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


Ser Scot A Ellison

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1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

Hold up, that is a bullshit comparison. There is a world of difference between a country agreeing to be neutral in exchange for land (still not great) and would eventually lose millions of soldiers to destroy Nazi Germany vs  right wing ultra nationalist groups who actively and willing worked with Nazi Germany to participate not just as a local insurgency against the USSR, but also in their genocidal project.

Worth noting that the USSR only wanted to destroy Nazi Germany after it invaded. Before that point, they had no problem with Nazi Germany whittling down the West and buying their shit (and them buying Russia's shit in return) and Stalin had no problem believing that Hitler's anti-Slav, Lebensraun in the East shtick as PR populism.

In later years, Stalin was heard to lament the German invasion because of "the things they could have achieved together."

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14 minutes ago, 3CityApache said:

Beg your pardon? Agreeing to be neutral? Soviets invaded Poland from the east on September 17th 1939, just two and a half weeks after Nazis, literally stabbing us in the back, as per confidential protocol of Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Not to mention them executing thousands of Polish officers taken prisoners during said invasion.

Yeah, there is no decent apologia for Soviet actions toward Poland in 1939.

I can create a new thread to discuss the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact.

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3 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

Can we not make this another bullshit history lesson about ww2? Please?

Some of us obviously need such a lesson (don't know about bullshit), but I will say no more about it.

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3 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

Can we not make this another bullshit history lesson about ww2? Please?

Hey, maybe it will give Scot the opportunity to start another spinoff thread.

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3 hours ago, kiko said:

As far as I remember it was between 0 and -1. 

You are correct, saw the comment a few days, and just remembered the 0 and 1 bit. And tried to reconstruct the comment by memory instead of checking it again.

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Really interesting, long thread with equally long digressions by Paul Poast, an IR professor, discussing the causes of the war as he sees it, in the form of a critique of John Mearsheimer's "realist" take on things.

 

 

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Seems like it was particularly bloody day in the skies. Ukraine has something like 9 confirmed kills of Russian fixed wing planes and attack helicopters in the past 24 hours. Quite possibly this means that a new wave of Stinger missiles has reached the front lines. Russia claimed to destroy several Ukrainian planes too, and maybe they did, but there hasn't been any visual proof of it.

As for that Kharkiv counter-offensive, there's been a growing amount of footage of destroyed Russian equipment in the area, but it doesn't (so far at least) seem to have decisively changed anything. Although the fog of war is particularly bad there, so who knows exactly what the situation is. The very specific rumor I've seen is that the Russian 448th motor regiment was destroyed (which doesn't necessarily mean all killed), which I think is like ~1,500 troops. Haven't seen it verified though.

Also, this apparently happened:

 

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44 minutes ago, Ran said:

Really interesting, long thread with equally long digressions by Paul Poast, an IR professor, discussing the causes of the war as he sees it, in the form of a critique of John Mearsheimer's "realist" take on things.

There are interesting points there, but also some dubious ones. I think Ukraine joining NATO earlier would have left Putin eventually feeling there was no choice but to risk attacking a NATO-joined Ukraine. He would have utilised the argument that Ukraine was never a sovereign state, Russia recognised its independence in 1991 with a gun to its head and Ukraine acknowledged its position as a Russian satellite state through the surrender of its nuclear arsenal and also its earlier policies, so Ukraine joining NATO would be invalid and its position was a direct threat to Russian interests (he may yet make this argument against the Baltics, in which case buckle up, but he has a bigger problem in that Russia has effectively tolerated their presence in NATO and not really made major complaints about it since 2004).

I think Putin would also gamble - almost certainly successfully in the former case, not in the latter - that a conventional attack on Ukraine would not be met by a NATO nuclear response and he could overwhelm and take Ukraine before a major NATO ground response could be mounted. However, he would have to factor in having to defeat NATO airpower almost immediately. So an attack would not be launched until Russia's air power was far stronger than it is currently. He would also likely say that an attack on Russia's air and sea bases in Russia on along its coast would be a cause for a nuclear response, limiting the Allies' ability to retaliate against Russian bases.

In that case WWIII would be risked and the chances of failure would be much greater than they are in the current operation, but Russia would also only attempt that operation with overwhelming force.

The interesting argument is that Ukraine should have retained its nuclear arsenal and not surrendered it to Russia. A nuclear-armed Ukraine creates a massive headache for Russia in that Ukraine would be able to lay waste to major Russian cities and Russia could flatten Ukraine, but neutralise the country, territory, resources and people (all needed to further Russia's goal to become a Eurasian superpower again). Russia losing its major cities and the bulk of its population would also be so weakened in such a conflict that it would not be able to prevent either being absorbed into the Chinese or Western sphere of influence afterwards (or both, being divided maybe along the Urals). There would be a catastrophic loss of life and fallout issue across much of Eastern Europe and Central Asia to content with, of course. Ergo, most likely a nuclear-armed Ukraine would prevent a Russian invasion altogether (maybe).

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Israel's offer to mediate is interesting. Both Ukraine and Russia have responded positively to the intervention, apparently feeling that the Belarusian effort is compromised by Belarus's support for Russia and the Turkish initiative is tainted by Turkey's membership of NATO. Israel has excellent relations with NATO, Ukraine and Russia and thus has more credibility. Israel also doesn't necessarily have a dog in the fight, whilst Turkey and Belarus do.

Putin continues to maintain strategic vagueness on his red lines and actual hard objectives, meaning he retains the flexibility to say, "Mission accomplished, the job is over," at any time, whether that's because Russia really has met its objectives, or his forces have run out of steam, or even start suffering reversals from Ukrainian counter-attacks. At that point he can effectively declare a ceasefire which Ukraine would have to agree with, preventing Ukrainian counter-offensives and allowing Russian forces to dig in on territory they have already taken, pending a peace settlement (whether Russia plans to abide by such a peace settlement in the long term is another question altogether, of course). He took a vaguely conciliatory line yesterday (indicating he believes good relations can resume post-operation, meaning he sees sanctions as being on the table in a peace deal) and today made strong statements about a Western intervention in the air over Ukraine, but only after several weeks non-stop of Western sources saying they believed that a no-fly zone above Ukraine would trigger WWIII. So Putin has now basically confirmed that (even if up until yesterday that wasn't the case), which may have been a mistake for the West.

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5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Israel's offer to mediate is interesting. Both Ukraine and Russia have responded positively to the intervention, apparently feeling that the Belarusian effort is compromised by Belarus's support for Russia and the Turkish initiative is tainted by Turkey's membership of NATO. Israel has excellent relations with NATO, Ukraine and Russia and thus has more credibility. Israel also doesn't necessarily have a dog in the fight, whilst Turkey and Belarus do.

Yeah of all the potential mediators Israel definitely appears to have the most legitimacy as neutral arbitrators from all parties involved.

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WTF. Russia seems to be shipping military equipment from Khabarovsk to support the Ukrainian effort.

For reference, Khabarovsk is on the Amur River at the far north-eastern tip of China's border with Russia. It is further east than Vladivostok and the entire Korean Peninsula. The quality of the equipment is very dubious: Soviet-era APCs and the ZSU-23-4 Shilk, an AA cannon introduced in 1965. Might be good if a UAV happens to fly into view but otherwise pretty much useless. Its 60-year-old armour is also effectively useless against Javelins.

Also, since Kyiv is fucking gigantic (slightly bigger than New York City, almost three times the size of Grozny, where the Russians successfully pulled this off before, albeit with colossal losses), encircling the city effectively may require more manpower than actually currently exists in the entire mobilised Russian army and pushing into a concentric ring towards the city centre would be incredibly ill-advised.

Some speculation that Putin might now be serious over a negotiated settlement, but he wants to take either Kyiv or Kharkiv and maybe Odesa first, but he may finally be waking up to the idea that taking all three is impossible, so he has to pick one, and Kyiv is the most likely to fail. The fear, of course, is that he might settle for trying to destroy them instead. Kharkiv is the most logical (and horrifying) choice for that because they've already made a start on it.

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Huh.

Quote

 

On Soloviev’s show—an Orwellian environment, typical of the Russian state media—the host and every panelist repeatedly denied the obvious, attempting to disprove the notion that Russia is at war with Ukraine. Soloviev asked: “Are we de facto at war with NATO?” Kartapolov concurred: “De facto, we are at war with NATO, because all of Ukraine’s military formations are carrying out NATO’s tasks... NATO is also solving another problem, getting rid of Europe’s excess migrants by sending them to fight in Ukraine.” He pompously concluded: “God is not in power, but in truth.”

As to the Kremlin’s aims in Ukraine, Kartapolov explained them in detail: “Our position is clear and transparent, including during these negotiations. The essence is as follows: Ukraine will recognize Crimea as the Russian Federation, as well as DPR/LPR [‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’] within their administrative borders. Ukraine will change its social and state system and become a neutral, demilitarized country. That’s it.”

Lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin, who is deputy chairman of the Duma commission on relations with the former Soviet Union, seemed unsettled by Kartapolov’s revelations and angrily replied: “When a horse has something to say, a saddle shouldn’t be the one to talk. This is not the time to tell everything. First of all, we’re not the ones who should be saying that, they [Ukrainians] need to be the ones who say that. But that situation has to ripen first. It won’t be done during the thunder of cannons. Until our operation has concluded, it won’t be clear what ‘denazification’ will consist of.”

 

 

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I am surprised at the number of companies Zelensky has convinced to stop operations in Russia (Apple, Visa, Mastercard among others stopped after entreaties from the Ukrainians). I'm somewhat surprised US sanctions for instance wouldnt bar them from operating there anyways.

To give an example, the company that employs me cant do business in Iran. Doesnt make sense to me that Russia is different.

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Must admit, for a second there I thought Russia had decided to deploy mothballed T-34/85s. They might actually get them somewhere (it's actually a WWII monument the Russian vehicle just happened to be passing).

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13 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I am surprised at the number of companies Zelensky has convinced to stop operations in Russia (Apple, Visa, Mastercard among others stopped after entreaties from the Ukrainians). I'm somewhat surprised US sanctions for instance wouldnt bar them from operating there anyways.

To give an example, the company that employs me cant do business in Iran. Doesnt make sense to me that Russia is different.

It's not Zelensky- it's Russia being excluded from SWIFT plus popular pressure. Also, at this point there'a a snowball effect and every company that leaves increases.the motivation for others to leave

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The more I read about this war, the more I think Putin has almost committed national suicide here. Like, even if they 'win' there's no way Russia will be the same after this if it lasts any time at all. Even if they succeed in swallowing the whole Ukraine and pacifying it enough to use it as a breadbasket, the damage that'll be done in the interim if any of these dire warnings are even close to true will surely take decades to recover from. Not just economic, but cultural, all the structures that keep Russia, as a nation, propped up and hanging together. They'll be damaged. 

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