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Ukraine 22: Anyone else holding their breath?


Ser Scot A Ellison

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Seems like the most "fair" option would be for an agreement that a neutral 3rd party (maybe Turkey?) conduct a referendum in Crimea about its future. Maybe with a clause that a 60% threshold is needed for a final decision, and anything less results in another referendum in 2 years or something.

If a sizable majority of Crimean residents want to join Russia, it seems best for everyone that they do so. Including Ukraine, which would avoid having a large pro-Russian voter bloc participating in its future elections.

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That would be a lovely idea if the last ten years hadn't happened, if there was not a war going on, if Russia gave a damn about democracy, if Crimea wasn't strategically important to both sides in ending/pursuing the wider conflict, if the infrastructure existed to support such a move, if the outcome could be guaranteed to be decisive and if Turkey was a disinterested party.

 

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13 minutes ago, Fez said:

Seems like the most "fair" option would be for an agreement that a neutral 3rd party (maybe Turkey?) conduct a referendum in Crimea about its future. Maybe with a clause that a 60% threshold is needed for a final decision, and anything less results in another referendum in 2 years or something.

If a sizable majority of Crimean residents want to join Russia, it seems best for everyone that they do so. Including Ukraine, which would avoid having a large pro-Russian voter bloc participating in its future elections.

Before or after Russia has ethnically cleansed the area?

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17 minutes ago, mormont said:

That would be a lovely idea if the last ten years hadn't happened, if there was not a war going on, if Russia gave a damn about democracy, if Crimea wasn't strategically important to both sides in ending/pursuing the wider conflict, if the infrastructure existed to support such a move, if the outcome could be guaranteed to be decisive and if Turkey was a disinterested party.

 

There needs to be a peace, or at least a cease-fire at some point, no war is endless. And it seems unlikely that either side will achieve a decisive victory, at least in Crimea itself. Sure the fighting could just stop at some point, like in Korea, but that leaves Ukraine in a worse spot than an agreement like this because it would de facto cede Crimea to Russia.

6 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Turkey wants Russia out of Crimea so it can be the most powerful country on the Black Sea, so yeah, not really disinterested.

Okay, not Turkey then. It could be any country with the logistics to run the vote and that wants a bit of international kudos. Bring in South Africa or somebody like that.

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50 minutes ago, Fez said:

There needs to be a peace, or at least a cease-fire at some point, no war is endless. And it seems unlikely that either side will achieve a decisive victory, at least in Crimea itself. Sure the fighting could just stop at some point, like in Korea, but that leaves Ukraine in a worse spot than an agreement like this because it would de facto cede Crimea to Russia.

I have a feeling that both sides are hoping for the internal collapse of the other at this point. Also, that the other side will run out of men willing to fight and the stuff to fight with (Soviet stocks in Russia's case, Western aid in Ukraine's) before their own does.

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1 hour ago, Fez said:

There needs to be a peace, or at least a cease-fire at some point, no war is endless.

While that's true, it isn't really a response to what I said. Yes, there will eventually be a negotiated peace. None of us know yet what that might look like. But I don't see that peace creating the conditions where a credible Crimean referendum could actually happen.

 

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Turkey wants Russia out of Crimea so it can be the most powerful country on the Black Sea, so yeah, not really disinterested.

"The referendum on the matter of Crimea has concluded a return of Crimea to... TURKEY! Restoration of the Hilly Ottoman Empire!" 

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51 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think I've worked out why Musk and Putin were chatting. Putin might be preparing a new bolthole.

 

 

49 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I like you how can tell Tim Curry is choking back laughter in his delivery. 

In fortuitous timing, Vice did an oral history of this very clip just a couple months ago:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjkv9q/an-oral-history-of-tim-currys-escape-to-the-one-place-uncorrupted-by-capitalism

 

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One of my go to YouTube channels on the war, Reporting from Ukraine, is sounding a bit pessimistic. Looking at Russia's capacity for missile strikes on critical infrastructure and civilian populations at the frequency and with the number of missiles it it using for each strike. The success rate of approx 20 hits per launch, and the remaining missile capacity of Russia, his calculation is that Russia can keep up its strikes and weaken Ukraine to the point where Russia's mobilisation and deployments could re-launch major ground offensive into Ukraine and cut it in half on a roughly north-south line running through Sumy, Poltava and Zaporizhzha. Though Ukraine reasonably predicting this means they've got time to try to prepare, with missile strikes across the country every few weeks it may not be possible to prepare enough.

Now that the EU parliament has declared Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, what are they going to do about it? Will it prove to be an empty gesture? Words need to be followed by action.

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On 11/22/2022 at 10:57 AM, Kalnestk Oblast said:

I don't think that really matters; he can spin things happily however he wants it and there are reasonable things to spin out of this that show he's 'winning' even when he's not. Being able to say that Ukraine is now just a puppet government of the West and has no homegrown military capabilities (even if that's not actually true) is an example. You're doing the classic thing of looking at what is actually real and assuming that is what is going to be convincing for a totalitarian. 

What matters more than the perception of climbing down is whether or not Putin gets something out of stopping the war. And right now the argument can be made that the answer is no. Sanctions have not hurt Russia nearly as much as people have hoped. Losing the Russian military en masse sucks, but it also hasn't harmed Russia so far and there's no signs that they need it for some other reason. Russia is being able to sell oil to the rest of the world, and will be able to sell gas at some point too. Russia can sustain this war for a while yet, and may be able to even do well at some point in the future when they have defensive positions largely solidified. 

So then the question becomes - how long can the rest of the world deal? How long can Europe deal with double digit inflation and energy scarcity? How long can Africa deal with food shortages? How long can the US deal with paying for Ukrainian weaponry? Putin's calculus is that Russia can outlast these fickle democracies to get real concessions, but even if he doesn't he's still willing to cause problems for the West at a relatively cheap cost to Russia. 

Omg I just realized you changed your Profile pic,

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2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

One of my go to YouTube channels on the war, Reporting from Ukraine, is sounding a bit pessimistic. Looking at Russia's capacity for missile strikes on critical infrastructure and civilian populations at the frequency and with the number of missiles it it using for each strike. The success rate of approx 20 hits per launch, and the remaining missile capacity of Russia, his calculation is that Russia can keep up its strikes and weaken Ukraine to the point where Russia's mobilisation and deployments could re-launch major ground offensive into Ukraine and cut it in half on a roughly north-south line running through Sumy, Poltava and Zaporizhzha. Though Ukraine reasonably predicting this means they've got time to try to prepare, with missile strikes across the country every few weeks it may not be possible to prepare enough.

Now that the EU parliament has declared Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, what are they going to do about it? Will it prove to be an empty gesture? Words need to be followed by action.

I'm not sure about that. You can hurt and kill civilians and not weaken a country militarily at all, partially because the weapons you are using to kill militarily unproductive civilians are not degrading the enemy's military capability. This is the Battle of Britain lesson, switching from engaging an enemy's military to targeting their civilian population doesn't achieve anything apart from letting your enemy's military get stronger and really pisses them off.

Not to mention that the Ukrainians are used to bitterly cold winters and their power and heating not holding up, and ways of surviving that. It'll be a brutal winter, no doubt, but not an unsurvivable one. It's more likely that, if gas supplies don't hold out, there'll be much bitterer complaining in western Europe if people have to keep their houses 2-3 degrees colder than the considerably greater discomfort in Ukraine.

Looking at current deployments, it looks like Ukraine is planning a major offensive into Zaporizhzhia and Russia is heavily fortifying the area, especially around Melitopol, in preparation for that. A secondary Russian thrust down from the Kharkiv-Belgorod border region is possible, but there's a reason Ukraine has been hammering the staging grounds and supply depots around Belgorod for months now. Ukraine is also conducting small-scale offensive actions across the Dnipro (somehow), possibly with an eye to try to test the Russians on multiple fronts and then achieve a breakthrough where they are weakest.

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Yeah that’s a weird comment there. What does terror strikes on civilian infrastructure have anything to do with taking an action militarily. One thing with how this aid is going on is that most of ukraines military supplies are being created out of country. I would guess there is some amount on infrastructure that goes to things like repairs, maintenance and some creation of native made Ukrainian equipment but that’s it’s fairly minor compared to what’s shipped in.

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11 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

One of my go to YouTube channels on the war, Reporting from Ukraine, is sounding a bit pessimistic. Looking at Russia's capacity for missile strikes on critical infrastructure and civilian populations at the frequency and with the number of missiles it it using for each strike. The success rate of approx 20 hits per launch, and the remaining missile capacity of Russia, his calculation is that Russia can keep up its strikes and weaken Ukraine to the point where Russia's mobilisation and deployments could re-launch major ground offensive into Ukraine and cut it in half on a roughly north-south line running through Sumy, Poltava and Zaporizhzha. Though Ukraine reasonably predicting this means they've got time to try to prepare, with missile strikes across the country every few weeks it may not be possible to prepare enough.

Now that the EU parliament has declared Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, what are they going to do about it? Will it prove to be an empty gesture? Words need to be followed by action.

I very much like the channel, but in this case the guy is smart, has a large international audience, and I feel he is largely playing to that. I personally can't see the Russian army recovering from their current position. Their economy is not growing stronger nor will it recover while the war continues. The winter will be harsh for Ukrainians but think about the Russian troops in the field who already have poor morale. Ukraine has much more staying power than Russia. The west is not going to back down on this, there is no reason to, it is easily the most value they are getting from their defense spending since WW2. This will probably continue to be a gradual attritional slog broken up by a few rapid gains, but at the same time if the Russian army (or government) suddenly capitulated in some manner I would not be surprised at all.

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Perun I find does this too. He’s in ways I think just predisposed to give Russia benefit of the doubt on things, even on things where Russia has proved to be poor in practice. Now ofc past performance does not mean they can’t learn from their mistakes. But until we see it it’s hard to believe. Also I guess there is some value to playing to the both sides argument to make sure Ukraine still gets aid and we don’t stop because of “they’ve won” already.

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I just saw a report that a group of mobiks arrived in Ukraine without socks.

Twice I have been "winter camping", and both experiences rank as among the worst episodes in my life.  It was a miserable, almost completely lousy activity, and that was with the best commercially available camping gear.  I hated every minute of it despite being fed hot meals regularly, and no one was shooting at me.

The Russians in Ukraine are going to have a bad time.  I feel sad for them despite their evil; dying cold, wet, hungry and abandoned is not the way to go.

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