Fez Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 4 minutes ago, Toth said: Propping up the Ukrainian forces with international brigades was something I half seriously suggested a couple of days as a step of escalation that I then immediately dismissed as unlikely and far too dangerous in this day of age. Today I come home to find the headline that the German government is saying that it won't stop you from joining... ... I feel like it's totally turning into a Spanish Civil War situation... Other countries organizing the volunteers, or even letting military units go AWOL to volunteer, is what I'd think would be too much escalation. But letting people just go on their own? That seems fine. Ukraine, to their credit, are apparently rejecting anyone who doesn't have prior military experience. Though I suspect most volunteers would have that. An article I read a couple days ago was about 12 former US special forces and UK SAS guys who were already in Poland and getting ready to cross the border. All of them had previously volunteered with Syrian rebels. Civilian life just isn't for some people I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 Under UK law, anyone travelling overseas to take up arms against ANY sovereign nation will be arrested and treated as a terrorist upon return to the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fez Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 2 minutes ago, Spockydog said: Under UK law, anyone travelling overseas to take up arms against ANY sovereign nation will be arrested and treated as a terrorist upon return to the UK. IIRC, the article interviewed one of the UK guys. He said when he returned from Syria he was arrested and investigated but was let go after a little while. But yeah, certainly a risk for the people who are going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted March 2, 2022 Author Share Posted March 2, 2022 12 minutes ago, Spockydog said: Under UK law, anyone travelling overseas to take up arms against ANY sovereign nation will be arrested and treated as a terrorist upon return to the UK. Was Orwell arrested for serving in Spain during the Spanish civil war? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Was Orwell arrested for serving in Spain during the Spanish civil war? Nope. I don't think anti-terrorism laws existed back then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted March 2, 2022 Author Share Posted March 2, 2022 4 minutes ago, Spockydog said: Nope. I don't think anti-terrorism laws existed back then. Got it. This is targeting people who went to fight with the Islamic State. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 @Fez Full article here, but it doesn't add much more. It appears that some 400 have contacted the embassy asking about it. Hard to say how many will be qualified in terms of prior training (there appear to be some guys with no prior military training who are all gung-ho and heading off to the Polish border with Ukraine because there they're apparently just getting taken in directly to Ukraine and handed weapons after abbreviated training... which, honestly, is not a great idea; people in the Sweden subreddit point out that a qualified infrantyman takes about 18 months to train, so if you don't have that before coming in, you're just going to be a burden), how many will pass background checks, etc. as well as how many stick to it rather than having second thoughts. However, it sounds like a first batch of volunteers who are at least qualified by having prior military experience are going over this Thursday, and more shortly after. We'll see how the total numbers shape up. Per a Finnish-Swede who has signed up, he's met volunteers from all the other Scandinavian countries except for Sweden already. Plus he's bunking with an American volunteer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Which Tyler Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 Didn't Liz Truss say that the government would support anyone doing this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 5 minutes ago, Which Tyler said: Didn't Liz Truss say that the government would support anyone doing this? That would be a pretty reckless thing for a Foreign Secretary to say, so probably yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fez Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 5 minutes ago, Spockydog said: That would be a pretty reckless thing for a Foreign Secretary to say, so probably yes. She said she supported it at least. Which Boris Johnson then had to "clarify": Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorshach Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 I find the idea that Boris Johnson can clarify anything to be utterly absurd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dragon Demands Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 This tweet has good maps of the situation as of March 2, both of Ukraine as a whole and of Kiev area : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 I would like to comment on something said well upthread. John Le Carre was quoted/mentioned earlier and as I have been a fan of his since the 70s. In his spy fiction the spies tend to be small minded scammers, failures as people and apart from a few like George Smiley, not that good at what they do. I know he was talking about the Brits but why would a career officer in the KGB be any less than a reflection of a Roy Blount type, not a George Smiley. I guess I never had much respect for someone who tries soo hard to project an air of competence as Putin does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fez Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 I like maps too. But this thread makes the point that most are pretty misleading. There's a big difference between "areas that Russia controls" and "areas where Russia can deny Ukraine's military any operational space." And an accurate map of the former looks more like this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 So far, this electrical appliance store door in Kherson has defeated the Russian invaders by itself. The Russians have now formally confirmed 500 dead, so the real figure will obviously be much higher than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 American military analysis that the Russians do not have enough forces to decisively storm Kyiv and Kharkiv and take both cities. The Russians either need to starve them out, or bringing in a lot more troops from Russia (which are not mobilised at the moment). Apparent worst-case Russian projections that it may take 6 weeks for Kyiv to fall and they will suffer enormous casualties in the process. 15,000 will probably not be enough. Kyiv is both much larger and more sprawling than 1942 Stalingrad and vastly more populous, and the Germans took three months with 270,000 troops to take most of the city even after it had been bombed to pieces. The Russians had a superior reinforcement route for Stalingrad, but they didn't have 1.5 million people in the city effectively willing to fight back. Kyiv may be easier to cut off from food though (which never happened in Stalingrad), raising the even more horrific prospect of what happened in the Siege of Leningrad (half the population starving). The projections shifting from Ukraine completely collapsing in days to months may open a large enough window for diplomacy. China again abstained in the UN vote, a rather telling, cautionary move, and are still advocating for peace talks which recognise the territorial integrity of Ukraine (meaning that the partition of Ukraine solution advocated by some Russians is not something they are going to be interested in, right now anyway). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maithanet Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 11 minutes ago, Werthead said: The Russians have now formally confirmed 500 dead, so the real figure will obviously be much higher than that. It remains very hard to pin down even an approximate number here, but indications are that Russian casualties are indeed pretty high. Think I saw something from a Ukrainian source that they estimated Russian killed/captured at like 5 or 6k. Hard to know who is more accurate, but if we just guesstimate something in the middle we're looking at ~2,000 killed/captured, and likely 4X that number wounded. So 10k total casualties in the first week for a very rough estimate. That's...really bad for a modern army. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 1 minute ago, Maithanet said: It remains very hard to pin down even an approximate number here, but indications are that Russian casualties are indeed pretty high. Think I saw something from a Ukrainian source that they estimated Russian killed/captured at like 5 or 6k. Hard to know who is more accurate, but if we just guesstimate something in the middle we're looking at ~2,000 killed/captured, and likely 4X that number wounded. So 10k total casualties in the first week for a very rough estimate. That's...really bad for a modern army. Also worth reiterating some of the reports that the Ukrainians have actually reached their figures by listening into Russian radio transmissions and their own estimates of losses. It might be the Russians themselves are overstating the number of dead, but I doubt it's by that much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fez Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 5 minutes ago, Maithanet said: It remains very hard to pin down even an approximate number here, but indications are that Russian casualties are indeed pretty high. Think I saw something from a Ukrainian source that they estimated Russian killed/captured at like 5 or 6k. Hard to know who is more accurate, but if we just guesstimate something in the middle we're looking at ~2,000 killed/captured, and likely 4X that number wounded. So 10k total casualties in the first week for a very rough estimate. That's...really bad for a modern army. OTOH, unless I'm forgetting something, this is the closest we've ever gotten to two modern armies fighting each other. Everything else has been a modern army versus an incredibly outdated one or against insurgents. Maybe this is just what an all-modern conflict looks like. Ignoring everything that makes this impossible and nonsensical, if the US had invaded the UK in 2003 instead of Iraq, maybe the US would've seen similar casualty numbers after a week as well. Although, it does seem like Russia has had remarkably poor planning for a modern army. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 8 minutes ago, Fez said: OTOH, unless I'm forgetting something, this is the closest we've ever gotten to two modern armies fighting each other. Everything else has been a modern army versus an incredibly outdated one or against insurgents. Maybe this is just what an all-modern conflict looks like. Ignoring everything that makes this impossible and nonsensical, if the US had invaded the UK in 2003 instead of Iraq, maybe the US would've seen similar casualty numbers after a week as well. Although, it does seem like Russia has had remarkably poor planning for a modern army. The best hypothetical scenario would be the US invading Canada, as they share a land border, the US have a peninsula from where to launch a flanking attack and the naval forces would not have to cross an ocean. But what are Ukraine's reported casualties among its armed forces? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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