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Ukraine War 6: what the hell are the Russians thinking?


Ser Scot A Ellison

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So...are Johnson and Trump like twins separated at birth or something?

Johnson is far better-educated and more intelligent than Trump, but he does suffer from a lot of the same blind spots. He wants to be loved and popular, and says and does things that are very non-Conservative in the process, which pisses off his party but his personal charisma and personality makes it hard for them to replace him because they have literally no other Grade A+ candidate in the wings, and the ones who think they are, are very clearly mistaken. Getting rid of a sitting British PM is much easier than it is a President, though, and it's not as fatal to the party doing the replacing (Thatcher being dispatched in a political coup in 1990 and the Tories went on to a surprise win in the 1992 election under the supposedly unelectable John Major).

Johnson is much less loving of authoritarianism as a concept and is not anywhere as irrational and hate-filled as Trump. He is, however, very dismissive of any opinions that are not his own, has a limited or no understanding of racial politics (he still thinks the British Empire was a splendid idea and gets visibly angry at "revisionist" historians talking about the Empire's very many and numerous atrocities which killed millions rather than how splendid it was), and is extremely two-faced and manipulative in his dealings, both personally and professionally. He can certainly be a bully, and is so loose-lipped that when he was a government minister under previous PMs, they denied him access to classified material. The only reason he isn't the worst Prime Minister we've ever had is because he hasn't started an unnecessary war that killed a shitload of innocents (yet).

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Would the Turks allow a US Carrier group into the Black Sea?

I don't think the Americans would allow a US carrier group into the Black Sea at the moment given the proximity of Russian missile systems (exhausting themselves as they are), warships (mostly shit) and submarines (considerably more dangerous), and it's completely unnecessary given their position in the Med and land airbases in NATO countries close to the theatre.

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Also, starting to see more tweets, including by Rubio again, suggesting that Russian forces face some kind of massive supply crunch, even more than what we've seen so far, sometime in the next 72 hours. Not sure what that might mean, or its implications, if true though.

 

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A lot of assessments that Russia has to be running low on its stock of Kalibr cruise missiles. They are the best and most accurate guided weapons in the Russian inventory and on paper their performance may be comparable to the Tomahawk, although it's believed the Russian ability to guide them inerringly to a target is inferior. Kalibrs are very expensive and Russia didn't have a vast number in stock, so that's a problem. Kalibr is also highly dependent on imported electronics, which for some reason are drying up rapidly.

The same applies, to a lesser extent, to unguided munitions, grenades and even rifle ammunition. Russia is depleting its stocks assigned to the front and, although Russia as a whole has a lot more available, it also needs to stay where it is in most cases (telling Russian troops on the Finnish or Latvian border to eject their magazines to be flown to staging posts near Ukraine is likely a non-starter). 

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Is it not yet appropriate to criticize President Zelensky for his lack of Foresight concerning preparation for the invasion? (Armed as we are with out perfect hindsight?)

There are quite a few things to point out that could have been done better.

Zelensky had barely been in office before the COVID19 pandemic started, which obviously took up a huge amount of Ukraine's bandwidth in 2020 and 2021 (as it did Russia's, as otherwise this operation would have apparently launched a full year earlier). So criticisms I think can be better-directed at his predecessor Poroshenko.

However, I'm not sure criticisms would be fair in either case. If Russia had launched this mission in 2014 immediately in response to the Maidan Revolution, it would have probably gone the way Putin though, a quick walkover in support of an apparently ousted political leader whom ~30-40% of the country still broadly supported. The Ukrainian army was in such a poor state in 2014 that it might as well not existed at all. However, the Ukrainian army has undergone thorough, tremendous modernisation and improvement since 2014. It has adopted to new tactics, and almost all of its strategic and tactical planning has been devoted to defending against an invasion from Russia. It has held the line of contact since 2014 and even pushed it back, retaking Mariupol. Unable to afford massively expensive hardware like modern jets, tanks, ships or SAM, it has switched to buying in cheap and easy-to-operate Western hardware like Stingers and Javelins, as well as anti-ship missiles.

Clearly Ukraine should have done more. In particular it should have invested in a Patriot/Iron Dome system, at least for the three or four largest cities. The problem is that those systems are not cheap and Ukraine is not rich.

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Su-34 shot down by a Ukrainian SAM over Chernihiv. One of the two crew was killed, the other captured by Ukrainian forces on the ground. OSINT have counted 24 Russian fixed-wings brought down over Ukraine so far from the sources they've been collating on the ground.

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8 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

Although we don't have any Khor vodka at work (the only Ukranian I've ever heard of), I've unofficially renamed one of our popular drinks the Kyiv Mule. Doesn't have the same ring to it. But my regulars seem happy we're swapping to Ketel and not buying any more Stoli. One 30 dollar bottle every week or so doesn't mean much as a strong statement against this Russian invasion, at least it's keeping my small town Midwest people proud of themselves.

 

Not much, but every little helps, as Aragorn told Barliman.

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4 hours ago, mormont said:

Speaking of cocktail rebranding, I'm mildly disturbed to hear a rumour that the Ukrainians are referring to petrol bombs as Bandera Cocktails instead of Molotov Cocktails. Again, Bandera was a fascist himself.

It would be entirely unsurprising if that was the case. As previously discussed, the lionization of fascists and Nazi collaborators in Ukraine should absolutely be a concern to western nations, especially with a war raging. Wars and their aftermath gives legitimacy to the brutal and the cruel, and if there is a cultural tradition or touchstone they can point to to obtain further legitimacy, they are going to be even more successful. The horrible irony of Putin's war to "denazify" Ukraine, if you believe Russia's obviously false justifications, is that in the end, it will only serve to strengthen the nazis in Ukraine.

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

vodka series or something crappier like Pinnacle.

odd. Isn't all vodka is chemically identical, added flavor notwithstanding?

the renaming thing is about as silly as tryna cancel tolstoy on the basis of national origin, though.

Honestly, the whole renaming/canceling things associated with Russia is fucking embarrassing. We all talked about how idiotic it was to call french fries freedom fries, and yet here we almost 20 years later clapping each other on the back as if calling a cocktail made from ginger beer, vodka, and lime anything other than a Moscow mule means that Putin is personally brokenhearted and will be pulling out of Ukraine and resigning in disgrace any day now.

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Two more major companies pulling out of Russia. Paypal shuts down its Russian service, Samsung electronics stops shipments. There will be a lot of empty shelves in Russia. I wonder what Russians make of Putin's propaganda then.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Su-34 shot down by a Ukrainian SAM over Chernihiv. One of the two crew was killed, the other captured by Ukrainian forces on the ground. OSINT have counted 24 Russian fixed-wings brought down over Ukraine so far from the sources they've been collating on the ground.

Stinger shot?

Any word on the counter offensive near Kharkiv?

@GrimTuesday,

I hear “Russian Sounding” Vodka is being pulled from shelves.  It is profoundly stupid.

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23 minutes ago, Loge said:

Two more major companies pulling out of Russia. Paypal shuts down its Russian service, Samsung electronics stops shipments. There will be a lot of empty shelves in Russia. I wonder what Russians make of Putin's propaganda then.

I wonder in general where the split of opinion is in Russia. If it’s anything like other counties I suspect more rural and older people either support him or are ambivalent about it. Whereas younger more urban people are anti Putin. 
 

My sense is that neither groups feel empowered to do anything about it, and have a general level of tired acceptance of this shit.

Also that it might be that many of these sanctions will hit the group already quite against Putin, rather than his base 

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24 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Stinger shot?

Any word on the counter offensive near Kharkiv?

@GrimTuesday,

I hear “Russian Sounding” Vodka is being pulled from shelves.  It is profoundly stupid.

It's almost 5:30am and I haven't slept, so with the limited amount of mental processing power I have left this is the only way for me to adequately communicate how that makes me feel.

 

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1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

It would be entirely unsurprising if that was the case. As previously discussed, the lionization of fascists and Nazi collaborators in Ukraine should absolutely be a concern to western nations, especially with a war raging. Wars and their aftermath gives legitimacy to the brutal and the cruel, and if there is a cultural tradition or touchstone they can point to to obtain further legitimacy, they are going to be even more successful. The horrible irony of Putin's war to "denazify" Ukraine, if you believe Russia's obviously false justifications, is that in the end, it will only serve to strengthen the nazis in Ukraine.

Honestly, the whole renaming/canceling things associated with Russia is fucking embarrassing. We all talked about how idiotic it was to call french fries freedom fries, and yet here we almost 20 years later clapping each other on the back as if calling a cocktail made from ginger beer, vodka, and lime anything other than a Moscow mule means that Putin is personally brokenhearted and will be pulling out of Ukraine and resigning in disgrace any day now.

Considering the entire Soviet Union was collaborating with the Nazis to dismember Poland, singling out one or two groups is not really fair.

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12 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Considering the entire Soviet Union was collaborating with the Nazis to dismember Poland, singling out one or two groups is not really fair.

There are plenty of Neo-Nazis in Russia, too.

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43 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I wonder in general where the split of opinion is in Russia. If it’s anything like other counties I suspect more rural and older people either support him or are ambivalent about it. Whereas younger more urban people are anti Putin.

Make of that what you want, obviously one can't do proper 100% reliable research right now, scholars probably fear it'd be risky, but I found that bit:

https://www.facebook.com/mmsokolov/posts/2016414775197668

So the main dividing factors are age (less than 30 / more than 60) and whether people watch Russian TV everyday or don't give a damn about it. Gender is barely noticeable, even urban/rural is way lower. Interestingly, internet usage is way lower in importance than TV - so it's not that people don't browse the net, it's rather that it's easy to be in your own echo chamber, whether Putinist-slanted or Western-oriented.

Also, as mentioned by the sociologist and as I always suspected, Russians who answer "I don't know" are basically against but prefer not to.

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Any word on the counter offensive near Kharkiv?

The Ukraine general staff put out a statement a few hours ago acknowledging operations were occurring, but gave no details except to say that it was made possible due to the retreat of Russian-backed separatists from the south-east. To me this suggests it's at least going alright though, since there's usually been no mention at all of Ukrainian military failures (e.g., no one ever discussed the Kherson defenses failing).

Seen a variety of rumors on twitter, but no verified info. The closest might be this footage:

but whether that's newly destroyed Russian equipment or old, or even if that video is actually from today, I can't say (though I believe the forecast for today was in fact snow). Nor what that means in terms of overall success.

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2 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Honestly, the whole renaming/canceling things associated with Russia is fucking embarrassing. We all talked about how idiotic it was to call french fries freedom fries, and yet here we almost 20 years later clapping each other on the back as if calling a cocktail made from ginger beer, vodka, and lime anything other than a Moscow mule means that Putin is personally brokenhearted and will be pulling out of Ukraine and resigning in disgrace any day now.

Yeah a lot of this stuff is pretty cringe and there is a bit of a double standard now where people who found Freedom frees terribly gauche and Republican are now all in on this stuff. The same with statements about Russians, half the stuff you see on reddit about Russia  would be deleted in a heart beat if it was about POC, or any other minority group. 

I firmly think we should be opposing Russia and supporting Ukraine but is something to chew on that a lot of "bleeding heart liberals" are totally open to jingoism once the guardrails of "fear of being racist," no longer apply. If this conflict was Morocco attacking Spain, a lot of liberals would not be acting the same way and it deserves to be unpacked when this is all over. 

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4 hours ago, Werthead said:

Clearly Ukraine should have done more. In particular it should have invested in a Patriot/Iron Dome system, at least for the three or four largest cities. The problem is that those systems are not cheap and Ukraine is not rich.

Ukraine tried to get both.  Israel allegedly refused to allow transfers of batteries of Iron Dome in the spring of 2021 for fear of antagonizing Russia, and the US felt that Patriot was too complicated and costly to maintain to be useful within the timeframe they were looking at.

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3 hours ago, Werthead said:

Su-34 shot down by a Ukrainian SAM over Chernihiv. One of the two crew was killed, the other captured by Ukrainian forces on the ground. OSINT have counted 24 Russian fixed-wings brought down over Ukraine so far from the sources they've been collating on the ground.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-60630352

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1 hour ago, Darzin said:

Yeah a lot of this stuff is pretty cringe and there is a bit of a double standard now where people who found Freedom frees terribly gauche and Republican are now all in on this stuff.

I don't agree with that comparison.  The problem with the Freedom Fries debacle is that some people in the US took it very badly that the French dared voice opposition to the war in Iraq.  Russia, on the other hand, is invading another country.

If people want to relabel certain Russian things to be Ukrainian (or whatever), sure.  Why not.  Its barely significant in the grand scheme of things but if it is a gesture of sympathy, sure.  On the other hand, If people are ending up in flame wars on the internet because of this (whether they support it or not), that is ridiculous.

If people are bullying Russian people in other countries because of this, that is another story.  The problem with humans is that we can't draw appropriate lines and have to go too far.

4 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

As previously discussed, the lionization of fascists and Nazi collaborators in Ukraine should absolutely be a concern to western nations, especially with a war raging.

I do appreciate this and I more or less agree.  But I do have an issue with it also.  Ukraine is battling for survival, almost its right to exist (rather than be viewed as West Russians).  The rest of the world is giving moderate amounts of help but Ukraine has to do all the fighting itself against a much superior army.  It is very privileged of us to be sitting in our comfortable homes bemoaning the fact that the Ukraine is getting help from some fascists.  Given what is at stake, it really doesn't have a choice.

Ukraine will inevitably do a few shady things.  That's the price of a war.  That's the price that the West is demanding from it, because it can't rely on anyone else.

This doesn't mean we should condone those actions but we should realise that we have to bear some responsibiliy for them.

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Random layman general thought of the day: Right now (at least here in Germany) we are emptying all storages with leftover Warsaw Pact equipment, thinking that the Ukrainians would easier adapt to that gear and don't need any additional training. But what is with that foreign legion they are trying to form? Wouldn't it be possible to assume that many among those would be more accustomed to regular NATO gear and therefore we could ship some heavier equipment like tanks and planes to Ukraine and then have them find out whether some of the volunteers can use it?

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33 minutes ago, Padraig said:

If people want to relabel certain Russian things to be Ukrainian (or whatever), sure.  Why not.  Its barely significant in the grand scheme of things but if it is a gesture of sympathy, sure.  On the other hand, If people are ending up in flame wars on the internet because of this (whether they support it or not), that is ridiculous.

Yeah, I mean, of course renaming Moscow mules is silly and stupid and even worthy of ridicule - just as Freedom Fries was.  But I don't think there's any reason to freak out about it, and I think we still can and should distinguish that from actual bigotry, xenophobia, etc.  Albeit, yes, Freedom Fries did reinforce a negative French stereotype, but I'm hard-pressed to identify what that would be in the case of renaming Moscow mules.  Not associating Russians with drinking vodka?

Basically, if renaming Moscow mules helps @Argonath Diver make more money off rambunctious drunks, then more power to him.  Or, at least, c'est la vie.

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