Ukraine: Are ya winning yet.

[Varysblackfyre321]

[A Horse Named Stranger]

don't you mean nyet?

[Wilbur]

Personally, I like how instead of "no" in English, our Ukrainian friends say, "not", probably a direct translation of the particle не, or ні.

Eg. "Do you have any homework today, Kolya?"

"Not."

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

don't you mean nyet?

That’s an question. Nyet.

[Wilbur]

Trent Telenko on casualty rates and morbidity in the cold for Russian forces:

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

I would like to see greatly increased insurgency within Russia. Putin needs motivation to scale down, losses fealt right at his doorstep should help pressure him when the war is no longer exclusively "over there".

[A True Kaniggit]

49 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I would like to see greatly increased insurgency within Russia. Putin needs motivation to scale down, losses fealt right at his doorstep should help pressure him when the war is no longer exclusively "over there".

I assume it’s like Iraq. An unjust war for no discernible reason.

But you have you to rally around your flag or be a traitor. 

[A True Kaniggit]

And insurgency? Come on. 

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I would like to see greatly increased insurgency within Russia. Putin needs motivation to scale down, losses fealt right at his doorstep should help pressure him when the war is no longer exclusively "over there".

There is, but only at a very minor level. Some sabotage of infrastructure and attacks on recruitment stations etc is continuing, but it's not very organised on a national level (and Russia is of course colossal, and opposition to Putin's rule is largely dispersed through outlying oblasts where it is hard to gain critical momentum). There is certainly both a Russian opposition to Putin (very small) and an opposition rooted in self-preservation (quite large). There is sweet fuck all sympathy for the Ukrainians though, certainly outside of the younger age groups.

So far he has managed to keep the big cities from feeling the pain of mass casualties and conscription, but there's only so long that he can keep that up for. But even so it took years and years of casualties in both Afghanistan and Chechnya to motivate mass protests, and those were without the fear of the Rosvgardia (although that is diminishing the more of them that get sent to Ukraine).

OTOH, the Ukrainian War has caused Russia more dead than both those wars combined, and the sheer scale of the losses hasn't fully penetrated the homeland yet (they know, from Russian cynicism if nothing else, that it's worse than is being presented, but they don't think it's close to the western and Ukrainian estimates of over 100,000).

[DireWolfSpirit]

19 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

And insurgency? Come on. 

If not insurgency of its own population, something classified as resistance or uprising or guerilla attacks in nature.

The main feature needing to be attacks on their soil, attacks not easy to hide from the Russian population.

If the war is brought home to them, its support will fall in theory.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Is Russia trying to get Israel to start supplying Ukraine?  What the hell was Lavrov trying to accomplish?

 

[Maithanet]

I assume the anti-semitism is for domestic consumption.  Lavrov is technically the foreign minister, but in Russia those roles are mushier than they are most places, it's not like Lavrov also isn't involved in domestic matters. 

[Denvek]

Check the date on your tweets Scot, that's from last May.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Denvek said:

Check the date on your tweets Scot, that's from last May.

Thanks.. I did catch that after posting. Apologies.

[Werthead]

The Israeli PM did force Putin into an apology, which is unheard of. It is remarkable that Lavrov has kept his job, though.

[JGP]

Can you imagine the dirt Lavrov has though. That prick probably has a hundred MAD files.

[Wilbur]

Perun analyzes global ammunition production and its availability in Ukraine:

 

[Gorn]

There have been some seriously intense HIMARS/artillery/drone attacks by Ukraine on Russian troop concentrations, ammo warehouses, and various military targets over the last couple of days. The most intense has been the rocket strike on Makiivka, where three rockets took out an entire Russian infantry battalion at exactly 00:01 at New Year's Eve. They are still counting the casualties, but the minimum confirmed number of dead is 275 - some genius decided to store ammo in the basement of the same building where troops were stationed.

For some interesting reading, Slavoj Zizek provides a left-wing case for supporting Ukraine. Like everything Zizek ever wrote or said, it is well worth reading, and he talks about various other unrelated but very interesting topics. For example, he states world would have been a better place if Napoleon had won in Russia in 1812 - a statement I'm not sure I agree with, but which is thought-provoking. He also calls out Chomsky (among others).

https://www.rferl.org/a/zizek-interview-russia-denazification-ukraine-war/32204259.html

Quote

 

Zizek: I read a recent statement by Sahra Wagenknecht, the German leftist [parliamentary deputy] of Die Linke (The Left party), and she quite openly says: Why should we lose energy, money, and so on, putting ourselves in danger, fighting for some war far away…endangering our welfare, the welfare, as she puts it, of our working people?

So here, her idea is basically: Let Ukraine perish so that we don't have to pay higher prices for electricity or whatever. And this is pure egotism. Beneath there is still deep distrust of -- more than the United States – NATO. The dogma of the left is, whoever you are, no matter how brutal the dictatorship, if NATO is against you, there must be ultimately something not totally bad in you. NATO is the automatic opponent. And I find all this reasoning so stupid….

This is exactly the abstract pacifism that German propaganda was playing on in Europe just before World War II -- they [called] it…anti-imperialism. French, English, American imperialism tries to dominate Europe, we will provide Europe [with] autonomy, we will save Europe and so on and so on. And the paradox is that Chomsky, who proclaims himself politically an anarchist, ended up not supporting Russia. The popular term today is "understanding Russia."

And what de facto happens is…while still helping Ukraine hopefully, we are putting pressure on Ukraine, [saying] don't provoke Russia too much. What I find so sad here is that the pacifists are not even ready to admit one thing – now, the pacificists say, the front is more or less stabilized, let's push for peace negotiations, give Russia part of Ukraine. But are these pacifists aware that we arrived at this stage of relative stabilization of the front precisely because of the immense Western help in Ukraine?....

That's the paradox that they are not ready to accept, that the Western intervention [has] opened up the chance for peace. Without Western intervention helping Ukraine, [the country] would probably be occupied and then you can probably go on, to Moldova, the Baltic states, pressure on Finland and so on and so on.

 

 

[mcbigski]

Quote

McConnell: Arming Ukraine Against Russia "Is The Number One Priority For The United States Right Now"

Ok that's from a week ago or so.  But Mitch has always sacrificed his own well being for the interests of rank and file Republican voters.  So are we standing with or against Mitch McConell here?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

How fucking stupid and completely unselfconscious is Dimitry Rogozin to send the letter he sent below?  Seriously?

This is the equivalent of a German sending a letter to the US Government calling the US Bloodthirsty because he was wounded and his friends in the Wehrmacht were killed in Falaise…