Ukraine: Are ya winning yet.

[SeanF]

Reading Real Clear Politics, from time to time, the MAGA’s really are committed to a Russian victory.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

Reading Real Clear Politics, from time to time, the MAGA’s really are committed to a Russian victory.

Well the losing one term former President who lives in Florida loves the Russian dictator.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

17 hours ago, mormont said:

Putin's clique consists of Russian nationalists. And it spans everyone from former KGB folks to unrepentant White Russians. The thing they have in common is Russia. Lenin, Stalin, the Romanovs? Communism and the Tsars? The Orthodox Church and the Party? All in the mix. All emblems of Russian greatness. All the reverse of the decadent West.

 

Fine, but to list  Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili in that canon of Russian greatness feels weird, as that is a distinctively Georgian name, little surprise as he was actually born there. I can still see how he fits into that anti-Fascist war against Nazis in Ukraine narrative Moscow is pushing. 

[mormont]

Again, Russian nationalists. Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, to them these are just the names of Russian provinces.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Yeah, but here we are running into the ethnic Russian (St. Petersburg, Moscow, you know the valuable guys) vs. the deposable minorities from other provinces thing for nationalist. I know, expecting logical consistency from racists is unrealistic. But still kinda amusing.

[Werthead]

6 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yeah, but here we are running into the ethnic Russian (St. Petersburg, Moscow, you know the valuable guys) vs. the deposable minorities from other provinces thing for nationalist. I know, expecting logical consistency from racists is unrealistic. But still kinda amusing.

Pointing out that the most successful (kinda) Soviet leaders were from Georgia and Ukraine and weren't really Russian at all is kinda amusing.

What they really don't like is when they say 27 million Russians died during WWII and you point out it was 14 million, plus 2.5 million Belarusians, 7 million Ukrainians and 3.5 million from other regions, and they angrily reply they're all the same thing. Unless of course you're talking about the modern war and then no, Buryatians and Chechens are not Russians and it's good they were fed into the mincer first before "proper" Russians.

The logic U-turns are so sudden they will give you whiplash.

[Werthead]

Bah-weep-graaaagnah wheep ni ni bong?

Quote

After clarifying who he thinks is to blame for the war, the former president went on to say he believed that he could negotiate the end of the conflict “within 24 hours.” “It really has to be done from the office of the president, and you have to get them both in a room,” Trump said, presumably referring to Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. “There are things you can say to each one of them—which I won’t reveal now—which will guarantee that this war will end immediately.”

 

[mormont]

52 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The logic U-turns are so sudden they will give you whiplash.

If you're British but not English, the logic used is eerily familiar.

[Derfel Cadarn]

58 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Bah-weep-graaaagnah wheep ni ni bong?

 

The universal greeting!

[SeanF]

How sad.  Igor Mangushev has been shot through the head, and is unlikely to survive.

https://ukrainetoday.org/2023/02/04/russian-neo-nazi-who-allegedly-performed-with-the-skull-of-a-fighter-of-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine-was-shot-in-the-head-photo/

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 2/4/2023 at 11:30 AM, SeanF said:

How sad.  Igor Mangushev has been shot through the head, and is unlikely to survive.

https://ukrainetoday.org/2023/02/04/russian-neo-nazi-who-allegedly-performed-with-the-skull-of-a-fighter-of-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine-was-shot-in-the-head-photo/

Sounds like he came down with a hell of a case of Karma.

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Sounds like he came down eith a hell of a case of Karma.

The speculation is it was an assassination by a rival thug.

[SpaceChampion]

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, at least can now no longer refer to today's Russia as Mafia like organization.

The Mafia knows how to dispose bodies properly.

[ThinkerX]

More and more, it seems like the collective intelligence of the Russian government has sharply plummeted these past few years.

At this point, I am wondering when this collective idiocy will result in something monumentally bad with truly catastrophic consequences - meaning something far worse than Chernobyl. 

[Maithanet]

For the past week there's been talk about a Russian counterattack ramping up across Donetsk.  Thus far it has only showed up in higher casualties, rather than Russian advances.  Ukrainian military estimated over 1,000 Russian KIA yesterday. 

Vuhledar is the hinge point of the Ukrainian line (the line goes north from there into Donetsk and West into Zaporozhye).  Because it can be attacked from three sides and gives the Ukrainains the opportunity to bomb a nearby rail line, Russia has prioritized capturing this small city.  But (if Ukrainian accounts are to be believed), they continue to simply pour men and machines into the fight with little coordination or strategy.  There are pictures of fields of dead men and broken equipment, including the newest T-90S.  Vuhledar holds. 

There are also signs that Ukraine is making a conscious effort to hold much of Donetsk with territorial defense units and national guards troops, rather than regular army units.  Which indicates that they are doing what they can to rest and protect their better troops from getting worn down, in order to save them for the next offensive.  Or, if you're a pessimist, you could say it's because Ukraine's army is running out of troops, but I think that is very unlikely. 

[SeanF]

50 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

For the past week there's been talk about a Russian counterattack ramping up across Donetsk.  Thus far it has only showed up in higher casualties, rather than Russian advances.  Ukrainian military estimated over 1,000 Russian KIA yesterday. 

Vuhledar is the hinge point of the Ukrainian line (the line goes north from there into Donetsk and West into Zaporozhye).  Because it can be attacked from three sides and gives the Ukrainains the opportunity to bomb a nearby rail line, Russia has prioritized capturing this small city.  But (if Ukrainian accounts are to be believed), they continue to simply pour men and machines into the fight with little coordination or strategy.  There are pictures of fields of dead men and broken equipment, including the newest T-90S.  Vuhledar holds. 

There are also signs that Ukraine is making a conscious effort to hold much of Donetsk with territorial defense units and national guards troops, rather than regular army units.  Which indicates that they are doing what they can to rest and protect their better troops from getting worn down, in order to save them for the next offensive.  Or, if you're a pessimist, you could say it's because Ukraine's army is running out of troops, but I think that is very unlikely. 

I don't see how losing thousands of men, in order to make minor territorial gains, helps Russia at all.  These are WWI tactics, rather than WWII tactics, the equivalent of marching the Imperial Guard into a swamp, in 1916.

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I don't see how losing thousands of men, in order to make minor territorial gains, helps Russia at all.  These are WWI tactics, rather than WWII tactics, the equivalent of marching the Imperial Guard into a swamp, in 1916.

I would agree.  I would even go so far as to say that a wave of unsuccessful counterattacks (even with small territorial gains), only serves to make Ukrainian victory more likely. 

I expect that in the next few weeks that Russia will make some minor gains.  They might even take Bakhmut.  But that is not, and never has been a key Ukrainian city, and the Ukrainians have build strong defensive lines behind it in the event that a retreat is needed. 

I imagine that the Russian generals know that a significant victory is unlikely at the moment.  What they are seeking is a symbolic victory (taking Bakhmut would be a start), and to bloody the Ukrainians to sap the strength of their next counterattack.  Because at this point the Russians see stalemate as a path to victory.  The Russians are correct that they have more bodies to throw into the trenches than Ukraine does.  As Stalin is famously quoted (but almost assuredly did not actually say) "quantity has a quality all its own". 

[Kalbear]

The wave attacks are the military equivalent of finding bullshit projects to spend budget on at the end of the year. It's theater and used entirely to justify future military investments later.

[Gorn]

44 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I don't see how losing thousands of men, in order to make minor territorial gains, helps Russia at all.  These are WWI tactics, rather than WWII tactics, the equivalent of marching the Imperial Guard into a swamp, in 1916.

It's about politics, not strategy. Putin needs to go in front of cameras on February 24th on the anniversary of the "special military operation", and he needs positive developments on the front to talk about. If conquest of Bakhmut can be accomplished by that date at the cost of tens of thousands of dead, well, it's a price he's willing to pay.