who took up arms and nationalistic components of the army like Azov battalion, I'm far less certain.
In the end, I'm not saying I'm absolutely certain that the numbers are exaggerated, I'm just saying I'm sceptical.
I would disagree there. Even though early protests appear to have been spontaneous, US and NATO quickly jumped in and ended up even setting up the government of Ukraine. Do you think that Russians needed the recording of Victoria Nuland to know that?Quote:
I did not disagree that Russians dislike NATO as a concept. The problem for your construction was always that the Russian government's actions have not been consistent with a limited opposition to Ukrainian NATO accession, which was not a remote possibility in February 2014, when Putin ordered the seizure of Crimea and the partition of Ukraine hours after Yanukovych's flight. While these and subsequent encroachments are not consistent with the goal of mitigating a perceived security threat from Ukraine, they are consistent with colonialism.
This is blatant disregard of the facts. If you ignore three decades of warnings from Russia, the rhetoric from Kiev and the West, the presence of NATO arms and instructors, then yes, you might construe that it has nothing to do with NATO.Quote:
And yet, consistently, the Kremlin has reacted to Ukraine moving toward the EU, whereas NATO accession was never a short-term or medium-term prospect from the perspective of the US or of actual Ukrainian governments since 2014. At the same time, from 2014 to the declaration of war, Russian media and political discourse up to the President's office has objected to Ukraine's economic and cultural "separation" from Russia.
At some point we must admit that the NATO angle is discredited as propaganda for outsiders.
Your information is coming from the western and Ukrainian media and government officials, neither of which are independent, unbiased observers. Western reporters on the ground are within Ukrainian units and within Ukrainian controlled territory. How many of them are in Donbas with the separatists? How many reports have there been that Ukrainian army is shelling Donbas population centers daily? A few maybe, if you look hard enough. They create their own echo chamber. How many reports there are about 2500 civilian deaths in Mariupol? Dozens and dozens. All traced back to a statement by city official in Mariupol, a possibly biased source.Quote:
The only choice we have is to assess the Russian government and military by their words, actions, and results, not alternate universe hypotheticals. What I described is what's going on; we have a lot of information. The Russian government gives such-and-such reasons for its invasion. The Russian media presents such-and-such stories to justify the government. The Russian military's tactics are such-and-such, their losses are such-and-such, their progress on the ground is such-and-such. It's all verifiable. When assessing a situation one must account for a well-documented set of facts; it is never fruitful to generate facts from first principles. A comprehensive explanation that captures what we observe involves various manifestations of malice, corruption, and incompetence.
Like the report in Syria about Russians shelling a hospital. When you trace that back through several reports, you get to a report by MSF in French that says that a shell hit a different building further away, and the blast caused some windows to open and glass to break in the hospital.
I am talking about a more recent demand, by Biden, for OPEC to increase production which was rebuffed. You can see the date on the article.Quote:
I just referenced early-year reporting that shows that OPEC+, led by Russia and the Saudis, just prior to the invasion agreed to gradually return their output to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2022, and the Saudis continue to produce up to their quota, which is indeed for their part already at its pre-pandemic level.
Especially when the Saudis now only have about 1 million bpd in spare capacity, whereas in late 2019 they maintained 2 million bpd spare capacity (with overall OPEC spare capacity being over 3 million bpd, as opposed to non-Saudi OPEC having no spare capacity today). From all the information I have in front of me your theory is not much more credible or substantive than the Republican Party theory that JCPOA was designed to enable Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
And you accuse me of engaging in hypotheticals? NATO enlargement was real and verifiable. Russian opposition to it has been real and verifiable. Russian warnings have been real and verifiable.Quote:
That when Putin says he upholds fascism, we ought to believe him, and ought to have believed him all the other times he advanced Russian ultranationalism in the vein of Ilyin, Galkovsky, and Dugin, and worked to rearrange Russian society on the basis of their conspiratorial, anti-liberal hierachies. The final metastasis into imperial expansion was by those qualities a barely-repressed matter of time - we just dared to hope otherwise. When Putin claims he is fighting for the "right to be and remain Russia", take him seriously and literally.
The video meme alludes to the classic nature of the rhetoric of self-purification and purges of cosmopolitans to strengthen the nation and its cohesion.
Monroe Doctrine appears to be dead when not needed and is resurrected when it is needed again. Last one to say that it is still alive and well was John Bolton just a few years back.Quote:
The Monroe Doctrine was abandoned nearly 100 years ago, and the US has not attacked another country to annex territory since the 19th century. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the watershed event that henceforth guaranteed geographic buffers between superpowers in terms of nuclear missile deployments up to the present day, and foreclosed the possibility of Ukraine hosting American missiles even if it or the Americans wanted it, which neither ever did, and which the Russian government never believed they did.
Smaller scale in terms of geographic area.Quote:
This "smaller scale" is the largest military operation in Europe since WW2, with whose instigator it shares common designs.
Well, then NATO officials should have been encouraging Ukraine. There are examples of NATO countries with disputed territory. Parts of Serbian and Croatian borders are still disputed. Slovenia and Croatia have a dispute about territorial waters.Quote:
This was never a possibility, including for the reason that NATO traditionally does not consider candidates who have compromised territorial integrity and maintain claims on territory they don't control. That disqualification is precisely what Putin triggered by severing parts of Georgia in 2008. The idea that Ukraine had to be destroyed following Russia's attempt to conquer it for fear that it would expeditiously be admitted to NATO for the purpose of activating the alliance's self-defense clause against Russia is very obviously a false pretext. Not that it is too false for the Russians to wield in concept, but it is not even one the Russians themselves invoked.
They hated it so much that they have never been in favour of joining NATO. They have became an EU member states, they have developed cooperation with NATO but their refusal to join NATO and allow foreign military bases on its territory has kept them safe. This is the first time there's a bit over 50% support for NATO, in the midst of an ongoing major crisis and unprecedented media hysteria. I am not sure it will last.Quote:
The actual Finnish people unsurprisingly hated the imperial yoke of Finlandization, and they did not demilitarize - they maintained a strong, well-motivated conscript army to deter the Soviet Union. Poetically, today a majority of Finns report backing NATO accession for Finland for the first time in its history.
I said "NATO countries", not "NATO". As for the numbers, do a count and compare.Quote:
This is false on two accounts. First, it conflates NATO with the specific, independent, policies of the United States (and sometimes the UK and France). Second, it ignores that the USSR, and later Russia, match the US on the score of "started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats."
In the end, I think this statement is the crux of the issue. The very problem with NATO is that they think they get to decide who counts.Quote:
In Europe, it's really just Serbia and Russia who hate NATO, and they hardly count.
Well, I doubt it will be total disarmament.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
1946 Iran Troops deployed in northern province.Quote:
If you put the window back to:from WW2 to present I think the Warsaw pact actually has a worse history in regards to interfering and propping up every revolution in the third world. Not to mention when France left NATO in the 60s they weren't invaded, the US just closed it's bases there. Not like the USSR invading Hungary or Czechoslovakia to keep them in the Warsaw Pact. Propping up and funding a communist revolution movement in almost every African and South American country certainly wasn't the kindest, nor was the US supporting the cruel dictatorships that tried to fight those communist revolutions.
If the window is post USSR, then yes, NATO countries have been involved in more wars and interventions but not necessarily as NATO. I know the intervention in Yugoslavia/Serbia is a touchy subject, the next 'NATO' war was the reaction to 9/11 which involved fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Libya was the only real 'adventurism' of NATO.
1946-1949 China Major US army presence of about 100,000 troops, fighting, training and advising local combatants.
1947-1949 Greece US forces wage a 3-year counterinsurgency campaign.
1948 Italy Heavy CIA involvement in national elections.
1948-1954 Philippines Commando operations, "secret" CIA war.
1950-1953 Korea Major forces engaged in war in Korean peninsula.
1953 Iran CIA overthrows government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Read More
1954 Vietnam Financial and materiel support for colonial French military operations, leads eventually to direct US military involvement.
1954 Guatemala CIA overthrows the government of President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman.
1958 Lebanon US marines and army units totaling 14,000 land.
1958 Panama Clashes between US forces in Canal Zone and local citizens.
1959 Haiti Marines land.
1960 Congo CIA-backed overthrow and assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
1960-1964 Vietnam Gradual introduction of military advisors and special forces.
1961 Cuba CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.
1962 Cuba Nuclear threat and naval blockade.
1962 Laos CIA-backed military coup.
1963 Ecuador CIA backs military overthrow of President Jose Maria Valesco Ibarra.
1964 Panama Clashes between US forces in Canal Zone and local citizens.
1964 Brazil CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government of Joao Goulart and Gen. Castello Branco takes power. Read More
1965-1975 Vietnam Large commitment of military forces, including air, naval and ground units numbering up to 500,000+ troops. Full-scale war, lasting for ten years.
1965 Indonesia CIA-backed army coup overthrows President Sukarno and brings Gen. Suharto to power.
1965 Congo CIA backed military coup overthrows President Joseph Kasavubu and brings Joseph Mobutu to power.
1965 Dominican Republic 23,000 troops land.
1965-1973 Laos Bombing campaign begin, lasting eight years.
1966 Ghana CIA-backed military coup ousts President Kwame Nkrumah.
1966-1967 Guatemala Extensive counter-insurgency operation.
1969-1975 Cambodia CIA supports military coup against Prince Sihanouk, bringing Lon Nol to power. Intensive bombing for seven years along border with Vietnam.
1970 Oman Counter-insurgency operation, including coordination with Iranian marine invasion.
1971-1973 Laos Invasion by US and South Vietnames forces.
1973 Chile CIA-backed military coup ousts government of President Salvador Allende. Gen. Augusto Pinochet comes to power.
1975 Cambodia Marines land, engage in combat with government forces.
1976-1992 Angola Military and CIA operations.
1980 Iran Special operations units land in Iranian desert. Helicopter malfunction leads to aborting of planned raid.
1981 Libya Naval jets shoot down two Libyan jets in maneuvers over the Mediterranean.
1981-1992 El Salvador CIA and special forces begin a long counterinsurgency campaign.
1981-1990 Nicaragua CIA directs exile "Contra" operations. US air units drop sea mines in harbors.
1982-1984 Lebanon Marines land and naval forces fire on local combatants.
1983 Grenada Military forces invade Grenada.
1983-1989 Honduras Large program of military assistance aimed at conflict in Nicaragua.
1984 Iran Two Iranian jets shot down over the Persian Gulf.
1986 Libya US aircraft bomb the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi, including direct strikes at the official residence of President Muamar al Qadaffi.
1986 Bolivia Special Forces units engage in counter-insurgency.
1987-1988 Iran Naval forces block Iranian shipping. Civilian airliner shot down by missile cruiser.
1989 Libya Naval aircraft shoot down two Libyan jets over Gulf of Sidra.
1989 Philippines CIA and Special Forces involved in counterinsurgency.
1989-1990 Panama 27,000 troops as well as naval and air power used to overthrow government of President Noriega.
1990 Liberia Troops deployed.
1990-1991 Iraq Major military operation, including naval blockade, air strikes; large number of troops attack Iraqi forces in occupied Kuwait.
1991-2003 Iraq Control of Iraqi airspace in north and south of the country with periodic attacks on air and ground targets.
1991 Haiti CIA-backed military coup ousts President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
1992-1994 Somalia Special operations forces intervene.
1992-1994 Yugoslavia Major role in NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.
1993-1995 Bosnia Active military involvement with air and ground forces.
1994-1996 Haiti Troops depose military rulers and restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to office.
1995 Croatia Krajina Serb airfields attacked.
1996-1997 Zaire (Congo) Marines involved in operations in eastern region of the country.
1997 Liberia Troops deployed.
1998 Sudan Air strikes destroy country's major pharmaceutical plant.
1998 Afghanistan Attack on targets in the country.
1998 Iraq Four days of intensive air and missile strikes.
1999 Yugoslavia Major involvement in NATO air strikes.
2001 Macedonia NATO troops shift and partially disarm Albanian rebels.
2001 Afghanistan Air attacks and ground operations oust Taliban government and install a new regime.
2003 Iraq Invasion with large ground, air and naval forces ousts government of Saddam Hussein and establishes new government.
2003-present Iraq Occupation force of 150,000 troops in protracted counter-insurgency war
2004 Haiti Marines land. CIA-backed forces overthrow President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Soviets/Russians are not much better, but they do have a shorter list.
In the end, I'm not excusing Russian aggression. I am a pacifist and I detest wars. I'm just explaining why Russia felt this was necessary. I also think the Ukraine's neutrality is the fastest and safest way to end the crisis and return to some semblance of normalcy for the foreseeable future.
NATO is primarily a way for US to remain the primary decision maker in Europe. It is a tool of US foreign policy. In most cases, you can use US and NATO interchangeably. Germany and France were vehemently against extending invitations to Ukraine and Georgia at the Bucurest summit in 2008, but relented under immense US pressure. They were aware of the risk.Quote:
I think it's important to separate NATO and the US though because US foreign policy is not equal to NATO. There's no shortage of flawed US interventions but that doesn't equal NATO. Same with France and the UK, their intervention in former colonies does not equal NATO. That's why the Falkland War did not get NATO support behind the UK just some intel support from the US an France pausing their exocet missile sales to Argentina.
It is not fair. Unfortunately, it is how the world works. I personally detest NATO, but I would still be opposed to Serbia taking any hostile actions towards it, even if they were legally and morally right. The discrepancy in power is hundreds of times bigger than between Russia and Ukraine, of course, but it is the principle. Could Russia place missiles in Serbia to bypass NATO missile shield in eastern Europe? Legally, why not. Serbia is a sovereign nation, we have every legal and moral right to decide our own alliances. Realistically? Of course not.Quote:
Bottom line though, NATO is not a direct threat to Russia as nuclear deterrence will prevent any direct NATO aggression. Russia demanding to keep a sphere of nation's that don't necessarily want to be vulnerable to Russian bullying isn't exactly fair either.
Anyway, I think we have exhausted all avenues of dialogue here. I like to visit backroom from time to time to gauge what slightly more informed westerners think of a given issue. Granted, the sampling size is too small right now, but, it's a force of habit.
It's been a nice trip down the memory lane. Have fun guys and stay safe.
As this Twitter thread said it, "Moscow's worst nightmare isn't hypersonic missiles in Ukraine -- it's the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism."Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
See also from this week:
Quote:
EU countries support plan for world-first carbon border tariff
European Union countries on Tuesday backed the bloc's plan to impose a world-first carbon dioxide emissions tariff on imports of polluting goods, although the finer details will need to be worked out in upcoming negotiations.
The EU wants to introduce CO2 emissions costs from 2026 on imports of steel, cement, fertilisers, aluminium and electricity -- a move aimed at protecting European industry from being undercut by cheaper goods made in countries with weaker environmental rules.
A three-year transition phase for the levy would begin in 2023, so EU countries and the European parliament are racing to negotiate and approve the rules this year. Finance ministers from EU countries on Tuesday agreed on their negotiating position.
Sarmatian, don't think I'm being mean to you when I insist that you can't rely on a prior favorable image of the Russian government/military to guide your judgement in a developing situation. Very few analysts envisioned the war developing the way it has, in part because of how highly they rated Russian capabilities. But good analysts change their opinions with new facts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
The evidence has been laid out throughout the thread, including the immediately preceding posts. That the Russians did not expect strong resistance on the ground, or did not expect resistance to be effective, is overwhelmingly indicated at this point. There are the captured timetables for one, and the state media essay published on Feb. 26 proclaiming the dawn of a new world order and the resolution of the "Ukrainian question", in which Ukraine had been "returned" to Russia (the essay was immediately retracted upon publication).
On the ground, troops and officers were not informed of the operation prior to D0, and were not allowed to organize their assets appropriately, as Putin concealed his intent from almost everyone (except Western intelligence). Russian forces were rushed from the border into Ukrainian cities without support or combined arms tactics, and without securing their lines of communication. Their units were not provisioned for determined combat and its expenditure of basic resources such as fuel and ammo, to the point that widespread hunger and equipment abandonment was observed days into the invasion, continuing even after all this time. Some tankers, lacking reactive armor for their vehicles, improvised birds' nests on their cupolas in an attempt to defend against AT rockets. Their air force - an estimated quarter of all Russian combat frames were allocated to the theater - has, as of a week ago, been running half as many sorties as aircraft on hand on paper, leaving air supremacy elusive. Issues of missing or unmaintained equipment have been widespread to the point of helping paralyze operations. Whatever materiel they stockpiled at the staging areas has run low enough that Russian cities near the border are being requisitioned for civilian food, trucks, and other supplies for the war effort. Days into the war, Putin asked Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Syria to supplement the effort with manpower; Russian international deployments in the Caucasus and elsewhere have been drawn down to reinforce the war effort. Irregular Ukrainian forces, whether small units, special forces, or militias, continue to strike at Russian supply columns and depots with regularity. The invaders still have not sorted out the lack of coordination between units and axes and combat arms, nor discovered an efficient way to resupply the frontlines's daily activities while stockpiling supplies for a new offensive. Russian forces are so overstretched and disorganized that besieged Ukrainian formations out of Mykolaiv and Kharkiv have been able to prosecute successful deep counteroffensives. In the past days, Russian forces near Kyiv and elsewhere were first observed entrenching and fortifying their positions - an acknowledgement of the transition to more static battle.
Russia has taken at least as many casualties in 3 weeks as it did in 10 years of Afghanistan. Of the 3500 tanks in Russian active service, around 10% have been lost in the course of the invasion to date.
Just for a start. I'm not even including more speculative incidents like Western intelligence assessing that Putin has begun purging his siloviki, and has asked China to supply him with food and other basics that one would think any "great power" (let alone superpower) could self-provision. Or other items I've posted in this thread alone that I missed in the roundup.
Now, it's possible that all of the above does reflect Putin's best and considered preparation, that the Russian military's competence in all domains of conventional war just happens to be at or below the level of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Army, with that lack of ability producing the results we observe - but that just brings us right back to the issue of underpreparation. If Putin could not rationally guarantee the superiority of his own force at peak capacity over that of his opponent's at the time of decision, he was acting with lack of preparation by that fact at a minimum.
Saddam Hussein too thought he had prepared a quick seizure, a question of days, of Khuzestan beyond the Shatt al-Arab. He calculated that the young Iranian regime was too disorganized and unpopular to resist, that the concentrated Arabic-speaking plurality of the border province would joyfully rise to greet him as a liberator - but he was wrong. Hussein was unprepared for war with Iran. At least he could replace his lost equipment with imports, and suffered from no shortage of young men...
The only evidence for Russian foresight that I am aware of is the government's effort to expand conscription between late 2021 and the immediate prelude to the war.
Why do you think the Russian military has been so ineffective against Ukraine when all of Russia's worst enemies, including the US, expected so much more? Why is there a consensus among both Western and Third World or independent analysts that Russia is horribly underperforming? Even Caspian Report characterizes this war as "the biggest strategic blunder of Putin's life", and he assumes Russia can still overwhelm the Ukranian army. There is no such thing as preparing to underperform. Any branching plan should predict and account for inadequacy, not permit it. If your answer ever veers in the direction of assuming that Putin must have intended the decimation of the RF Armed Forces, stop immediately and reconsider.
This all demands an answer, not a glib reliance on the sobriety and wisdom of a totalitarian government (who as a historical matter tend to fail miserably at warmaking). I expect more than "Trust the plan." Is that unfair?
A few links on the matter to flesh out the case:
A 2017 analysis that predicted all the flaws the Russian military is manifesting today.
Reports of severe challenges of discipline and provisioning among Russian soldiers assembled in Belarus prior to the invasion.
How the defense routed a Russian BTG at the Battle of Voznosensk (nearly eliminating the threat to Mykolaiv and Odessa).
Visual explainer of Russian performance
Civilians in WW2 overwhelmingly died from starvation, disease, or organized mass murder and execution, not day-to-day fighting, even bombing. But they were still dying from combat and bombing, and both sides were targeting them.Quote:
Now, if the Russian are deliberately targetting civilians, how many civilians do you think they would have been able to kill so far, considering they have effectively encircled several major cities, with total population in the millions. You mentioned "total war" tactics. Do you know how many civilians died in total war situations, when a major city was within artillery range?
The reporting indicates that the Russians have been escalating their conduct against civilians day by day - the first week actually did somewhat conform to your interpretation - so we should expect to see casualties increasing over time for one thing.
There are also countervailing factors. The first is that the country has been largely depopulated around the frontlines, with the large cities of Kharkiv and Mariupol excepted. They're still densely-populated on top of being the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the war so far. Overall though, going by the latest UN estimate of 10 million refugees/internally-displaced (out of 38 million sans the occupied territories), much of the less-dense East must be a proverbial ghost town. Moreover, Ukrainian cities, whether as Cold War remnant or a product of the past decade's militarization, are densely built with bomb shelters or equivalent. Even when people remain in the battle zone, they are often going to be spending at least nights in a relatively-safe space. As an example, the Drama Theater in Mariupol that was leveled the other day happened to house a bomb shelter, which hopefully mitigated the human damage of the bombing.
But all in all, even a tally of ten thousand civilian deaths nationally up to now really ought not stretch the imagination.
When one's position relies on numerous actors on the ground being publicity-seeking liars with the exception of the invading armies who happen to have extensive track records of civilian-targeting and war crimes, one rightfully won't get traction. I can't think of any instances in history in which denial of atrocities has been vindicated. It puts me in mind of the people who claim that reports of civilian casualties from drone strikes are presumptively fabrications by malicious terrorists and credulous media outlets. The mere insinuation of exaggeration is also beside the point when we have physical conditions against which to judge claims; this doesn't happen in a vacuum.Quote:
I have seen similar exaggerations in the past.
This entire invasion, and indeed most war, is an insoluble question of cui bono. But war is not rational, and any benefits are usually more emotional than anything.Quote:
Most of all, I'm taking into account cui bono.
One Ukrainian think tank, about a week ago, released an estimate for Russian casualties of 45000, including the "demoralized." One can compare such a figure to various facts, starting with other available estimates - there skepticism is justified.Quote:
In the end, I'm not saying I'm absolutely certain that the numbers are exaggerated, I'm just saying I'm sceptical.
Skepticism at the claim of a few thousand civilian deaths over three weeks of a conflict involving half a million combatants, hundreds of aircraft, over a thousand guided missiles, and thousands of artillery pieces fighting block-by-block through large cities is entirely unreasonable and demands rigorous justification. So too does an orientation that discounts the statements or recordings of dozens of eyewitness reporters, civilians, and government officials across many locations and times, that they are being attacked.
You can't treat this in the same way you would treat a claim by the Ukrainian government that all Ukrainians are ready to fight to the death for the motherland, or a Russian government claim that civilians are lining up in the streets to thank and cheer advancing columns.
The problem lies with your own bias. Russia, the state aggressor, routinely makes provably-false claims, from battlefield fakes and over-successful updates up to cynical planetary conspiracies; normal people on the ground have no such track record in war, period. The evidence for many specific Russian war crimes in Syria is unassailable. The pernicious desire to take the Russian government's (or their allies') word for everything on probity, but immediately dismiss anything said against them regardless of source or corroboration as intrinsically tainted, does not merit debating. Beginning from a pro-Russian stance is not neutrality or objectivity, and there is no neutral or objective way to compile and assess all available claims and conclude otherwise.Quote:
Your information is coming from the western and Ukrainian media and government officials, neither of which are independent, unbiased observers.
Like the report in Syria about Russians shelling a hospital. When you trace that back through several reports, you get to a report by MSF in French that says that a shell hit a different building further away, and the blast caused some windows to open and glass to break in the hospital.
It's honestly shameful, intellectually and morally. It's even worse than automatically dismissing the long history of American war crimes and criminal wars as the raving of a freedom-hating Communist, since those people are likely not straying from their asserted values when they BS.
You claimed that Putin formed a secret agreement with the Saudis and/or OPEC to prevent production rises but didn't present evidence that there was either an agreement or that production rises have been prevented.Quote:
I am talking about a more recent demand, by Biden, for OPEC to increase production which was rebuffed. You can see the date on the article.
Don't be this way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7l0Rq9E8MY
That is, as we say, fake news.Quote:
I would disagree there. Even though early protests appear to have been spontaneous, US and NATO quickly jumped in and ended up even setting up the government of Ukraine. Do you think that Russians needed the recording of Victoria Nuland to know that?
Russian rhetoric and justifications for war in Ukraine have been verifiable too, in terms of their having been promulgated. The issue is "Anglo-Saxon" interference in the Russian sphere of influence (the perception is that the EU is driven by Anglo-Saxon interests as well). Russian security is not the stake here. The Putin regime's worldview, and indeed its own survival, is on the contrary deeply implicated.Quote:
And you accuse me of engaging in hypotheticals? NATO enlargement was real and verifiable. Russian opposition to it has been real and verifiable. Russian warnings have been real and verifiable.
And it's just so damn sad to think some people believe Russia is mechanistically doomed to be governed by fascist tyrants (even though Putin is the most brutal and aggressive Russian leader in 70 years), let alone that fascist tyrants deserve to be catered to and appeased. But if this is your genuine belief you have dramatically misunderstood both Russia and Putin, to ill. In extremity there is a specific category of Russian nationalist, properly fascist, who believes in national and global rebirth in the competition for world domination between Anglo-Saxon and Eurasian civilizations. What's up is that Putin went all in on this manifesto. National purification and restoration through the reclamation of ancestral living space is the name of the game. There is no doubt that Putin preferred to suppress Ukrainian dissent without firing a shot, but think how perverse it would be to frame Western efforts to integrate Ukraine with Europe as at fault for "provocatively" encouraging Ukraine to reorient from Russia.Quote:
I'm just explaining why Russia felt this was necessary. I also think the Ukraine's neutrality is the fastest and safest way to end the crisis and return to some semblance of normalcy for the foreseeable future.
Abraham Lincoln had something to say about this in his famous Cooper Union speech:
I just wish Putin had tried it on Kazakhstan first, so that China would have kicked his ambitions to the curb.Quote:
When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication. Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events. This, plainly stated, is your language.
[...]
Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"
To be sure, what the robber demanded of me - my money - was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.
The facts are that Russia at no point attempted to use its extensive political or economic leverage to guarantee a limited guardrail against NATO presence. Never. Every action it took was toward capturing Ukraine geopolitically and geoeconomically. The issue between 2015 and 2021 was not that Ukraine was somehow verging on dragging in NATO against Russia, or vice versa, but that Russia was relentlessly warring against Ukraine and trying to seize even more of its territory. Russia could have secured Ukrainian neutrality any time it wanted. It didn't because Russia, that is to say Putin, wanted more than neutrality.Quote:
This is blatant disregard of the facts. If you ignore three decades of warnings from Russia, the rhetoric from Kiev and the West, the presence of NATO arms and instructors, then yes, you might construe that it has nothing to do with NATO.
It's not 2014 anymore. There's just too much evidence on hand, and you're not analyzing any of it to stick with well-worn prewar agitprop. The picture you present is one the Kremlin has long promoted to the West, but it does not fit with their behavior, Ukrainian behavior, or Western behavior.
Your insistence on scapegoating NATO is also logically self-defeating, since if Russia is so inherently warlike and aggressive, it is too dangerous not to proactively contain. Which propagandist's bright idea was it to posit a zero-sum contest between Russia and the West without realizing that someone might not like Russia's side of that equation?
Russia has never tolerated the level of economic and political independence of its neighbors that ours have with us today. Should we be less tolerant, or Russia more? Which governments are treated as possessing agency?Quote:
Monroe Doctrine appears to be dead when not needed and is resurrected when it is needed again. Last one to say that it is still alive and well was John Bolton just a few years back.
It's uncomfortable to hear this when Slovenia, Czechia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Denmark all express willingness to dispatch a humanitarian expeditionary force into Ukraine, with other members on the verge of signing on, and the US role so far has been that of the guy holding his friend back from a bar fight.Quote:
NATO is primarily a way for US to remain the primary decision maker in Europe. It is a tool of US foreign policy.
Why would they have encouraged Ukraine to abandon its annexed territories? After 2014 the US, and most of NATO outside Eastern Europe, had near-zero will to pursue NATO membership for Ukraine, whereas they had significant will, and interest, in stopping Russian annexations from succeeding.Quote:
Well, then NATO officials should have been encouraging Ukraine. There are examples of NATO countries with disputed territory. Parts of Serbian and Croatian borders are still disputed. Slovenia and Croatia have a dispute about territorial waters.
Anyway, since at least the 1990s one of the principles of NATO candidacy has been
The Baltic countries had to conclude a treaty settling their internecine disputes over the marine shelf, plus claims over other Polish and Russian borders, and guarantee the rights to ethnic Russians, in order to join (e.g. the NATO Madrid Summit). A more proximate example, Romania had to give up its claims on... Bukovina, IIRC. The whole point of NATO is of course to promote close political cooperation between member states, which they cannot do if they're consumed by irredentist jealousy. We can see it's not absolute, given that Spain sometimes acts like it wants to dispute Gibraltar's status, and Turkey and Greece often resent the very existence of one another (there's also the Cyprus backdoor), but these have not interfered with the functioning of the alliance. Indeed, the alliance is goes far to deconflict outbursts along these lines. I don't know anything about Croatia, but I would say the puny area under their claims, the low risk/absence of attendant conflict, and Croatia's willingness to at least work with international legal frameworks to mediate disputes is decisive. On the other hand, that Ukraine was in a de facto state of war with Russia - of all countries - was also decisive in the other direction.Quote:
States which have ethnic disputes or external territorial disputes, including irredentist claims, or internal jurisdictional disputes must settle those disputes by peaceful means in accordance with OSCE principles. Resolution of such disputes would be a factor in determining whether to invite a state to join the Alliance.
That's a rather profound difference, but the contraction may be revealing. If some actor, the Russian government or otherwise, just doesn't like Western countries as a category (regardless of the existence of NATO as an overlapping category) because they're 'mean to Russia', then screw 'em.Quote:
I said "NATO countries", not "NATO".
Finnish refusal to join NATO was not conditional on any love they had for being subordinate to the Soviet Union. Nor did love for the Soviets generate a large and sophisticated military built on mandatory service and trained to fight just one hypothetical adversary.Quote:
They hated it so much that they have never been in favour of joining NATO. They have became an EU member states, they have developed cooperation with NATO but their refusal to join NATO and allow foreign military bases on its territory has kept them safe.
Finnish strength of arms is what "kept them safe" during the Cold War. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, despite Kekkonen's neutrality policy, the new weakness of Russia, and the very engraving at the 18th-c. Helsinki Sveaborg fortress - "Progeny, stand here on your own foundation, and do not rely on foreign help" - Finland speedily chose to pursue de facto NATO integration and cooperation.
You rely too much on the language of a wife-beater. Should "we" smack your country around a little, or something? You could always choose safety to make it stop. You say it's how the world works, no?
I don't believe your track record on media hysteria and geopolitical intuition looks strong (over 60% in the latest polling btw). If Finland does join NATO, please don't lay accountability onto the Finnish people for their treacherous aggresssion towards poor put-upon Russia, or on Western media for tricking them with "hysteria."Quote:
This is the first time there's a bit over 50% support for NATO, in the midst of an ongoing major crisis and unprecedented media hysteria. I am not sure it will last.
You would be displeased if I were to produce an accounting of every war, proxy war, military deployment, and act of political interference that Russia was involved in over 70 years. More awkward should be the realization that for the first time in generations US forces are involved in almost no hostilities anywhere on Earth, whereas Russia is at this very moment the country doing the Hitlerism. Not unimportant details for pacifists to take into account.Quote:
As for the numbers, do a count and compare.
Why does Russia get to decide? I'd much rather NATO decide than any other bodger.Quote:
In the end, I think this statement is the crux of the issue. The very problem with NATO is that they think they get to decide who counts.
Maybe it's time to stop framing things in terms of national teams or blocs to arbitrarily support and think consequentially. What kind of values are harmed or promoted by a given foreign policy stance? What principles will one use to measure world events? As a leftist and an anti-fascist, it's very obvious to me that calamitous, world-raping reactionaries ought to be destroyed, and I choose my friends according to those values. The question is how to assemble the resources and coalition to secure my priorities. The sole credible option is American and European power.
I hate this handwave so much. It's a normative statement that reflects personal preferences, not an actual description of "how the world works" nor an ethically-just premise. I have preferences too, in which I put much more stock.Quote:
It is not fair. Unfortunately, it is how the world works.
I'll leave you with this: Why does every European country occupied by either, or both, Germany or the Soviet Union prefer to be in an alliance with Germany over an alliance with the Soviet rump? Why does Russian militarism produce an environment of instant consensus support for German militarization?
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Tangentially, Serbia's relationship with Russia almost comes across like that between Donald Trump and his loyalists. Serbia is part of NATO's Partnership for Peace program and hosts a Russian military base (Nis). (To be clear, I'm not saying Serbia should be prohibited from hosting Russian bases in principle, though wartime would be a different matter.)Quote:
Serbia is a sovereign nation, we have every legal and moral right to decide our own alliances. Realistically? Of course not.
Spmetla, Ukraine maintained an arsenal of 100mm AT cannons before the war. Is there any point in keeping them crewed these days? Have they managed to kill anything?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1504390459296305167
I'm not sure I have confidence any longer that the Russians retain sufficient fresh and capable mobile elements to develop and exploit any breakthroughs toward a rapid double envelopment of the Donbas front.
https://i.imgur.com/zDRHVYb.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ymD2C10.jpg
For 8 years, Ukraine studied the blade.
While Russia was bombing hospitals in Syria, Ukraine practiced the blade.
While Putin trolled the West for the sake of vanity, Ukraine used the blade.
Now that the war is here everyone is unprepared. Except for Ukraine.
For Ukraine studied the blade.
(Not enough is made of the fact that Ukraine spent all the time between Maidan and now transforming its moribund military into the second-most powerful - even on paper - ground force in Europe. So this is the power of militarization. Had Russia spent the same time copying Ukraine at scale, their military could be a genuine threat to Euro-NATO.)
War_Mapper has been creating frequently-updated maps of territorial control in the conflict. Here is an interactive version, though it may not be updated as often as the static images.
The fascist Yuri's maps, also about a week apart, are quite funny when juxtaposed with his impertinent brashness about Russian progress. I wonder if any of his viewers notice this?
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
EDIT: Wrong thread
There's a hilarious youtube video that explores the border in dispute between Croatia and Serbia. The border was settled some time ago as being the course of the river. The problem being that the river has changed course over the years, so the two countries have been claiming the river at various historical points as being the true border. With a small territory ending up being unclaimed by both sides, as either claiming it would mean accepting an argument for a border that's unfavourable to them. I think there's an understanding between the two countries that no one outside those two are allowed to move in, and anyone from those two moving in will be expelled by them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Boris Romanchenko, 96, who lived through imprisonment at Buchenwald, Peenemunde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen, was killed by bombing or shelling in Kharkiv last Friday. Definitely a new world order being built by Russia.
The Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda yesterday printed the following, before it was hastily edited out.
9861 people killed, 16153 people injured would be below Ukrainian estimates (themselves unclear as to whether they are restricted to the Russian armed forces alone) but on the higher end of US estimates.Quote:
According to preliminary estimates of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, from the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine to March 20, the RF Armed Forces have lost 96 aircraft, 118 helicopters and 14.7 thousand military personnel.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation refutes the information of the Ukrainian General Staff about the alleged large-scale losses of the RF Armed Forces in Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, during the special operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces lost 9861 people killed, 16153 people were injured.
Читайте на WWW.KP.RU: https://www.kp.ru/online/news/4672522/
The entire Russian armed force in active service, including conscripts in advanced training, was 900000 at the start of the war, or 360000 when comprising just the Army, Airborne, and Marines. Losses among Rosgvardia, mercenaries, and separatists are not figured.
10% losses from total national maneuver elements in less than a month would have been staggering in WW2. Today it is paralyzing.
Nice PostQuote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
There's not really too much point in 100mm AT cannons. They can kill anything but MBTs but require a crew, can't track moving targets well, and are vulnerable once found. They do have a good a rate of fire. They could be used as direct fire short range artillery or attacking things behind walls and a few other specialized tasks. Modern disposable rockets and ATGMs are much better but in this type of war AT guns may used for territorial forces and other lower tiered forces or maybe even for training.Quote:
Spmetla, Ukraine maintained an arsenal of 100mm AT cannons before the war. Is there any point in keeping them crewed these days? Have they managed to kill anything?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1504390459296305167
.
Looking at the videos of the Russians moving hardware out of South Ossetia and the Kuril islands I think they're scraping the barrel for serviceable equipment with some levels of modernization.Quote:
I'm not sure I have confidence any longer that the Russians retain sufficient fresh and capable mobile elements to develop and exploit any breakthroughs toward a rapid double envelopment of the Donbas front
Also, considering losses of vehicles, the replacements for crew members will degrade crew proficiency if they don't get a chance to work together a bit before combat so I think with the casualty rate as it is will still end in a net result of degraded combat ability for their armored platforms of all types.
The laying of minefields and digging trenches and fighting positions are certainly proof that in most areas the Russian attack has culminated and outside the Eastern front it will be a battle of attrition as each side tries to gather enough offensive ability to mount an effective attack.
The Ukrainians still can't muster enough armor and artillery in reserve yet to conduct anything more than company sized local counter-attacks and considering the lower numbers of these weapons in their hands the losses are felt a bit more firmly than the Russian losses. The Russians can still rely on overwhelming artillery power to stop any effective larger attacks.
I think the Russians are most vulnerable NE of Kiev on those thin lines but seeing the reinforcement of their positions west of Kiev I think this is where the Ukrainians will concentrate most of their newly raised forces. Getting the Capital out of artillery range and eliminating the threat of encirclement seems to be the main effort for the Ukraine while they hold on other fronts with secondary efforts to the NE front to keep lines open to the East. The southern front seems to be a economy of force mission to just deny the Russians an advance North along the river or West toward Odessa.
The shipping of more capable ADA systems like the S300 will go a long way in denying the Russians use of CAS and CCA though the Russian capability with even better systems denies the Uk AF the ability to mount sorties near any border regions.
Seeing as you listed plenty of cases in which the US sent troops in support of an existing government and by their request can you really count those as invasions? The US defense of South Korea was not an offensive war for just one example on your list and this was also a UN backed mission against the North Korean aggressors that were backed by the PRC and USSR.Quote:
Soviets/Russians are not much better, but they do have a shorter list.
In the end, I'm not excusing Russian aggression. I am a pacifist and I detest wars. I'm just explaining why Russia felt this was necessary. I also think the Ukraine's neutrality is the fastest and safest way to end the crisis and return to some semblance of normalcy for the foreseeable future.
And once again those are not NATO wars, by your same logic every US war is a UN war too.
Ukraine was already neutral and was not on the verge of joining NATO despite its urgent appeals. Russia is the aggressor, that is indisputable, the victim nation is not the one that must cave to demands of its bully neighbor.
WWI could have been avoided had Serbia caved into Austro-Hungary's outrageous demands however they were right to reject them. WW2 could have been avoided/delayed had Poland caved into Germany's demands, but they were also right to reject them. Peace by appeasement has not demonstrated any success in realizing long term peace when dealing with autocratic states like present day Russia.
It's fine if you detest NATO, I'm not trying to convince you that it is good and all else is bad, especially as your nation was at war with NATO not too long ago which tends to not help its reputation.Quote:
It is not fair. Unfortunately, it is how the world works. I personally detest NATO, but I would still be opposed to Serbia taking any hostile actions towards it, even if they were legally and morally right. The discrepancy in power is hundreds of times bigger than between Russia and Ukraine, of course, but it is the principle. Could Russia place missiles in Serbia to bypass NATO missile shield in eastern Europe? Legally, why not. Serbia is a sovereign nation, we have every legal and moral right to decide our own alliances. Realistically? Of course not.
Anyway, I think we have exhausted all avenues of dialogue here. I like to visit backroom from time to time to gauge what slightly more informed westerners think of a given issue. Granted, the sampling size is too small right now, but, it's a force of habit.
It's been a nice trip down the memory lane. Have fun guys and stay safe.
Russia's ICBMs, geography around the Arctic circle, and boomer submarines already bypass any missile shield but yeah, Serbia could have Russian missiles. Serbia could outright ally with Russia or China too, no one will invade it for doing so.
You haven't really engaged in much dialogue though, you claim the Russians campaign is going fine despite proof to the contrary. The Russians have much more capacity for war, this is true, however do the Russian people want to make the blood and treasure sacrifices necessary to legalize what they already had defacto?
NATO expansion didn't lead to this war as there was no change in status in regards to NATO and the Ukraine prior to the start of this war. The Euromaiden revolution was pro-EU not pro-NATO, only the subsequent Russian invasion of Crimea and stoking of revolution in the east has lead the Ukraine toward pursuing NATO membership, something that has been repeatedly rebuffed by NATO.
Time will show this war will go but based on what's evident on the ground right now the Russian invasion has been a strategic failure that recognition of Russian ownership of Crimea and a few other provinces don't seem to justify. It has only strengthened NATO and EU unity and resolve and recalibrated the West's views toward the US away from the negative effects of the Afghan debacle last year.
The blood and treasure expended by Russia is immense and though this is true of Ukraine too it has resulted in more Ukrainian unity and sense of national identity as the winter war did for Finland and Gallipoli did for the ANZAC countries.
The Ukrainians may still lose this war and even larger swathes of their country, but Russia has lost several future generations friendly ties by a brother east-slavic nation while severely damaging its own reputation as resurgent great-power to challenge declining US super-power.
All in all though, I will miss your responses even if I do vastly disagree with them. I'm usually here to read the contrary views though declining membership has made the number of different posters far fewer.
@spmetla or anyone else who can answer. There have been reports of Soviet ships moving out of the far east with materiel. How are they going to get them to the battlefield? Haven't the Turks closed the straits?
Most powerful confirmation yet that Putin thought the boys would be home by — by now.
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/sta...67647125319681 [VIDEO 2/28]
Quote:
A Russian Armor Vehicles in the town of Bucha that was Broadcasting the Propaganda Message, "Citizens, stay calm, everything is under control" was blown up by a Ukrainian Paramilitary Member earlier today with an RPG.
Yuri the fascist is alarmed that the Russian occupation does not appear to be providing adequate food and economic relief to the denizens under Russian control. He hopes his government will rectify this oversight before the occupied grow disgruntled. I'm surprised he would publish this sort of thing, and by the looks of the comments so are his viewers, who aren't having the notion that the special military operation could have a flawed implementation in some regard.
Unfortunately, there's little cause for excitement. DoD estimated recently that despite more than 10% of in-theater Russian combat power being lost, Ukraine had lost a similar proportion of its own combat power. The biggest killer for Ukraine's forces is artillery, which is very hard to counter when Ukraine has less artillery and almost no air cover. Both sides have drones, but the increasing fielding of Russian drones is most prominently a multiplier for the pre-existing Russian advantage. DoD also assessed that Russia retains the majority of its inventory of ballistic and cruise missiles, despite having fired over 1100 in a month. Knowing more about Russia's military now than I did previously, I suspect Russia's ability to simultaneously strike at critical infrastructure in all NATO countries except the US is a factor in Biden et al. ramping things up very deliberately and gradually. Maybe this is still too low a risk tolerance when a few hundred Russian missiles reaching their targets spread across a continent is barely a nuisance - Ukraine is comfortably in the fight despite having absorbed a thousand - but it would be politically undesirable to suffer more damage than necessary through haste. Ultimately Ukraine needs, besides more ammo and fuel, a hell of a lot more UCAV, to make it untenable for Russia to operate extended bombardments.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
As Russia's campaign takes a pause for refit and reconstitution, and the Russians adapt their assault tactics and spend more time attriting Ukrainian defenses with artillery, the danger for all of Eastern Ukraine remains high (as I have repeatedly emphasized).
Moreover, if Ukraine does substantially "win" by their own efforts, that is without direct NATO intervention, the patriotic fervor infusing the war could combine with success to inculcate undesirable sociological tendencies. It has come to the point that in a short period of time Putin subverted a "brotherly nation" into pure loathing for Russians. This isn't just bad for Russian cultural reach and prestige; it could lead to the kind of animosity that Russians, for example, felt for Germans after WW2. One of the best available cases would be Ukraine becoming another Poland, which is notorious for its suspicion and resentment toward Russia.
There's also so much anger in Ukraine that it would take a lot of time and suffering during war for it to wane naturally. The implication is that Zelensky might not even be politically licensed to broker a deal returning Donbas but not Crimea to Ukraine. The political imperative is to liberate all occupied land. Sentiment plus abundant weapons plus the brutalization of war could foster insurgent and terrorist activity well into the future if Ukraine can only manage to restore the (territorial) status quo ante.
The reality, as Zelensky himself said, is that neutrality vis-a-vis NATO was always the easiest concession Ukraine could offer - yet also the one Putin is least interested in.
Someone finally experimenting with no-man's-land formatting, as expected from Ruser. Is Konotop (the blue blob NW of Sumy, itself the larger blue blob surrounded by red near the NE border w/ Russia) still holding out? Holy crap, IIRC it's only been defended by local militias (Territorials). Let's have a reminder of the mayor cinematically exhorting the townsfolk to resist at the beginning of the war. There's even a humorous aside from 0:16-19 where the filmer asks the mayor why he didn't want to fight the day before; the mayor tells him to shut up before resuming his rabble-rousing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjK19z0lLh8
https://i.imgur.com/Dg5Oedw.jpg
I imagine they'll just go to Vladivostok and then over the trans-Siberian railroad, should take weeks if true but a indicator of Russian high command's resolve to keep fighting.Quote:
@spmetla or anyone else who can answer. There have been reports of Soviet ships moving out of the far east with materiel. How are they going to get them to the battlefield? Haven't the Turks closed the straits?
That's where I'm cautiously optimistic for the Ukrainian situation now. The Russians in country aren't being allowed a pause for refit or reconstitution as the UA is able to take the fight to them though on a smaller scale. US intel doesn't seem to report any new BTGs lining up as reinforcements anywhere outside the Ukraine so that seems that units are being fed right into combat or the troops and equipment are being used purely as replacements. Both are indicators to me that Russia won't be able to adapt their tactics at the lower level Company and below and are going to be forced to rely on artillery.Quote:
As Russia's campaign takes a pause for refit and reconstitution, and the Russians adapt their assault tactics and spend more time attriting Ukrainian defenses with artillery, the danger for all of Eastern Ukraine remains high (as I have repeatedly emphasized).
This artillery reliance would usually be a good thing but considering the poor logistics situation as well as the security of those supply lines I think front line units won't be able to use their artillery as liberally as their doctrine would like. We haven't been seeing the massive rocket barrages of the first few weeks pop up in a while so that to me says they're being used at Battery and lower level as Battalion and greater sized barrages aren't sustainable right now.
The danger in East Ukraine is absolutely high as you've mentioned, Mariupol can't hold forever but it amazes me how well they've done so far.
If the UA is actually threatening Kherson as the rumor mill suggest this may draw more Russian units off of Mariupol too.
Also, I'm hearing through OSINT rumor mill of increased UA counterattacks NW of Kiev which makes me wonder about the situation if several BTGs get cut off from their lines of supply. Without air superiority they can't rely on aerial resupply, it's winter and they've already alienated the population so they can't forage off the land. It'd be a Stalingrad type of omen for the course of the war that even the staunchest pro-Putin supporters would struggle to paint as positive or a fluke.
If the UA somehow pulls off an encirclement of any BTGs in the NW Kiev salient that'll be a huge loss for the Russians and may eliminate any potential goading of Belarus into the conflict. Not to mention it'd enable the UA to have some strategic reserves to affect the same elsewhere.
This is all way too optimistic at this point and I get ahead of myself though the above is what I hope for. The war is far from won by any means but us armchair generals get excited when seeing vulnerable salients to cut off.
I'm actually not too worried about this aspect as so many Ukrainians are part Russians or have close ties there so that they won't blame the Russian people just the government. Same for Russian citizens, this gamble and potential loss is clearly at the feet of Putin and his corrupt cronies. Sorta how the Nazis blamed the 'stab in the back' and 'the Jews' rather than acknowledge their defeat.Quote:
Moreover, if Ukraine does substantially "win" by their own efforts, that is without direct NATO intervention, the patriotic fervor infusing the war could combine with success to inculcate undesirable sociological tendencies. It has come to the point that in a short period of time Putin subverted a "brotherly nation" into pure loathing for Russians. This isn't just bad for Russian cultural reach and prestige; it could lead to the kind of animosity that Russians, for example, felt for Germans after WW2. One of the best available cases would be Ukraine becoming another Poland, which is notorious for its suspicion and resentment toward Russia.
I could see the Russians angrier at the US specifically and the West generally than at Ukraine for somehow 'tricking' Putin into this war. I just wonder what this means for the future political environment of Russia. Will it be revanchism and meddling in Europe or will they do their historically turn eastward and focus on their influence in Central Asia and the Far East.
They still haven't been able to excavate the rubble from the Mariupol Drama Theater, which was bombed a week ago. Nevertheless hard to imagine civilian casualties in Mariupol though.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1506630965766070272 [VIDEO]
It's about time for transgovernmental management of the global food supply and its distribution (almost all Yemenis and Afghans are suffering food scarcity).
Is it the general consensus by now that making battalions with 4 maneuver companies, integrated artillery and AD batteries, recon, engineering, etc. the primary operational unit of a military overloads the battalion commander and leaves the unit non-resilient to disabling casualties?
https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/e...g/2Fiore17.pdf
Tangential brigade success story (Patton's wet dream).
Quote:
Zubrowski’s Raid: In early August 2014, Ukraine’ 95th Air Assault Brigade (Mechanized) conducted the largest and
longest armored raid behind enemy lines in recorded military history. The 95th was comprised of
two mechanizedinfantry battalions, one tank battalion and a battalion of self-propelled artillery. The brigade attacked on multiple
parallel axes of advance, and combined-arms company-sized teams penetrated the thinly defended separatists’
positions and regrouped in the rear. The brigade then penetrated in depth along the two separatist regions’
internal border and maneuvered 200 kilometers east along the southern border of the Donbass. They destroyed
and captured Russian tanks and artillery, relieved several isolated Ukrainian garrisons and, finally, returned to their
starting position near Slovyansk. They marched 450 kilometers behind enemy lines and brought back captured
Russian armor and heavy artillery as well.
17 The raid achieved its objective of relieving Ukrainian forces in the
separatist provinces, and it proved that Russian regular units were operating in Ukraine. However, the gains were
undone in November 2014 when Russia deployed BTGs to the conflict in overwhelming numbers to support the
separatists directly.
Lessons for a BCT: Look for opportunities to penetrate and inflict maximum damage. Even though 95th was
inside enemy lines for days, the unit consistently surprised enemy units, including Russian regulars. This
suggests the absence of theater-level battle tracking, cross-unit communication and a difficulty transmitting
orders to create a coordinated response to the marauding Ukrainian brigade.
Depends on what your interpretation of a pause is. Going by the ISW reports, for a couple of weeks now the Russians have generally only been fielding companies and battalions on the offensive along any given axis, albeit frequently overall, with offensive operations now almost at a total standstill in the northern half of the AO. (It's been reasonable to persist in Donetsk/Luhansk.)Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
To be precise, Putin would have to be really stupid to keep attacking piecemeal in net excess of Russia's capacity to resupply and reconstitute comprehensively, but we'll see... Winter has ended, so assuming there is a low-intensity stalemate until May, both sides will build up their operational reserves. For Ukraine this will mean training up their territorials to replace lost regulars and National Guard, as well as recruiting new territorials and organizing the partisan element for stay-behind and for areas already occupied. For Russia it will mean summoning as many reserves as combat units can absorb and/or be removed from the economy, and refreshing their training. Russia would also recruit as many mercenaries as possible and perhaps flood the rear areas with them alongside Rosgvardia and other internal security in order to stamp out resistance. This would be necessary since if Russia ever does bring the bulk of their force to bear against the Dnieper, having at least twice the area behind them that they do now, their LOC will be that much more vulnerable. Especially so given past performance, and the fact that they would be investing major cities from across the river (i.e. high expenditure of bulky supplies).
Various sources since early in the month have been referencing Russian reinforcement units being brought up to the AO. I can't say I remember details, but for the most recent examples there were elements of naval infantry from around the country (ISW), an engineering detachment (Militaryland), and elements drawn from international deployments such as in the Caucasus and Syria (various sources).Quote:
US intel doesn't seem to report any new BTGs lining up as reinforcements anywhere outside the Ukraine
Kherson is like the holy grail for armchair generals, because of how overstretched the Russian advance is on that front. If a covert squad could properly blow the bridge, the only bridge over the Dnieper for 150 miles (Zaporizhzhia), and the only bridge the Russians control, then anywhere from 7-14 BTG of regulars (from what I've read), a bundle of artillery brigades, some air defense units, and some Spetsnaz and Rosgvardia in the AO will be cut off by ground. At least until the Russians can get bridgelayers on the scene (if they're good, they already have bridgelayers in Kherson in reserve). Best of all would be to blow the bridge at both banks, so a risky diversionary Ukrainian attack out of the Mykolaiv salient wouldn't even be needed and any restoration by the Russians would take weeks too long to rescue trapped assets.Quote:
If the UA is actually threatening Kherson as the rumor mill suggest this may draw more Russian units off of Mariupol too.
If an uprising in Kherson could be triggered, it would be worth hundreds of lives to trap up to 20K Russian forces as well as an enormous quantity of artillery and AD systems.
Many of the Russians could still be evacuated by air while abandoning their equipment, but something like half their contingent is operating forward near Mykolaiv or at the provincial border near Kryvyi Rih, 50 or more miles out from Kherson. Thousands would be forced to surrender en masse.
Re-anchoring along the Dnieper while liquidating an entire Russian corps at low cost would be a watershed victory for Ukraine. It would also allow the transfer of several brigades to Kyiv (though the captured heavy equipment would take a long time to repurpose).
It would be legendary.
Sadly for the fantasy the Ukrainians probably don't have the capability.
NB. To my recollection the nearby bridge at Nova Kakhovka was blown at the beginning of the war. If it wasn't then the tactical picture is rather more complex for Ukraine.
Almost all Ukrainian speakers a decade ago were Russian speakers, and heavily acculturated to Russian hegemony. Now, while the dust will take a long time to settle regardless of outcomes, I'm picking up on a very intense hatred of Russia and all things Russian among the Ukrainian populace. This sensitivity was cultivated over the past 8 years as well to be sure, but something has boiled over and a profound delinking with Soviet/Russian heritage is being carried forward. Just one video that captures the sentiment is a Ukrainian soldier surveying a destroyed Russian column and vowing, in Russian, to forswear the Russian language after the war. The universal resort to the framing of "orcs" and various highly-antiquated ethnic slurs isn't something that gets buried easily.Quote:
I'm actually not too worried about this aspect as so many Ukrainians are part Russians or have close ties there so that they won't blame the Russian people just the government. Same for Russian citizens, this gamble and potential loss is clearly at the feet of Putin and his corrupt cronies. Sorta how the Nazis blamed the 'stab in the back' and 'the Jews' rather than acknowledge their defeat.
Let's not forget that part of the Russian ultranationalism that led to this war was the self-glorifying, unrepentant categorization of "fascist" as denoting "German", and then just anything couched as anti-Russian. If the Russian military, the one that singlehandedly saved the world from "fascism", can turn any opponent in the world into radioactive dust - as Russian TV personalities crowed - then of course Great Russia has the right and the means to do it again.
Notice how former President Medvedev, and Russian state TV, have been running trial balloons on the need to invade all of Eastern Europe in order to teach it some respect, and to renew deNazification.
(For another glimpse at the successful Fox-Newsification of the Russian people:)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Beyond specific national relations, my point was that Ukraine winning the war 'on its own' could combine to engender a certain chauvinism or overconfidence. Chauvinism and brutalization are a toxic brew. The West must invest in normalcy and peaceful flourishing in Ukraine, pull it away from the likes of Poland and, to quote Rod Dreher again, "make the Donbass safe for genderqueers and migrants."
I have no thoughts on what shape the program of disarmament would take, but additionally an immediate practical necessity for a victorious Ukraine - besides clearing away mines, ordnance, and rubble - will be to account for and confiscate as many small arms, RPGs, and heavy weapons from the general population as is feasible. Recall how the resistance movements of occupied Europe prominent included all sorts of unsavory political types, as well as gangsters and opportunists; it took years of diligent work to keep that threat to the state from festering.
Any further Russian Dolschtosslegend-ing is a whole other subject. It will never be possible to impose a comprehensive military defeat upon them. It's yet another crying shame; before the war most Russians were at a minimum neutral about American influence on their society.Quote:
I could see the Russians angrier at the US specifically and the West generally than at Ukraine for somehow 'tricking' Putin into this war. I just wonder what this means for the future political environment of Russia. Will it be revanchism and meddling in Europe or will they do their historically turn eastward and focus on their influence in Central Asia and the Far East.
The problem in many areas with food supply issues is war, not the general availability of food. As long as that's not solved, you're not going to solve the local food supply problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Food and water are tools of control in many countries in the world. Used correctly it can even be a way to monetise one's own population who are too poor to pay conventional taxes - but when the UN comes a-running with fee food that can be stolen, permits and other import taxes can be demanded and things can be sold to their staff. All that lovely hard currency - and the poor, starving peasants are unlikely to revolt.
And this of course is excluding when just starving people to death is the aim.
Lack of access therefore isn't a problem to be "fixed", it is something to use.
~:smoking:
Holy crap, the Russian military has released a war map. It's surprisingly conservative, in some places even compared with most Western mappers. Meanwhile, Yuri insists that Makariv is under Russian control and the Kyiv regime is momentarily to flee the city.
https://i.imgur.com/52YmviM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/rKHLGCY.jpg
Kherson is reportedly contested again.
DoD's cutting F-35 procurement?
Seems like Azerbaijan is officially recommencing its designs on Karabakh while Russia is distracted. Restraint is just too much to ask for in the Degenerate Age. I can't think of anyone else on the planet who wants this, other than Turkey, who always takes an opportunity to kick down at Armenia by all appearances.
True, but only to a point - and Afghanistan and Yemen are in a 10-year lull for internal warfare anyway. There's a difference between persistent nutritional insecurity and mass famine, and these are very particular times for global and regional food supplies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
The usage is that we don't have a mechanism for controlling millions of starving people. I know Europe is relatively enthusiastic about absorbing millions of Ukrainian refugees, but one would think the lesson was learned by 2015. Or else, you'd better be sure that all those people will croak before they get a chance to cause impinge on you if there's no money or resources to take care of them abroad.Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
Ukraine's allies, in the first week of the war, sent 17,000 MANPAT. Unless this war ends this spring, it is almost certain Russia will suffer more total casualties than the US did in the entire Vietnam War.
One factor in Ukraine's persistent defense of trans-Dnieper Zaporizhzhia and Donbas I callously hadn't considered before is that it is in Ukraine's long-term national interest to preserve as many of its major population/urban centers as possible. Unless the military necessity is absolute, allowing major cities like Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia to come under withering and extended barrage against entrenched and west-bank defenders would lead to the permanent loss of tens of thousands of civilians and irreplaceable national heritage, to say nothing of damage to commerce, industry, infrastructure, and even tourism that would long hamper any Ukrainian recovery.
Better to expend many thousands of soldiers if doing so averts the sacrifice of national viscera. At least with Mariupol and other border cities it was understood that they would never survive any proper war - hence their anochronistic designation as a Hero Cities by Zelensky.
I agree but local agriculture needs to be encouraged in these areas too. I recall all too well the southern Afghan poppy and marijuana fields abound because no one grew food as it wasn't profitable enough and didn't come with cash/seed lending from the smugglers. If there were trans-governmental subsidies to staple crop growers as well to encourage food growth instead of cash crops this would help to alleviate the problem to some degree and reduce the cycle of aid dependency.Quote:
It's about time for transgovernmental management of the global food supply and its distribution (almost all Yemenis and Afghans are suffering food scarcity).
Part of the problem is of course the destroyed economies in those areas so that even though food may be available it remains out of reach. This problem can't be really fixed though in Yemen or Afghanistan where years of war of upset the local economies and the continuing hostilities and political problems prevent any reinvestment in countries that no one really cares about until their refugees arrive. A problem that's exasperated by these populations continuing to grow despite an inability to sustain even the current population.
Yemen won't have peace until Iran and the Saudis solve their problems. The Taliban continue to renege on promised reforms which will continue to result in reduced aid support.
Georgia too has rumblings in parts of their establishment to try and retake South Ossetia and Abkhazia too, even Japan has been underlining their claims to the Kuril Islands. Guess that's the problem when conflicts are 'frozen' instead of resolved. Moldova would like to have the Transdniestria enclave resolved too. A lot of hyenas hoping for a Russian collapse, something that'd also be a disaster for the world in essentially allowing for landgrabs to lead to several more small regional wars. I want Putin's regime to change to something a little less at odds with the world order, not the total collapse of the Russian Federation.Quote:
Seems like Azerbaijan is officially recommencing its designs on Karabakh while Russia is distracted. Restraint is just too much to ask for in the Degenerate Age. I can't think of anyone else on the planet who wants this, other than Turkey, who always takes an opportunity to kick down at Armenia by all appearances.
That caught me by surprise too. I think this is some DoD 4D chess happening, by spending their budget on other things and leaving something absolutely necessary underfunded with a reduction to the order their lobbyists and pocket politicians can push for an increased budget.Quote:
DoD's cutting F-35 procurement?
There's also the possibility that this may allow the production line to send those F-35s to the buyers in Europe that are still waiting for more to arrive given that even Germany has finally settled on it as its Tornado replacement. Think the F-35 will be essentially the NATO/Western standard multirole aircraft in future decades.
I'm tracking the area around it is contested for sure but it's the type of terrain the heavily favors the Russians more heavily mechanized and motorized forces. Given the lackluster performance of the Russians in urban combat so far I can't see them holding Kherson if the UA gets a good foothold in the city but a decent chance of holding it if they can keep the fight on the open plains to the west. Seems to be just about all open farmland with only scattered houses, a few villages, and very few forested areas so the absolute ideal for mounted warfare, even if restricted to the major roads as flanks are mostly in clear view.Quote:
Kherson is reportedly contested again.
Given the stalemate NW and NE of Kiev I'm actually surprised that the Russians aren't just pulling back from those areas completely to focus their efforts on the East and South. They've still been a better army when fighting in open areas so why not focus on the areas that seem to line up with the reduced campaign goals. Perhaps Putin also has the 'no step back' mentality of Hitler.
Just makes me wonder what the current military objectives are for the Russians. Taking the country seems to be off the table so if the new goals are land corridor to Crimea and all of the contested East the focus efforts there. If they really intend to just dig in and try to negotiate terms, I think we'll see the encirclements I hope for. Being on defense gives the initiative to the enemy and generally is harder on morale than the offense (so long as the attacks are well planned, not cannon fodder style). If the Ukrainians start making any significant gains in their counterattacks the morale effect on the Russians will be much more magnified than if they just left areas that have stalemated and focused on areas that line up with political objectives and the strengths of their own army.
The Russian MoD briefing today, from which I posted their official war map, included the claim that everything is going to plan because Russia only ever intended to seize the rest of Donestk and Luhansk - the only territory they're having much success in.
I suspect this is a face-saving gesture, for all the reasons covered in the thread. But I can acknowledge the possibility of branching plans in Russian stretegy. Even so, for an opportunist like Putin the dream of taking the whole country was at the forefront, and the current disposition is as near to total failure as Russian planners could have envisioned.
In the plausible case that Russia contests over the currently-occupied territory for months to come, the time is ripe for NATO to send non-Soviet equipment and train Ukrainian operators on it. A couple months' training will be an adequate start for Ukraine on many systems; old Cold War-era stocks can't hold out forever.
Can't they just hand over the equipment and tell them to google for instructions? It seems to be how untrained Ukrainian operators have been learning how to use captured Russian equipment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Potential Ukrainian war crimes - the serious kind - against POWs. Terribly stupid if true - and it looks legitimate.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1507975846384082945 [VIDEO - CW]
https://twitter.com/i/status/1507975823290216448 [VIDEO - CW]
And some potential war crimes against Ukrainian POWs.
https://twitter.com/KremlinTrolls/st...06637694476304 [VIDEO - CW]
Chief presidential adviser Arestovich confirmed that the footage merits an investigation and reasserted the need to treat POWs (even) better than civilians. Very acute intellect on that man btw, so this is reassuring to hear from him.
It's increasingly probable that Azerbaijan will go loud in Karabakh, not that there's much standing in their way. On the other hand it would be quite a break from Azerbaijan's formerly-foremost ally, and would demand some kind of severe response from Putin as a greater blow to his prestige and authority than anything in Ukraine so far. Though it's not clear what options Russia would have.
Quote:
On March 25, during the telephone conversation between #Azerbaijan Defense Minister Col Gen Zakir Hasanov and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the situation in the territory of Azerbaijan, where the Russian peacekeeping forces are temporarily stationed, was discussed.
The Azerbaijani side stated that the positions and deployment locations are being clarified on spot.
However, in the morning of March 26, members of #IllegalArmenianarmeddetachments attempted to sabotage the #AzerbaijanArmy Units. As a result of immediate measures, members of illegal Armenian armed detachments were forced to retreat.
The Defense Ministry states that Azerbaijan is committed to the Joint Statement of November 10, 2020 and has not violated any of the provisions.
We regretably inform that the withdrawal of the remnants of the Armenian army and illegal Armenian armed detachments from the territory of Azerbaijan in accordance with article 4 of this Statement has not yet been completed.
Therefore, it is Armenia, not Azerbaijan, that violates the provisions of the Statement.
The Ministry of Defense states that the statement of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation contradicts the essence of bilateral relations and the Declaration on Allied Interaction signed between the two countries on February 22, 2022.
There is no administrative and territorial unit called "Nagorno-Karabakh" in the territory of Azerbaijan. The name of the village mentioned in the statement is not Furukh, but Farrukh.
The MoD of the Republic of Azerbaijan requests the MoD of the Russian Federation to completely withdraw the remnants of the Armenian army and illegal Armenian armed detachments from the territory of ���� recognized by the international community.
In accordance with the provisions of the Joint Statement, Azerbaijan asks not to use the term "Nagorno-Karabakh" and correctly indicate the names of the territories of Azerbaijan.
Quote:
Russia says Azerbaijan enters peacekeepers' zone in Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku denies it
Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday Azeri armed forces had entered a zone policed by Russian peacekeepers in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in a violation of an agreement, but Azerbaijan challenged these claims.
Russia said it had called on Azerbaijan to pull out its troops, and was "applying efforts" to move forces to their initial positions. It also said Azerbaijan had carried out four drone strikes in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Astonishing headline: "Some foreign fighters eager to join the Ukrainian cause have found the experience unexpectedly frightening and dangerous"
I'm sure there's countless abuses on both sides, glad that it's being investigated but doubt many resources will be allocated to that. Given the poor training of a lot of the troops on both sides (especially the newly mobilized Ukrainians and Russian conscripts) I'm sure we'll see plenty more. War saps people's humanity.Quote:
Chief presidential adviser Arestovich confirmed that the footage merits an investigation and reasserted the need to treat POWs (even) better than civilians. Very acute intellect on that man btw, so this is reassuring to hear from him.
I'm worried that they'll go to war too. Russia was not capable of much intervention last year and now look almost powerless and with Turkey as the security guarantee the Azeris will probably never see such another opportunity in a long time to 'fix' their borders. If Georgia didn't share a border with Russia, I'm sure they'd be seriously considering the same.Quote:
It's increasingly probable that Azerbaijan will go loud in Karabakh, not that there's much standing in their way. On the other hand it would be quite a break from Azerbaijan's formerly-foremost ally, and would demand some kind of severe response from Putin as a greater blow to his prestige and authority than anything in Ukraine so far. Though it's not clear what options Russia would have.
Given that so many western volunteers are coming from rich, well-funded militaries, with a high premium on individual welfare I'm not surprised that they'd be shocked by the low-quality equipment, training, and extreme danger. Even 'veterans' of the last 20 years of small wars won't know the terror of enemy artillery, tanks, UAVs, and having to live and fight in extreme conditions for days on end. No FOB to go home to and watch Netflix while facetiming the wife.Quote:
Astonishing headline: "Some foreign fighters eager to join the Ukrainian cause have found the experience unexpectedly frightening and dangerous"
The killing potential in high intensity conflict is terrible, I think a lot of Americans forget that the US was expected up to 15,000 casualties to force Iraq out of Kuwait, it was to be the "Mother of All Battles" as no one expected the Western technological advantage to so completely overwhelm a 'veteran and battle-hardened' force like the Iraqis, especially the Republican Guard.
Too many people, especially in the US think that war is easy and that technology makes the hard parts unnecessary or avoidable. They forget the US has fought 'easy' opponents recently. Like I said a few weeks ago, imagine how hard the Iraq war would had been if the Iraqis had actually tried as a whole nation to fight the US invasion. The US was very lucky that Iraqi morale and sense of national patriotism over tribal affiliation wasn't stronger, not to mention that they didn't 'study the knife' as you've pointed out Ukraine has done the last eight years.
I understand all sides in all wars commit at least some excesses, but it's still stupid. In the most mediatized war ever, it doesn't take compassion - short currency amid the brutalization of violent masculinity - to hold back from vengeful destruction in cold blood, and documenting it at that. It's on a whole other level from demeaning or berating prisoners, which we've seen in other footage. Even the crudest instrumentality requires Ukraine to maximize its prisoner-taking potential among the target, the Russian soldier.
This is very important to handle during the war so that it doesn't become an albatross for future generations. We're not even close to publicly reckoning with the follies of the War on Terror in the US, let alone the specific atrocities numbered within it; even recognizing that slavery was bad is a locus of catastrophic political struggle. Russia's failure to understand the crimes of the Stalin era, and of the USSR during and before WW2, go a long way toward explaining why it fell to fascism the way it did. Russia's post-war self-conception and historiography has been even more jingoistic and self-glorifying than America's, hard as that may be to believe.
Truth and reconciliation sooner rather than later is always in humanity's interest beyond borders. Even better is to do one's best to play it clean in the first place.
EDIT:
I think this report must be legit, because Yuri had a video complaining about just this a week or two ago. I may also have posted about his bitter proclamation that the double-agent debacle should become an opportunity to cleanse Ukraine of oligarchs as Russia rebuilds it in Russia's vision.Quote:
Originally Posted by @IuliiaMendel
I sense a buddy comedy script.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og18vn9aqIQ
While heartened that the Ukrainian forces have pushed the Russians back during this enforced operational pause, as the last map in post #363 above makes clear, the Ukrainians are NOT encircling and entrapping the movement echelons but cutting them off. They are attriting them and pushing them back.
Realistically, if they were able to cut them off Russia would have no choice but to pull out all the stops to break out since the loss of prestige with such a calamity would be worse than further sanctions. And as a complete amateur I would have thought man portable weaponry are great at ambushes but poor at properly seizing and holding in a battalion or so. If the equipment Russia is fielding continues to be of poor quality, won't constant pressure ensure morale remains rock bottom and heavy material is dumped as soon as there's a glitch, lest there's another missile from some fox hole?Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
~:smoking:
I rather think it does, and the Ukrainians have been using this to good effect so far. I am just lamenting that the Ukrainians do not appear to have the offensive combat power necessary to surround one or two of the penetrations and crush them. As was noted above, such losses would be concentrated among maneuver forces and erode Russian capability even more. But things are as they are, not as we would wish.Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
As it happens, the Russians have professed that as a show of good faith during the ongoing negotiations, they will "fundamentally cut back military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernigiv” in order to “increase mutual trust for future negotiations to agree and sign a peace deal with Ukraine.” The DoD and other Western observers are marking the withdrawal of some units north of Kyiv into Belarus. They speculate that Russia is using the time to reconstitute units, potentially to reposition to Donbass, or even to correct the forward line in the Kyiv suburbs, that famous salient. Similar developments have been observed throughout the northeast of Ukraine, around still-standing Chernihiv and Sumy.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Thermal mapping of Kyiv and Mariupol fronts (can reflect both source and target).
https://i.imgur.com/p3C34qF.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/6Qdtk19.jpg
Meanwhile in other news Russia may annex South Ossetia soon:
South Ossetia has legal grounds to join Russia — parliament speaker
Alan Tadtayev noted that since 1774, when Ossetia joined Russia, there haven’t been a single document declaring its secession from Russia
https://tass.com/world/1429977<br />...rer=google.com
South Ossetia to hold referendum to join Russia in future - report
Officially, South Ossetia is recognized by most countries as being part of Georgia, though Georgia has no de facto control over it
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-702755
While I'm kind of the opinion that if the people of South Ossetia really don't want to be part of Georgia they shouldn't have to be, especially as they've been defacto independent for decades. However, Russia annexing another country that's internationally still recognized as part of Georgia seems a big 'no no' for me.Quote:
The pro-Russian Georgian breakaway South Ossetia is set to hold a public referendum to fully join Russia, South Ossential parliament Speaker Alan Tadtaev told Russia's TASS news agency on Wednesday.
"We have every reason to join the Russian Federation and there are no legal obstacles to this," Tadtaev added.
"I believe that unification with Russia is our strategic goal, our path, the aspiration of the people," President Anatoly Bibilov, was quoted as saying by the press service of the United Russia Party.
"We will take the relevant legal steps in the near future. The republic of South Ossetia will be part of its historical homeland - Russia."
All necessary legal procedures for South Ossetia to join Russia will be finished around April 10 to coincide with the South Ossetian presidential elections, presidential press secretary Dina Gassieva told TASS.
Finding a way to 'correct' borders still remains a major problem within the UN framework. Creating new countries like Kosovo or South Ossetia is a major problem that should require buy-in from the country they are seceding from in some form.
This is why things like Taiwan will remain major problems for a long time as there isn't a way for the country losing said province to 'save face' and accept what may be de facto conditions forever.
Joe Biden has authorized the release of 1 million bpd from the Strategic Oil Reserve over the next 6 months. It was a much-promoted option for reducing inflationary pressure at the gas pump (and beyond), and therefore buying the midterm votes of the common clay. This is what applied political science looks like.
Japan has rejected all negotiations with Russia over the Kuril Islands and proclaimed them illegally-occupied territory. I highly doubt the presence of any military component to this policy change.
DoD estimated that 70-75% of total Russian military power is committed to Ukraine, presumably of the ground force in particular.
The Russians have abandoned Hostomel (Antonov) Airport, just north of Irpin/Kyiv. Here is a POV video taken from an apartment maybe a kilometer away from the airport on the day of the invasion, when a swarm of helis brazenly inserted VDV into the airport with Ride of the Valkyries blaring (I like to imagine). The same day that CNN reporters on the scene encountered the Russian vanguard and filmed them from a block away exchanging fire with the Ukrainians. More than a month ago now, and much of the area has since been devastated.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFoota...tomel_airport/
Speculation that Russians stationed in the Chernobyl exclusion zone have been coming down with acute radiation poisoning for not minding the hotspots.
US Air Force procurement proposals. My only qualm is investment in nuclear (presumably beyond maintenance).
Quote:
AF proposes cutting 150 aircraft: U.S. Air Force leaders want to shed hundreds of “unnecessary” planes and drones and spend more on nuclear and high-tech weapons they say are better suited for a war with China or Russia. They lay out their proposal in the service’s $169 billion 2023 spending request, which is $13.2 billion higher than last year’s request. The service is asking for approval to retire 150 aircraft, including eight E-8 JSTARS radar planes, 21 A-10 attack planes, 33 F-22 training jets, 15 E-3 Sentry AWACS-carrying radar planes, 13 KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, 10 C-130H cargo planes, and 50 T-1 trainers.
AWACS replacement: Speaking of AWACS, the Air Force’s new budget request includes about $225 million to start replacing decades-old E-3s with...well, it’s not quite decided. But a “leading candidate” is the E-7 Wedgetail, a Boeing aircraft flown by several allies, Marcus Weisgerber reports.
https://i.imgur.com/HdC2ogc.jpg
It's a battle between international order and the law of the jungle.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
Contemporary IR scholars have been foolish to discount the geoeconomics of conquest, as though raw resources and population somehow no longer mattered in the digital age. It's just that corporate hegemony is a preferable weapon to war for the ruling classes; doesn't mean war can't possibly pay, even if in most cases it won't. The Project for a New American Century neocons wanted to do the same thing in Iraq after all, just without the annexation - they too badly miscalculated. What Putin, another stupid authoritarian, overlooked is that there's more ruin in an America than there is in a Russia.
Although there has so far not been a way to codify how countries morph over time, reality continues with a much simpler "might is right" approach where if an area can be either overcome by another, or resist domination then there is essentially a change in countries. Tibet isn't a country whereas Taiwan is.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
That countries that cede land are the exception rather than the rule is why all those at the UN are more interested in keeping what they have rather than assisting - democratic countries are all about the wishes of the people until they want to leave (as we can see in examples such as Spain).
But then the UN has its rules mainly outlined by international lawyers whose lives are cloistered to a point where hardship is pretty much unheard of. I think we also see this with the "rules of war" which do not seem to have asked what those who have been at the edge of the meat grinder - often forgiving senior commanders who direct the bombing whilst expecting soldiers to be able to act as robots with treating those who have just killed their comrades as utterly neutral persons. It is a nice thought where the person needs to be distinct from the soldier but surely a yardstick as opposed to a criminal code. But invariably the rules are only enforced on the loosers.
~:smoking:
Holy shit. The Russians are outright abandoning the North, along with an indeterminate quantity of men and materiel. Also today, it appears the Ukrainians sent gunships to strike a fuel depot in Belgorod, on the Russian side of the border. This entire war so far has been Ukraine coming up aces.
https://i.imgur.com/c28wn4K.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/SXMxWZP.jpg
Don't have to be robots, this is acceptable from the available footage.Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFoota..._to_ukrainian/ [VIDEO]
It must be acknowledged that seeing POWs activates my vestigial nurturing instincts in some special way though.
For some reason, the towns Russia is abandoning are lined with civilian corpses. The most reassuring thing that can be said about it is that the Russians have left behind literal heaps of their own as well.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1509985789404459011 [VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/J_B_E__Zorg/stat...05388950876168
Rory, just for interest here is a legal analysis of the role of commanders in war crimes.
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/command...aine-conflict/
Quote:
The concept of command responsibility, also known as superior responsibility, stems from IHL (see Amann), being rooted in Article 1(1) of the 1899 Hague Regulations and eventually codified in 1977 in Articles 86(2) and 87 of Additional Protocol I (AP I). It is now deemed a norm of customary nature applicable to all States (see Commentary to Rule 153 of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law).
While the Allies prosecuted commanders after the Second World War (e.g., Yamashita, von Leeb) one had to await the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (Article 7(3)) and that of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (Article 6(3)) for a codified and refined definition of command responsibility. The latest international iteration is found in Article 28 of the Statute of the ICC. The Court has clearly stated that command responsibility is a sui generis mode of liability used to hold criminally responsible military superiors for the crimes committed by their subordinates (paras 171, 174).
The Allies did charge and convict enemy commanders yet none of their own - not just they were not found guilty but none of them did anything worth looking into.
How many commanders from the conflicts in Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Palestine, Vietnam, Afghanistan etc have been investigated let alone charged? Any at all? And in the USA the President is Commander in Chief, so he should be the one to be held accountable.
Without an unconditional surrender in Ukraine by Russia which is bordering on impossible, only Ukrainian soldiers and commanders would be held responsible which seems risible. Again, white collar lawyers codifying something of itself doesn't really achieve anything.
~:smoking:
I can see that. On the other hand - you could look at it as better than nothing. Should then the Americans never have charged anyone involved in My Lai (and there were many lesser such incidents) on account of the North Vietnamese getting away with their crimes? More broadly, should there be no courts or jails in one country because criminals in another aren't effectively brought to justice? While an eliminationist would assent to that as a backdoor to their ends, it seems backwards enough that no one would agree with the logic outright I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
Chief executives are usually commanders in chief, so in principle you charge them with decisions to go to war or with specific criminal policies/orders.
Someone should make a bingo chart of this conflict, because that would be the only salvageable thing from whatever this was.
My apologies, I am being too enthusiastic. The conflict IS.
Numerous reports of recaptured areas around Kyiv being strewn with corpses and mass graves, with civilians reporting that the occupation was characterized by theft, torture, rape, and execution, seemingly in line with the Kremlin's pre-war assessed intent to eliminate political dissent and named anti-Russian elements of society.
https://i.imgur.com/VWrd3Um.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ox12hbC.jpg
Elsewhere, the Wagner Group (Liga) is alleged to have assisted two weeks ago in mass murder in Mali, where they maintain a presence.
Why do the Russophobes always smear Russia so in all of its self-defense efforts? :bigcry:
The situation in Russia described perfectly. (Tip: It tells the whole truth, but inverted exactly) :clown:
Summary: The vast majority of Ukrainians are passive Nazis who must be reeducated and subject to severe cultural-ideological suppression and reeducation (De-Ukrainization and De-Europeanization, since "Nazi Ukraine" is a European project). Ukraine must pay (atone) for its crimes against Russia through terror and violence and be treated as an enemy until that generational reconstruction is complete. It will involve total Russian government control over Ukrainian society and the division of the unnatural Ukrainian state into dozens of non-threatening statelets. Banderists cannot be reeducated and must be liquidated (killed) as a class. All of this is the writer's exact terminology, published in some of the most elite of Russian state media. It's the same outlet that on February 26 published and retracted an article describing the ideological need for Russia to restore itself in the contest for world domination against Anglo-American civilization by conquering Ukraine.
So yeah, Russian fascism demands genocide as resolution to the Ukrainian Question, genocide of the Stalinist character. Not that the Russians should be genocided in the way the writer lays out, but some vigorous cleansing is certainly in order.
Meanwhile, the US Department of Defense commissioned a study into civilian harms during the Battle of Raqqa. With such instruments one can at least hope for improvement:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
In military affairs, I'm reading that the Russian military is releasing its termed-out conscripts per protocol, presumably to be replaced only by the class now having completed advanced training (though even these are not to be sent to Ukraine according to Russian law and persistent assurances). This is a very surprising development to me, since the Russian armed forces really cannot afford to shed more than one-hundred thousand trained soldiers while protracting a war that has absorbed almost all Russian active military combat potential.
Meanwhile, it seems like they're really just going to cast about another 100K enlisted from all nationally-available forces plus the survivors of the northern theater at a narrow front around the Donets River. (For context, up to now the large majority of all Russian forces committed to the invasion were assessed to be operating between Kharkiv and Kyiv.)
If they fail to at least dislodge the Ukrainian defensive line in Donetsk, the Russian military simply does not retain available manpower to continue offensive operations in Ukraine at scale. The war cannot continue as a "special military operation." Either Putin breaks the Donbass front this month, fails and declares total war in a multi-year national mobilization, or gives up.
In the first scenario the Ukrainians WILL eventually reconquer all occupied territory other than Crimea. It would be inevitable.
Schlotmann's map overlaying the LiveUA map with Russian formation deployments is here. Unfortunately, while it probably identifies Russian parent formations well, it's typically unable to suggest a determination on the principal AOs of maybe half of Russia's BTGs in the theater. It will also likely be much more of a historical resource than a quasi-real time one.
https://uawardata.com/
Quote:
Eventually we have a page for each Russian unit with its starting equipment, commander, history, awards. Ukrainian unit information will be added following the conclusion of hostilities. We will also go back and add information for each day
I know, there's only a few items of warfare missing like surface naval battles, bayonet charges, cavalry charges, chemical warfare, and of course nuclear warfare.Quote:
Someone should make a bingo chart of this conflict, because that would be the only salvageable thing from whatever this was.
My apologies, I am being too enthusiastic. The conflict IS.
These atrocities certainly make it difficult for peace to come, even were Zelensky willing to cave to all of Russia's demands right now for peace these atrocities make it so the Ukrainian populace won't accept such terms.Quote:
Numerous reports of recaptured areas around Kyiv being strewn with corpses and mass graves, with civilians reporting that the occupation was characterized by theft, torture, rape, and execution, seemingly in line with the Kremlin's pre-war assessed intent to eliminate political dissent and named anti-Russian elements of society.
It's absolutely disgusting what the Russians have done there, it's only been a few weeks too, not like its revenge on some long running insurgent band of anti-Russians.
It is crazy though to see how people still seem in such denial that the Russian Army did this. They really think these are all staged massacres or 'false flag' operations to smear the Russian state.
The US may be callous in regard to 'collateral' but it at least does try. Our common Soldiers generally do the right thing and the record has shown that the US tends to get better at minimizing civilian casualties overtime.Quote:
Meanwhile, the US Department of Defense commissioned a study into civilian harms during the Battle of Raqqa. With such instruments one can at least hope for improvement:
It will be interesting to watch, the terrain favors the Russians but the time of the year and weather the Ukraine. The numbers are impressive but I'm just wondering how effective it will be, the element of surprise is gone, the UA sees victory as possible, morale is high, and they are getting continued support from the West. Even some armored vehicles and more potent systems too though nothing yet from top-tier NATO stores besides man-portable missiles.Quote:
Meanwhile, it seems like they're really just going to cast about another 100K enlisted from all nationally-available forces plus the survivors of the northern theater at a narrow front around the Donets River. (For context, up to now the large majority of all Russian forces committed to the invasion were assessed to be operating between Kharkiv and Kyiv.)
If they fail to at least dislodge the Ukrainian defensive line in Donetsk, the Russian military simply does not retain available manpower to continue offensive operations in Ukraine at scale. The war cannot continue as a "special military operation." Either Putin breaks the Donbass front this month, fails and declares total war in a multi-year national mobilization, or gives up.
The Russians on the other side will certainly have learned a lot too but given the casualties and equipment losses they've taken, especially around Kyiv just to give all that ground up will have a negative effect on morale, especially in the units that bleed out taking that ground. The replacement stocks of equipment seem to be sub-par, precision munitions don't seem all to prolific, and I can only see them really succeeding through superior firepower (ie Artillery). They'll still be stuck mostly to roads given the time of the year and weather. If they can gain local air superiority and provide effect close air support they may do well but with MANPADS having proved very effective we'll see if the Russian Air Force will risk itself that much for the sake of the Russian Army.
EDIT:
Also, with those larger numbers on a smaller front I wonder how the RU logistical system will be able to cope. Unless they're able to use railways they don't seem to be capable of providing good logistical and maintenance support via road networks to the present number of troops. A surge of troops may only further tax the logistical system and lead to even slower offensive progress after using up the initial supplies.
Also, was thinking, the mixing of units from other theaters to this one may have the effect of poisonous negative morale seeping into other units that may currently be on the up.
It's fucking insane, on the downslope of a failing invasion of conquest, to publish what almost amounts to a governmental memo, calling for the extermination of Ukrainian nationhood, intellegentsia, and armed resistance.
Are they trying to rouse their opposition to fanatical determination?
And people thought it was a gaffe when Biden coyly alluded to Putin's illegitimacy.
Quote:
It is crazy though to see how people still seem in such denial that the Russian Army did this. They really think these are all staged massacres or 'false flag' operations to smear the Russian state.
Quote:
Evolution of apology:
The west is lying, Russia won't invade.
Russia invaded but is winning.
Gerasimov Doctrine! They'll send in their good troops soon.
They'll take Kyiv any day.
They're slow because trying to save lives.
Nazis did Mariupol.
They never wanted Kyiv.
They're luring them to a cauldron. They meant to leave like that.
The footage is fake.
Ok it's real but it's being upplayed to manufacture consent.
Russia had no choice but to war crime.
Stop covering this! Why don't you cover something else?
I hate to make light of anything against the backdrop of depravity, but what I meant was more in-line with Russian soldiers fighting each other over food. As others mentioned, with the collapse of the northern front, it is hard to say what the condition is of the troops in the south and east. The supply and deployment problems are probably just as bad if not worse. Ukrainians will probably fight and rebel harder after hearing about the mass graves.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
Ukraine has proven to be resilient and disciplined. I don't know how they will feel once they begin pushing back on the other fronts and potentially finding something worse.
My thoughts on whataboutism: I don't think the word "hypocrisy" should stop one from doing what is right, but I do think this would be a good time to reflect.
you have to imagine the ukranians have at least a few of the short range ballistic missiles they lobbed at the amphibious ships, and that one is queued in on the railway bridge the russians built to link crimea to the russian mainland...Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
On the original website the article is dated March 4, just a couple of weeks after the invasion started. At any rate, what really stood out to me about the article was how similar Russia's justifications for the invasion are to Imperial Japan's justifications for invading China in the lead up to WWII.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Imperial Japan used Western racism and aggression against China as a justification for its own imperialism by presenting itself as a defender of Asia from Western colonialism and anti-asian racism. Of course, the Japanese were also racist themselves and believed that the Chinese were hopelessly backwards and needed to be colonized in order to save the Chinese from themselves, and they went on to massacre hundreds and thousands of Chinese people in the course of their invasion.
I see very similar arguments and dynamics being played out in the Russian article. It's true that the US is a chauvinistic, imperialist power, and Ukraine in recent years has lurched towards the far-right, passed laws to repress the Russian language, and integrated Nazi militias into its National Guard. The author of that article is taking those grievances and running with them, trying to present Russia as some sort of defender of underdeveloped nations against Western exploitation. He even uses the word "decolonization", a term usually employed by leftists and left-leaning academics.
However, as was the case with Imperial Japan, Russia's anti-imperialism isn't progressive, it's reactionary. The author even says that Russia needs to "realize itself as the last instance of protecting and preserving those values of historical Europe (the Old World) ". And much like Imperial Japan's attitude towards the Chinese, the Russian article is claiming that Ukrainians need to be invaded and have their culture destroyed in order to save them from themselves, because they've been manipulated by the West.
A good analysis in English on the military situation. He's openly pro-Ukrainian, but he consults both sources and, in my opinion, largely succeeds in distinguishing facts from his emotions, unlike most pundits and amateurs:
Quote:
Kiev and Chernihiv Front
After weeks of stalling, I think it's obvious that Russia has failed to resolve the logistical issues around both of these areas. The situation was effectively a stalemate for three to four weeks, with both sides unable to make significant progress. The decision could made itself, and Russia executed a full withdrawal from both Kiev and Chernihiv, and seemingly, most of Sumy as well. Now whereas the Institute of War is calling the retreat "disorderly", something I really struggle with getting my head around, I will simply call it an organized retreat that was well executed. There do not seem to be any significant casualties as a result of this maneuver.
Nevertheless, the bottom line is that the Russian Army has failed to meet any major objectives here and Ukraine achieved a significant strategic victory. The fierce resistance put up by Ukraine has forced Russia to completely re-orient it's operational goals, and likely, it's long-term strategic goals.
Donbass Front
Since the war begun, the Russian Army has achieved significant progress from both the Donbass and the Southern Axis of assault. Russian forces have claimed most of Luhansk Oblast, they've entrenched themselves in parts of and around Kharkiv, they are in position to strike Zaporozhia and completely encircle the JFO. You can spin this how you want, Ukraine has fought for every mile and they've had to give up considerably more territory here than anywhere around Kiev.
The logistics in this area are much better, and the terrain readily lends itself to Russia's typical emphasis on artillery and armor. Russia has been steadily winning the attrition war on this front and the progress speaks for itself.
Currently, the most dangerous axis of advance is Izyum. Just today I've seen a destroyed column at Barvinenkovo. In a sense, it's good, the Russian probing attack sent here has clearly suffered a catastrophic defeat. However, the Russian advance this far South is not a good sign for the overall operational picture.
Even a siege of Barvinenkovo, essentially blockades the last major roadway in and out of Slavyansk. This sets up Russian forces well for either a complete encirclement of Ukranian positions in the JFO, or a powerful offensive on the entire front. Concurrently, there is a low-intensity offensive towards Pokrovsk, which is a major highway hub.
With the total withdrawal of Russian forces from the Northern Front, it is likely that these units, along with fresh units generated from other parts of the country, are going to be deployed to this front. Russia is hungry for a decisive victory that cannot be denied by Western media.
Much has been said about manpower shortages, I believe I've also mentioned it once or twice. Russia is trying to avoid switching to a war-time footing. Effectively, it cannot generate any more troops without some sort of mobilization. The hastily constructed BARS system, may generate a few more Battalions at most, but I doubt it. Not to mention, the losses of enormous amounts of equipment... and this offensive needs to either succeed, or suffer very few losses.
To be fair, the Russian Army has been operating significantly better. The rate of losses, as I mentioned many times now, is significantly more sustainable than the opening few days of war.
Southern/Kherson Front
Look, I realize many Western media outlets tend to... gloss over this area, to put it nicely. I mean you can Ctrl+F Kherson for yourselves here. Now the truth is, Ukraine has been announcing offensives and counter-offensives in this area for the last two weeks, likely emboldened by the successful counter attack in this area two-three weeks ago. Sorry to say, but the fact that Ukranians aren't saying much in terms of whether these offensives succeeded or failed, speaks for itself. I've seen enough footage to conclude that Ukraine's constant probing attacks have been miserably failing and they've been needlessly losing armor and artillery in this AO.
I've heard on podcasts and from analysts that a lot of Ukrainian forces are working on ad-hoc command structure where local governors have some degree of control over the armed forces in their area. This explains why the Mayor of Mykolaiv has been such a... fascinating source of information. If these claims are true, than the Mayor or Governor of Mykolaiv or whatever, is single-handedly responsible for losing a lot of Ukrainian lives and armor rather pointlessly. It's clear that Russia is not planning any major operations on this axis, so he needs to stop wasting precious resources trying to retake Kherson. It is a fool's errand. This is not Kiev, where you can fight block by block.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
This is the battlespace between Kherson and Mykolaiv. Lots of woods, lots of open areas, small, sporadic, populated centers that make defense, artillery recon-fire, and Russia's general strengths, all the more emphasized. Counter-attacking along this position has been rather fruitless.
So if you're wondering why this AO has been so "glossed over" by Western media and analysts relative to other areas, well this is a minor reason why. Only failure to report. The main reason, is obviously that the stakes and size of forces involved, is a lot smaller.
Notable Incidents
I think we need to mention the successful attack on Belgorod and the sinking of a Russian ship in Berdyansk.
These are notable successes by Ukranians where they identified holes in Russian PVO coverage. Well done.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State of Ukrainian Military
Look, there's a reason why they're asking for more aid now, especially armor. I think that Ukraine's units have been suffering terrible casualties. These constant counter-offensives cannot be cheap, especially since Ukraine does not have as much armor and artillery availability as Russia does. Especially their Territorial Defense units, which is essentially lightly armed militia. The more important question is of course how many "professional" troops they have left, because these are probably the only troops that can carry out real offensives to retake territory.
Now I am obviously of the mind that Ukraine simply doesn't need to attack to win. They just need to defend really well. However, it's obvious to me that the Ukrainian command disagrees with myself and other analysts and has other ideas. They are intent on retaking their country back. I think it is a very real possibility that Ukraine may run out of their best troops, well before Russia runs its own clock out, if it even has one. For all the doom and gloom, Russians may welcome a mobilization and a total war, and I wouldn't be making assumptions about war weariness or troop attrition. Too many unknown variables at this point.
My only guess is that they are trying to keep up with the momentum. That, and perhaps the remainder of the Russian force is in even worse shape than people think.
Russia uses the day-month-year dating convention along with the rest of Europe. 3/4 means April 3rd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuuvi
But it should be noted that this isn't remotely the case. It's a pernicious Russian libel and one that really ought to be cleared up now that the region has drawn our special attention.Quote:
Ukraine in recent years has lurched towards the far-right, passed laws to repress the Russian language
Do you have a link to the source? The only adjustment I would currently make is that ISW only assessed that the retreat was "disorderly enough" in implementation to abandon some personnel - not in the capacity of a screening force by implication. They also commented on orderly aspects. But that's tactics. A reason the decision for total withdrawal was a questionable one operationally, as I might have mentioned, is that it also inevitably meant abandoning large quantities of equipment that could not be successfully transported on short notice, or would break down during the movement, in the context of Russian aims to consolidate their combat power. As the quotation mentions, the Ukrainians have limited counterattack potential, so leaving a large rearguard to invite the Ukrainians to grind across forest and suburb would have been a better outcome for Russia.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crandar
On the new consolidated front, an obvious aspiration from the defenders' perspective would be to conduct deep operations into the enemy rear (behind the Donets River out from Kharkiv) while the enemy has a large concentration across the river in Donets Oblast (forward of Izyum). There is also the political imperative to hold strategic territory in Donetsk. And it is strategic territory, since besides the politically-unacceptable scenario of Putin just digging in for permanent occupation once the oblast borders are secured, an occupation Ukraine would never be able to dislodge, the densely-urbanized province (with more forest cover than nearby areas and a northern border to a good river barrier in the Donetsk) hinges all defenses east of the Dnieper, up to Kharkiv. Beyond Slovyansk is a lot of rural steppe. Whether in this war or a future one, losing all of Donetsk would force Ukraine to defend back from the river itself, losing many towns by default, grievously weakening Kharkiv's flank, and exposing the major Dnieper cities (Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kremenchuk) to a direct siege and destruction that they have so far avoided. So both sides are bound to follow a certain strategic logic in the next phase that could leave either of them more vulnerable and less flexible.
Adaptation is a certainty for any side in war, eventually, but so far betting on the Russians here has been shown up for folly every time.
@Montmorency
I'll send you the link shorty.
In other news, Zhelensky made his speech today in the Greek parliament and he completely screwed up. The speech itself was kinda meh, just a few banal references to Greek history and the relationship with Ukraine, but that's alright. However, just in the middle, he let two Ukrainian fighters join him. One of whom confirmed that he was a volunteer in the Azov battalion. Obviously that caused quite a controversy (while also violating the Greek parliament's rules) and the government's representative thanked Zhelensky for his intervention, but criticised him for the Azov part. Comically enough, the prime-minister of Greece had previously released an (obviously pre-recorded announcement) wholeheartedly congratulating Zhelensky on his "flawless" speech.
Quite an amateurish move. Firstly, it soured the relations of the two governments, because Zhelensky going off-script put the prime-minister in an embarrassing position. Secondly and more importantly, bringing forward an Azov battalion volunteer fit straight into the Russian narrative of right-wing extremists controlling Ukraine.
Why does everyone get their knickers in a twist about the azov battalion?Quote:
Originally Posted by Crandar
a) it has very few nazi's in it these days , and nothing to say our witness was one - always a minority, now a very small minority.
b) it has been front and centre in the defence/devestation of Mauripol - and would provide useful witnesses from the frontline.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-60525350
Because it's been in the front and center of right-wing pro-Russian media as proof that the UKR govt are all nazis or neo-nazi leaning. Their imagine versus their reality is a bit out of whack. Sorta like a handfuls of 'professional anarchists' allowing all BLM protests to be portrayed as threats to the US Govt.Quote:
Why does everyone get their knickers in a twist about the azov battalion?
a) it has very few nazi's in it these days , and nothing to say our witness was one - always a minority, now a very small minority.
b) it has been front and centre in the defence/devestation of Mauripol - and would provide useful witnesses from the frontline.
Czech Republic sends tanks, infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...ts-2022-04-05/
This is exactly why I'm still irritated that MiG-29s aren't being transferred over, the hardware has gone from man portable weapons to legacy MBTs and IFVs. Manned aircraft are not an escalation, especially as it's to help a country's fight for territorial integrity, not expansion.Quote:
PRAGUE, April 5 (Reuters) - The Czech Republic has sent T-72 tanks and BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, a Czech defence source told Reuters on Tuesday, confirming a local media report.
Public broadcaster Czech Television initially reported the shipment, showing footage on Twitter of a train loaded with five tanks and five fighting vehicles. It said the shipment was a gift agreed with NATO allies.
S Senate votes to resurrect World War II-era policy to help Ukraine amid Russian invasion
The original lend-lease program enabled the U.S. to send weapons to the Allies in World War II
https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-sen...ssian-invasion
I hope this means that the US will start to lend/gift/sell some more substantial systems to the Ukraine. Start training their pilots on F-16s, Abrams tanks, land/air launched harpoon missiles, Patriot ADA systems or whatever. If the US does believe that the combat will go on for years more then lets help Ukraine adopt and build up a years long out defense posture. Now that the battle of Kyiv is won and the Ukrainian govt looks safe there's no reason to not invest substantially in their self-defense.Quote:
The U.S. Senate voted to resurrect the lend-lease program that enabled America to send weapons to Britain and other allies in World War II, in order to bolster Ukraine's effort against the Russian invaders.
The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, S.3522, passed the Senate by voice vote late Wednesday. The bill aims "to provide enhanced authority for the President to enter into agreements with the Government of Ukraine to lend or lease defense articles to that Government to protect civilian populations in Ukraine from Russian military invasion."
I also hope that the US and EU are already trying to get funding to rebuild key infrastructure in the North and West of the country that's been destroyed. Key bridges, power plants, hospitals, water/sewage treatment plants that should be safe from RU bombing should be reconstructed now to enable some return to normality while the war continues in the South and East.
Something that seems to get lost on a lot of people is that Russia has just as many, if not more, nazis in their ranks. Case in point.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
Agreed. If the Czechs can send tanks, why cant we send MiGs? I get the hesitation around giving them heavier weaponry to not provoke Putin to use nukes, but at a certain point a bluff can be called. As long as NATO isnt directly attacking Russia I think we can start pushing some boundaries. Especially as Russia gears up for a renewed offensive in the east, so Ukraine will need all the help it can get.Quote:
This is exactly why I'm still irritated that MiG-29s aren't being transferred over, the hardware has gone from man portable weapons to legacy MBTs and IFVs. Manned aircraft are not an escalation, especially as it's to help a country's fight for territorial integrity, not expansion.
I do hope we pour money into Ukraine after to help rebuild, perhaps with seized Russian money. However, I dont think right now is the right time to start to rebuild, not when the war is still raging in the south and east. But more importantly, Russia is still hitting critical infrastructure. They have hit numerous fuel depots in recent days, and I am actually a bit worried that Ukraine will start to run low on fuel which would be catastrophic.Quote:
I also hope that the US and EU are already trying to get funding to rebuild key infrastructure in the North and West of the country that's been destroyed. Key bridges, power plants, hospitals, water/sewage treatment plants that should be safe from RU bombing should be reconstructed now to enable some return to normality while the war continues in the South and East.
My God, such a beautiful steppe, marred by war.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1511867981596434434 [VIDEO]
Ukrainian getting heated in his Call of Duty match.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1511850466111418369 [VIDEO]
Want to know what this Russian propaganda campaign says?
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
TypicalBalkanSlavic conversation:
https://i.imgur.com/dLBkZ2T.jpg
EDIT: Peskov announced today that "We have significant losses of troops. And it's a huge tragedy for us." Russian forces on the west bank of the river may be planning a withdrawal to consolidate the perimeter around Kherson.
Yuri claims that the Mariupol battlegroup has largely been wound down and diverted to the Zaporizhzhia front; I wonder what the latest reporting is. His most gif-worthy line: "The local garrison of Mykolaiv, as in Kharkiv, are awaiting the assault in horror."
But Youtube suddenly banned his account, and I had a backlog of some of his takes I needed to get through. At least there's a Rutube backup.
DoD assesses that of 130 Ru AF BTGs committed throughout the invasion, at least 80 are still in the AO today. That comports with my loose mental framework of the fronts, say at the beginning of the month (by oblast):
Kherson: 10-15 BTG
Zaporizhzhia: 5+ BTG
Donetsk/Luhansk: 30-40 BTG (of which 5+ Mariupol)
Kharkiv: 20-25 BTG
Not counting separatists, Rosgvardia, or PMC of course.
*****
The Ukrainian government is urging all civilians to evacuate the southeast in anticipation of even larger-scale warfare in the area. The American government meanwhile is finalizing some sort of Lend-Lease legislation (as spmetla reported) and the Pentagon has announced that Ukrainian cadres are being trained in the operation of the donated Switchblade drones. We'll need to send a lot more than 100 then.
But Czechoslovakia has already delivered some of its Soviet surplus armor to Ukraine, with more on the way.
The EU's Foreign Affairs High Representative admits that the EU has paid Russia €35bn for energy since the war began. Imagine Putin had spent the past 20 years funneling all this money into a sovereign wealth fund while preparing the Russian energy sector for global decarbonization and diversifying Russia's economy, instead of being a Goering.
German foreign intelligence suggests a role for PMCs in Bucha massacres.
OKQuote:
Originally Posted by Crandar
Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
They're more January 6 than BLM - even scarier really. If the Azov essence had held sway over the 1/6 atmosphere, federal troops would have had to storm the Capitol to rescue Congress.Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
The OG Azov Battalion was absolutely stacked with ultra-right thugs, but they're almost all casualties by now. Real Kadagar types, often implicated in brutal street violence and hate crimes. But since they came under formal military command structure the government has weeded out the worst elements. Recently the brand has actually grown to see ~three new Azovite battalions stood up between Kharkiv and Kyiv, all being components of the National Guard Azov Regiment I believe. I have no idea what the organizational or ideological relationship between the OG battalion and these new ones is, besides the branding. They are however more ideologically mixed than the original militia.
While it is always a problem for fascists and other far-rightists to gain combat experience and fame, the most dangerous part of the frontline is the best place for them in a full conventional war where they're going to be fighting anyway. All told one would be hard-pressed to make the case that the Ukrainian military is more compromised by the far-right than major European militaries, let alone the American armed forces. Gratefully Ukraine has recruited/permitted leftist cadres as well.
As for the Greek volunteer Zelensky presented, I would suspect he was vetted beforehand, but I could be wrong and the impulse to find a Greek-Ukrainian (the subject was born in Mariupol) involved in the fighting overrode other considerations - someone has probably doxxed him by now. His prior service history could offer some clues.
Right, the Wagner Group and core separatist forces (plus outside volunteers and mercs) are predominantly neo-Nazi and the like. I mean, this is all beside the point of Russia itself being a fascist state.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hooahguy
Boris is making waves in Ukraine:
New - 120 armoured vehicles
New - Antiship missiles
New - Another 500m in loan guarantees
New - Removing tariffs and regulatory barriers on UK <> UKR trade
Oh, and he seems remarkably popular with the Ukrainian citizenry when he was taking a stroll around Kiev with Zelensky
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/st...97668246384640
But he's just the worst, so we won't talk about it. :D