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Ukraine 15 - Si vis pacem, para bellum


Alarich II

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27 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Real men dig trenches in radioactive dirt. Functioning organs are for pussies.

Normal soldier worries about what organs they might lose and still survive.

In Putin's Russia a soldier worries about how many more they can grow and still survive.

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6 minutes ago, Babblebauble said:

Normal soldier worries about what organs they might lose and still survive.

In Putin's Russia a soldier worries about how many more they can grow and still survive.

You folks can laugh, but this is how we will end up with Space Marines.

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2 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

You people laugh, but this is how we will end up with Space Marines.

The God-Emperor Leto II will send his Fish Speakers to deal with these upstart Space Mans. 

Thence they shall suffer the fate of a stone dropped upon the sea; they shall simply disappear.

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26 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

You folks can laugh, but this is how we will end up with Space Marines.

 

17 minutes ago, Babblebauble said:

The God-Emperor Leto II will send his Fish Speakers to deal with these upstart Space Mans. 

Thence they shall suffer the fate of a stone dropped upon the sea; they shall simply disappear.

The Tyranids are gonna fuck all your shit up! 

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Recorded by a captive Russian soldier with his cell phone, quite interesting. Ukraine starts about 14th minute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIZIspwem2s&t=1341s

By accident pretty good documentary was made. And morality play at the same time. Starts with vodka, buddies and fun, ends in a cowshed surrounded by Ukrainians :lol:

 

Aha, USA think about passing some Harpoon rockets to Ukraine. 24 rockets could be enough to destroy Black Sea Fleet, lift the naval blockade and let grain flow.

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2 hours ago, broken one said:

Aha, USA think about passing some Harpoon rockets to Ukraine. 24 rockets could be enough to destroy Black Sea Fleet, lift the naval blockade and let grain flow.

I think there's an issue that they're normally ship-mounted and Ukraine doesn't have any ships.

It'd be more helpful - though the practicality might be another matter - to simply copy the Neptune system Ukraine already has, but seems to be slow in building more, and churning more out for them.

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11 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think there's an issue that they're normally ship-mounted and Ukraine doesn't have any ships.

It'd be more helpful - though the practicality might be another matter - to simply copy the Neptune system Ukraine already has, but seems to be slow in building more, and churning more out for them.

It's said they think about dismantling the launcher from a ship and send it to Ukraine to be mounted on the ground. They also consider sending Naval Strike Missile by Raytheon Technologies, range of 250-300 km.

This may be also just an element of pressure on Russia to lift the blockade voluntarily.

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14 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

The Tyranids are gonna fuck all your shit up! 

"They're sending their worst. They're psykers, they're bringing chaos, and some of them, are good space insects."

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It looks like the Russians are mounting a major offensive out of Popsana, trying to sweep west and north to cut off the Donbas. It looks like they are inflicting very heavy damage on the area, but they are suffering casualties in return. In particular, the Ukrainian Air Force (which has been destroyed about seven times over now, according to Russian media) is surprisingly heavily active in the area.

The status of Ukrainian counter-attacks aimed at Izium and east of Kharkiv remains unclear. However, by concentrating in Popsana and then attacking outwards, the effects of both relief efforts will be somewhat blunted, though they may allow Ukrainian forces to focus on the brunt of the attack rather than having to worry about their rear. It looks like this offensive has been made possible by linking railheads into Popsana, allowing the Russians to resupply directly into the city and then advance, resolving a major supply issue.

The Ukrainians were extremely worried about this attack two days ago but it looks like they've downgraded their worry from very alarmed to merely still extremely concerned. The Russians are being bloodied heavily, but the scale of Ukrainian losses is less clear.

Perhaps not unrelated, but Russia is lifting the proscription on over-40s from joining the army. They've said they wanted veterans with technical skills to re-sign up, but the more cynical explanation is that support for the war is lukewarm among the young and increases sharply after 40. Of course, the fighting quality of over-40s, especially those without prior military experience, is doubtful.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The Ukrainians were extremely worried about this attack two days ago but it looks like they've downgraded their worry from very alarmed to merely still extremely concerned. The Russians are being bloodied heavily, but the scale of Ukrainian losses is less clear.

It is hard to really say how serious this attack is.  This is the most/fastest progress we have seen in the entire Donbas offensive.  They have gone like 5-7 km in the past two days, which is meaningful progress although not exactly a dizzying pace.  I can understand why the Ukrainians are concerned about a large portion of their defense becoming untenable. 

But if the plan is to use this to encircle a large part of the UA, they have a long way to go.  For one, this is just one side of a pincer, and the other (northern) side isn't moving.  As they drive further, their supply lines get longer, their flanks get bigger and they are exposed to attack on three sides.  Can they continue to drive forward when so many other Russian offensives have failed?  My guess would be no. 

This feels like the last throw of the dice for the Russian spring offensive.  They are massing their best troops (Spetsnaz and paratroopers were both sighted) and attacking together.  But there's a limited number of those best troops, and they can only provide that boost for so long.

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1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

 

This feels like the last throw of the dice for the Russian spring offensive.  They are massing their best troops (Spetsnaz and paratroopers were both sighted) and attacking together.  But there's a limited number of those best troops, and they can only provide that boost for so long.

Just read new analysys by a military journalist, Jarosław Wolski. He called it last convulsions of the offensive and claimed Russians may get to Bachmut but will probably stop soon anyway, the success would be local. And that even if the mobilization starts now, for at least 2 months they will be unable to organize anything big, probably just fortify and defend. This guy tends to be cautious / pessimistic, so it makes me optimistic.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y5PWnOjvqUg Russians tried to cross Donets river at Dronivka but something went wrong.

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56 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

It is hard to really say how serious this attack is.  This is the most/fastest progress we have seen in the entire Donbas offensive.  They have gone like 5-7 km in the past two days, which is meaningful progress although not exactly a dizzying pace.  I can understand why the Ukrainians are concerned about a large portion of their defense become untenable. 

But if the plan is to use this to encircle a large part of the UA, they have a long way to go.  For one, this is just one side of a pincer, and the other (northern) side isn't moving.  As they drive further, their supply lines get longer, their flanks get bigger and they are exposed to attack on three sides.  Can they continue to drive forward when so many other Russian offensives have failed?  My guess would be no. 

This feels like the last throw of the dice for the Russian spring offensive.  They are massing their best troops (Spetsnaz and paratroopers were both sighted) and attacking together.  But there's a limited number of those best troops, and they can only provide that boost for so long.

I was listening to General Patreus talk about how some counter-offenses in Iraq and Afghanistan were so intense, unrelenting, and fierce, only to die and stop overnight. Large offensives can be deceptive about how much fuel is left in the tank, especially when they are making large pushes. This is not to say that is the case with Russia, but this "special operation" has thrown out a lot of how we thought about Russia and its capacity to engage in "special operations." 

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Presented without comment: an outright defense of Russian invasion from a serious anglosphere  person. Worth reading even if you're not inclined agree. 

 

 

 

Norman Finkelstein : Okay. On the question of the Ukraine, the thing that’s troubled me about the public conversation of the Ukraine or hysteria —it’s not even a conversation, it’s hysteria about the Ukraine— is the following: those who are not totally immersed in the mainstream propaganda, some of the people you’ve had on your program and people who are not especially of the left, they have no particular left-wing allegiance, like John Mearsheimer at University of Chicago, or before he passed away Stephen F. Cohen who predicted that if you keep up with this NATO expansion in the Ukraine, there’s going to be a war. He said that in Democracy Now in 2014, and he was right. And other people, Professor Chomsky. I would include in that group several others, and they’ll all say the following thing:

Number one, the Russians were promised that there would be no NATO expansion to the East, that was the quid pro quo for the reunification of Germany after the decomposition of the Soviet Union. The Russians were promised that but the West went ahead. We’re talking about the 1990s: the promises were given, but the West then went ahead and started to expand NATO once, as John Mearsheimer likes to put it there was the first tranche, then the second tranche of expansion… Then NATO starts expanding in Georgia and in the Ukraine. The Soviet Union says it’s a red line.

To stop this, the Soviet Union offers a perfectly reasonable resolution: just neutralize Ukraine like we neutralized Austria after World War II, neither aligned with an Eastern bloc nor aligned with a Western bloc. That seemed to me perfectly reasonable. And the people I mentioned, Mearsheimer, Cohen passed away since but Professor Chomsky and a number of others, they’ll all agree on the reasonableness of Putin’s demands.

And then the reasonableness of those demands, those demands have to, as Briahna says in her paper and as she said this evening, they have to always be seen in context. So what’s the context? The context is the Soviet Union, the former Russia, it lost… the estimates are about 30 million people during World War II. The United States which, if you watch American movies, you would think the US won World War II, it lost about two hundred thousand people. The UK was the second candidate for winning World War II, they lost about four hundred thousand people. The Soviet Union lost 30 million people. Even those who didn’t take courses in the hard sciences can reckon the difference between several hundred thousand and thirty million. Now that’s not an ancient memory for the Russians. If you… I remember Stephen F. Cohen saying “when I grew up in little America —he was from Kentucky— we used to celebrate…” I forgot what was called here Victory Day, V-something, he said “but you know now as adults we don’t celebrate that anymore in the United States, Victory in World War II”, he said, but Russia, he said, they still celebrate V-Day, they still celebrate it. I live in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. A large part is Russian Jews, a large part is Russian Jews. You go out in May, you go out on the V-Day, and you can see that Russians up to 80 and 90 year olds, they’re wearing medals, they’re medals from World War II. That memory is alive.

And now there’s this Ukraine, where Nazis are playing an outsized role. I’m not saying they’re a majority, but in the political and military life, they play an outsized —disproportionate let’s call it— role. This Ukraine where Nazis are playing an outsized role, are aligned with a formidable military bloc called NATO, NATO keeps advancing and advancing and advancing, closing on Russia, trying to suffocate it… And beginning around 2016, under Trump, begins to arm the Ukraine, pouring in weapons, engaging in military exercises with NATO, behaving very provocatively. And then the Foreign Minister Lavrov finally says we’ve reached the boiling point.

Now everything I just told you, Professor Chomsky, John Mearsheimer and others will acknowledge it. The mainstream press won’t even acknowledge that but people who call themselves just, legitimately call themselves dissidents, although Mearsheimer wouldn’t call himself a dissident, he just calls himself a realist. Nice guy, I consider him a friend, I like him. They’ll acknowledge all that. But then they say the invasion was criminal. Criminal invasion, criminal, criminal, criminal. And my question which I’ve constantly been putting in correspondence is a very simple one: if you agree that for 20 years—more than 20 years, more than two decades—, Russia has tried to engage in diplomacy; if you agree that the Russian demand to neutralize Ukraine —not occupy it, not determine its government, its form of economy, just neutralize it like Austria after World War II—, if you agree that was a legitimate demand; if you agree that the West was expanding and expanding NATO; if you agree that Ukraine de facto had become a member of NATO, weapons pouring in, engaging in military exercises in NATO; and if you agree… You know, Russia lost 30 million people during World War II because of the Nazi invasion, so there’s a legitimate concern by Russia with all of these —if you excuse my language— Nazis floating around in the Ukraine, then the simple question is: What was Russia to do?

I’m not saying I agree with the invasion, I’m not saying it went right, but I think one thing: the invasion showed… you know what the one thing the invasion showed, Briahna, was that Russia is kind of weak militarily, which is why all the more they may have been fearful of a NATO-backed Ukraine filled with Nazis, and probably at some point positioning nuclear missiles on its border. And I think 30 million, 30 million people… Listen to this: I think 30 million people is 30 million arguments in favor of Russia. Now I’m not going to say, because I’m not a general and I’m not a diplomat, so I’m not going… I’m not a military strategist so I’m not going to say it was the wisest thing to do. I’m not going to say it was the most prudent thing to do. But I will say —and I’m not afraid to say it because it would dishonor the memory of my parents if i didn’t say it—, I will say that they had the right to do it. And I’m not taking that back. They had the right to do it. They had if I can call it the historic right to do it. 30 million people (killed during WW2), and now you’re starting again, you’re starting again. No, no, you know I can’t go for it, I can’t go for those who acknowledge the legitimacy of the arguments made by Putin but then call the invasion criminal. I don’t see that.

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4 minutes ago, MeanMrMustard said:

Presented without comment: an outright defense of Russian invasion from a serious anglosphere  person. Worth reading even if you're not inclined agree. 

The problem with this statement is that it is pretty much all complete bullshit:

  • NATO informally agreed not to arm or fortify East Germany (which it still hasn't). There was never any formal treaty between NATO and Russia over not expanding anywhere, and in fact it was agreed that Germany would be reunified as a NATO state and Russia later expressed no particular objections to Poland, Romania and even the Baltics joining (although they have grumbled about it since). Russia also had many years to reach an agreement with Ukraine and Georgia about securing an agreement not to join NATO in some kind of negotiated settlement but chose not to do that until almost twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, and when they did they chose threats and military action instead of actually talking to anyone.
  • Nazis are not playing "an outsized role" in Ukraine. The extreme right in Ukraine was mostly neutralised in the last decade, moving from commanding fringe support in Ukraine to virtually non-existent support. The extreme right was also mostly purged from the military since 2014. The far and extreme right commanded something like 1% of the popular vote in the last two elections. The far right in Ukraine is considerably less of a problem than in France, Germany, the United States and Russia itself.
  • NATO borders less than 8% of Russia, which is an interesting way of saying it is "suffocating" it.
  • Russia suffered at least 27 million deaths in WWII, which is true. However, Russia has a few things now that it did not have in WWII, including 1600 nuclear weapons available for rapid deployment and another ~5,000 available for use on a longer term deployment. Even if only 10% of those weapons are usable, that is enough to comprehensively obliterate any potential military threat to the country from anywhere on Earth. Even without nuclear strike capability, Russia's air defences are among the strongest on the planet and its air force and conventional army, better-motivated by fighting for their home territory and better-supplied within their own interior lines, are vastly more formidable comparatively than the Red Army in 1941. The Russians ironically might be able to make a better argument at feeling threatened after this conflict, with a quarter to a third of their combat-ready armored capability destroyed or severely weakened and maybe 10% of the standing army dead or incapacitated.
  • Left unmentioned in this diatribe is the sovereignty of Ukraine and their ability to decide what they want to do regardless of what anyone else thinks or wants. If Finkelstein wants to make an argument based on realpolitik he neglects to mention that Russia never attempted any kind of realpolitik-based negotiation with Ukraine, only one based in hostility, which naturally meant that Ukraine would seek the safety of NATO. If Russia had been more upfront in negotiations, or offered even a reasonable facsimile of a carrot rather than going for the stick each time, then this issue would have been resolved in 2014. If Russia had just not done anything, the extremely fragile government put together in 2013 would have likely collapsed within months and a pro-Russian government would have likely been returned in the years since then, but they chose to unite Ukraine against them by stripping away the Russian-majority areas, which was a self-defeating move.
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