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Ukraine: “I don’t need a ride, I need Ammunition”.


Ser Scot A Ellison

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2 hours ago, IFR said:

To further the point Kalibuster and karaddin are making, even experts on the issue of strategy and policy are reevaluating how Russia will utilize nuclear weapons for furthering its goals.

This editorial and this editorial both argue that employing nukes for strategic purposes beyond deterrence can no longer be considered far-fetched or theoretical. It is unlikely that Russia will use nukes in this conflict, but it is no longer inconceivable either.

And that right there is the rational reason for Putin to have done this. Strategic ambiguity: if he can create in the West's mind the idea that while he probably won't use nukes, he might, even if it's a remote chance, it creates a space for him to manouevre. That's the advantage of having nukes, after all.

As for the rules under which he might use them, if ever there was a leader who believed 'l'etat, c'est moi', it's surely Putin.

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10 hours ago, Padraig said:

Do we really know what happened in the Donbass?  I time of propaganda and misinformation.

At that time I followed a different - now deceased - forum. Never participated much, basically I was looking for nice pictures of military hardware and asking few technical question. That forum was quite international and many former military participated in it. The successor forum is not even a shadow of the former. You can follow some updates here: https://www.militaryimages.net/threads/russia-ukraine-crisis.10344/    but hardly you can find things we don't know (I don't participate in that forum just in case).

During the 2014 Ukranian crisis there were by the hour updates of things. I saw there first how the "polite men in green" appeared out of nowhere to secure some key facilities in Crimea, or how some Ukranian Naval captain renounced to his position with all his crew and went over the Russian. 

The pro-Russian separatists in Donnesk and Lugansk attempted to do the same but without full Russian support. Many of the separatists were actually former Ukranian military. After the first shock, the Ukranian army attempted to reclaim these provinces only to find itself encircled over and over. Certainly there were Russian operatives and intelligence support but not as many as the West claim. There was some building burned by pro-Ukranian forces with like 300 people inside and villages bombed.. I witnessed for example, that people were able to to pinpoint the origin of the vehicles or were counting the number of GRAD rockets launched by the rebels to see whether it matched with the stores of some depot they captured. People in that forum indentified were that BUK rocket that downed the MH17 came from and who likely fired it, before anybody else. It was former Ukranian hardware fired by the rebels against a Su-25 but it went astray and killed almost 300 people. It fact it was sighted before these events. Overall there was far more coverage of the situation in the battlefield than we see now.

Things could have became really bad and the first Russian forces in the open were confirmed in January 2015 when a column of vehicles marched towards Maripol. That was the events that prompted Merkel and Hollande to reach out and find some kind of agreement.

 

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47 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Passive aggressive vague posting was hip 3 years ago. Maybe. 

 

Are you directing that at anyone in particular, Mind, or am I being cranky because I'm tired.

Sorry. I'm tired, too (insomnia). I was referring to an article posted a couple of posts above mine, which said sth like "no everyone knows Putin isn't an enlightened autocrat"... Ah found it: "The armor of the enlightened autocrat has cracked."

No aggression towards posters intended.

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Just to lighten the mood a bit. 

My friend just told me an incredible story that happened to her few years ago and knowing her I believe is entirely true. 

She found a fat wallet on a street in Warsaw, full of cash (Polish zlotys, Euro, dollars), several credit cards, documents and a card saying: Cultural Attache of Russian Embassy in Warsaw. 

She called the embassy. They were checking her for two days (in fear she's a saboteur or something), but finally attache's driver came to her to collect the wallet. Spasiba, bolszoje spasiba, and here is a podorok (Thank you gift). It was a plastic bag with a bottle of vodka inside... open and 2/3 emptied. 

She figured back then it was attache's twisted way of "having a drink with her". 

She concluded by saying today she would not return it and donate the money to the Ukrainians instead. 

:)

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9 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

Sorry. I'm tired, too (insomnia). I was referring to an article posted a couple of posts above mine, which said sth like "no everyone knows Putin isn't an enlightened autocrat"...

No aggression towards posters intended.

Nah, I'm sorry. Should've stuck with the question without the accusatory preface.

I'm going to try to sleep.  

'the thing about stuff is that it keeps happening,'--guy on twitter that a former board mod recently retweeted 

Fucking World.

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Regarding the current events, including the nuclear threat. I'm split between "Putin has gone nuts" and "the situation is more serious than events suggest".

If Putin gets deposed in the next few days we can surely said the former. However, so far, the top notch seem to be behind him. Lukaschenko is also behind it seems. I'd bet the West is trying to make a deal with him. It would be stupid to not so, unless Western politicians have truly thrown realpolitik to the garbage bin.

Remember few days ago when Donesk and Lugansk were recognized? The West only instated mild sanctions, indicating that they were willing to let them go. Did Putin interpret that as a sign of weakness? or did he pushed forward because he wasn't getting what he wanted despite crossing a "red line"?

As I said before and others have noted, I'm not sure that Putin really wants Ukraine. It doesn't seem to be trying hard or either they really got surprised by the resistance. He might be using as punching ball to obtain concessions, but whatever his objective is, it might be important enough that it's worth to burn all the bridges. Or either he has gone totally mad.

 

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1 hour ago, mormont said:

And that right there is the rational reason for Putin to have done this. Strategic ambiguity: if he can create in the West's mind the idea that while he probably won't use nukes, he might, even if it's a remote chance, it creates a space for him to manouevre. That's the advantage of having nukes, after all.

Oh absolutely. If only awareness of this meant we could actually dismiss it.

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Putin might believe that someone else will start a nuclear war in response to this conflict.

Than people can remember him as someone who delivered a death blow to the enemies of Russia.

It is difficult to say what Putin believes nowadays. He seems to have changed his stance on climate change since 2017 and seems to have accepted it. If he believes in some kind of worst case scenario(not impossible with his mindset) than there is not much time to get things done until dealing with the results of climate change will require most of his countries spare resources. Maybe he is not racing against his own biological clock. 2050 is closer than 1990 now. Shit really hitting the fan from a climate point of view is not far away anymore if you expect worst case scenarios to be true.

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I was mildly (mildly) calmed by the UK defence secretary, who said on the Today programme that the wording Putin used regarding nukes ultimately doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t correspond to any actual action such as coupling the nukes to the launchers, which we would have intelligence of if that happened. So it looks very much like posturing, reminding the world that he has them.

I do take some comfort from the idea that using nukes would be a monumentally stupid decision for Putin; if he cares even slightly about his reputation or Russia (and as far as we know he cares for little else), Russia would be wiped out and Putin would steal Hitler’s title and become the defacto ‘evil’ person for literally centuries. He would be the most vilified man who ever lived, possibly who ever will live.

I do worry at what the worlds response would be if he used one in Ukraine (a still unlikely outcome). Does that necessitate a nuclear response from NATO?

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4 hours ago, karaddin said:

There's a difference between saying something is likely and saying that it's possible, and its mere possibility is enough to make me concerned. I absolutely agree with you that it isn't likely to happen, it doesn't make sense for achieving what appears to be his objectives and its not a rational follow through from the current situation. But the last 6 years, and especially the last 2, have robbed me of any confidence that just because something is obviously dumb and not at all reasonable then it won't happen.

That's perfectly tempered rhetoric and logic.  What I was objecting to is the focus on Putin's "rationality" and such discussion leading to its own escalation.  Putin invading is "irrational," but it's no more "irrational" than Dubya invading Iraq; and in terms of escalating nuclear fears, it's certainly less "irrational" than many of the actions taken by many leaders leading up to/during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Is Putin using nukes a possibility?  Of course.  Does him invading Ukraine significantly increase that possibility?  You bet.  But I don't think fixating on this possibility through random speculation on the extent of Putin's "irrationality" is a particularly useful discussion.  More importantly, I don't think it's good practice for anybody's mental health.

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4 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Putin might believe that someone else will start a nuclear war in response to this conflict.

Than people can remember him as someone who delivered a death blow to the enemies of Russia.

It is difficult to say what Putin believes nowadays. He seems to have changed his stance on climate change since 2017 and seems to have accepted it. If he believes in some kind of worst case scenario(not impossible with his mindset) than there is not much time to get things done until dealing with the results of climate change will require most of his countries spare resources. Maybe he is not racing against his own biological clock. 2050 is closer than 1990 now. Shit really hitting the fan from a climate point of view is not far away anymore if you expect worst case scenarios to be true.

I read speculations regarding that. For example, Russian permafrost is melting fast (Canada's too?) and it's predicted to release huge amounts of methane probably outshining any other contribution to the climate change. I haven't seen predictions what it means for Russian agriculture although Russian far east has been more productive for many years already thanks to warmer summers and shorter winters.

I even found crazy stuff like some big extraterrestrial object fell in Poland November last year, area is fully secured and Russian activities are just attempts to gain access to that stuff.

Be as it may, I feel there is either something big behind this or really there is something serious is going on personally with Putin himself. \

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2 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

I even found crazy stuff like some big extraterrestrial object fell in Poland November last year, area is fully secured and Russian activities are just attempts to gain access to that stuff.

:D

Never heard about this one.

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58 minutes ago, DMC said:

What I was objecting to is the focus on Putin's "rationality" and such discussion leading to its own escalation.  

Yeah that's fair. It's ultimately irrelevant given we have no way of determining whether he actually isn't anymore or he's just acting, either way all that can be done is reacting to what he shows us.

On the "possibly reacting to climate change" front, one potential angle I hadn't initially considered in assessing the "value" of Ukraine's land (from the perspective of wanting to snatch it) is modeling suggesting its value for food production will increase. Absolutely no idea if there is modelling which supports it, but that sort of "factoring in changes" could be going on.

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Updated analyses from the UK MoD and other sources this morning:

Ukrainian forces have counterattacked at and near Hostomel Airfield, which was supposedly fully in Russian hands three days ago, and in the rear of Russian forces operating in northern Kyiv. These are complicating Russian attempts to repair the airfield and bring in supplies and troops by air.

Kharkiv and Chernihiv remain in Ukrainian hands, complicating transport and reinforcement routes into Ukraine.

Russia has ordered additional forces into Ukraine, now constituting about two-thirds of the forces they had arrayed on the border. This appears to include units which were not supposed to be activated until after the invasion was successfully completed, meaning Russia is now overstretching. It is likely considering the need to deploy additional troops from the country's overall reserve, which means moving troops from other borders (like with Finland, the Baltics or China) or deploying more conscripts. The request for Belarus to commit troops likely is a result of that.

Some NATO countries with former Soviet aircraft stock in good order - which Ukrainian pilots can fly - are considering donating them to Ukraine. Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia continue to operate MiG-29s.

Flight trackers are showing multiple NATO AWACs aircraft getting very close to the Ukraine-Poland border, potentially feeding information to Ukrainian intelligence. It's believed that NATO intelligence alerted Ukraine to Russian forces going on the move in the hours before the invasion started, explaining Ukraine's abrupt change in posture (although note there were also videos posted by Russians and even Ukrainians crossing the border for everyday reasons showing troops heading for the border which may have helped back that up).

9 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Jesus Christ it’s been 3 days, invading Iraq took the US a month.

A poor comparison. Baghdad is a lot further from the border than Kyiv is, there were multiple cities between the border and Baghdad that needed to be neutralised, the Iraqi field army was fairly substantial and had to be dealt with (even if that involved cutting deals rather than destroying them, resulting in most of the army simply not fighting), and local support for Hussein was close to non-existent; it was locals who pulled down Hussein's statues and danced on them. The USA and UK also had, compared to Russia, effectively infinite resources to a leisurely campaign and were trying very hard to avoid any civilian casualties.

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Watching RT news today is quite staggering, have to wonder if this sort of propaganda is what people in Russia are seeing?

Just watched a segment, with the most ominous music, detailing how Russia is pushing the world in its Anti nazi stance. How the US and Ukraine are trying to push back its efforts, followed by 20 mins on the background of Nazi's, how it's almost an integral component of western society. 

Its just jaw dropping.

 

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1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Watching RT news today is quite staggering, have to wonder if this sort of propaganda is what people in Russia are seeing?

I suppose it's just a pale reminiscence of what they are feeding its population with.

Also, respect for being able to watch this crap at all.

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