Ukraine: Are ya winning yet.

[Zorral]

Currently reading The Story of Russia (2022) by Orlando Figes.  Highly recommended for fundamental understanding of Putin and Ukraine.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/21/the-story-of-russia-by-orlando-figes-review-vladimir-putin-and-the-power-of-myth-making

"Nowhere is politics defined more by history than in Russia. Nowhere is the line between myth and history so blurred and nowhere is distinguishing the two more consequential. The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes is both a brilliant work of historical scholarship and an essential contribution to deciphering our current crisis."
―Adam Tooze, author of Crashed

“If you really want to understand Putin’s Russia today, anchored in its past of myths, then you simply have to read Figes’s superb account in The Story of Russia.”
―Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad

And etc. etc. etc.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

Currently reading The Story of Russia (2022) by Orlando Figes.  Highly recommended for fundamental understanding of Putin and Ukraine.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/21/the-story-of-russia-by-orlando-figes-review-vladimir-putin-and-the-power-of-myth-making

"Nowhere is politics defined more by history than in Russia. Nowhere is the line between myth and history so blurred and nowhere is distinguishing the two more consequential. The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes is both a brilliant work of historical scholarship and an essential contribution to deciphering our current crisis."
―Adam Tooze, author of Crashed

“If you really want to understand Putin’s Russia today, anchored in its past of myths, then you simply have to read Figes’s superb account in The Story of Russia.”
―Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad

And etc. etc. etc.

 

I read The Gates Of Europe by Serhii Polkhy  a history of Ukraine in November.  A fascinating retelling of the history of the Ukrainian Nation and  how it is distinct from and tied to Russia.

[Zorral]

11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

 The Gates Of Europe by Serhii Polkhy

That's a slim book too, when compared to so many like Montifiore's Romanovs.

Figes's text (not including cites, references and index) gets in just under the 300 pp.   Which is impressive in itself, considering how much information it contains and how much chronology it covers!

[3CityApache]

Ukrainian minister of internal affairs with top management of the ministry died in a helicopter crash near Kyiv. Not clear if it's possible Russia could have anything to do with it, but I find it doubtful. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

How long can Russia keep up human wave attacks before it prompts revolution?

[Kalnak the Magnificent]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How long can Russia keep up human wave attacks before it prompts revolution?

Forever? The revolt of 1917 happened largely because they had a ton of soldiers in one place and in a bad place (Moscow). Keep them spread out and decentralized and they'll be good for a long while yet.

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How long can Russia keep up human wave attacks before it prompts revolution?

I do not think that high losses => revolution is where this war is going.  I see very little indication that dissent is rising in Russia, either amongst the populace or amongst the elites. 

I think it is much more likely to be high losses => Russian military degradation => Ukrainian victories => peace negotiated primarily on Ukrainian terms.  I am hoping that those victories come in the spring and summer and the war can get wrapped up by autumn, but it's possible I've become overly optimistic about this war. 

[Tywin et al.]

How did Zapp defeat the Killbots again?

[JGP]

 

Seeing and reading out of the last few days in Dnipro.

There's one in particular, won't link directly but easily searchable, showing a video of a little girl's birthday party inside this bright yellow apartment side by side with the of the same after the strike. 

Busted me out of a bit of a mini funk, so suppose I'm grateful the anger is back.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

When did the Russian death count hit 100,000? I can’t believe how fast this is climbing:

 

Edited January 18 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Darzin]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How long can Russia keep up human wave attacks before it prompts revolution?

In addition to what others have said Russia is not really using true human wave attacks, rather costly attacks with high losses. 

You shouldn't view the Russian political scene as anything close to the Western political scene or even the Chinese political scene. It's almost impossible to overstate the apathy and "depoliticization" of the average Russian. In the last thread there was some polling data that showed this in  very hard numbers with the pollster pointing out that people are not scared to answer they simply don't care. 

Edited January 18 by Darzin

[Maithanet]

I guess it sort of depends on what you mean by "human wave" attacks.  If you imagine that to mean hundreds or thousands of troops massed together and running at the objective, then no, that is not what the Russians are doing. 

What they are instead doing is attempting to capture objectives primarily with infantry (in many cases relatively untrained and poorly equipped infantry).  There is some artillery support, but often not enough.  There is very little of anything like air support, tanks, IFVs, etc.  Without these elements this infantry will suffer immense casualties, often many times greater than defending units.  But 10-20 men creeping forward, hoping to capture a nearby building, is not typically what people envision when you say "human wave".  However, it does demonstrate Russia's willingness to accept high casualties in order to achieve even small objectives. 

Edited January 18 by Maithanet

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

11 minutes ago, Darzin said:

In addition to what others have said Russia is not really using true human wave attacks, rather costly attacks with high losses. 

You shouldn't view the Russian political scene as anything close to even the Western political scene or even the Chinese political scene it's almost impossible to overstate the apathy and "depoliticization" of the average Russian. In the last thread there was some polling data that showed this in  very hard numbers with the pollster pointing out that people are not scared to answer they simply don't care. 

As the number of deaths rise will the Russian Public remain apathetic?

[Zorral]

35 minutes ago, Darzin said:

In addition to what others have said Russia is not really using true human wave attacks, rather costly attacks with high losses. 

You shouldn't view the Russian political scene as anything close to even the Western political scene or even the Chinese political scene it's almost impossible to overstate the apathy and "depoliticization" of the average Russian. In the last thread there was some polling data that showed this in  very hard numbers with the pollster pointing out that people are not scared to answer they simply don't care. 

Figes's book explains why this is so.  He does an excellent job of demarking for us the differences in the history of Russia from that of Europe, including the view of the state and the sovereign, welded to that of the spirituality of the average Russian and the Church.

It's not that Russians are inferior, but their history brought a different development in their visions of these things.  

Not to mention after serfdom was already quite long finished in most of Europe in the 17th C, Russia then instituted serfdom.

ETA: Figes devoted a chapter to the Mongolian incursion, conquest and rule of 'russia' -- which didn't exist yet -- for over 2 centuries -- and the pronounced influence of that, which was ignored, denied or disappeared from Russia's history -- or used to blame for certain events -- starting in the 15th C.

 

Edited January 18 by Zorral

[Maithanet]

6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

As the number of deaths rise will the Russian Public remain apathetic?

Nobody knows the future, but evidence thus far points to yes.  Russia has already exceeded the number of war deaths of all  combined US military deaths since WW2. 

[Darzin]

8 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

As the number of deaths rise will the Russian Public remain apathetic?

That's a big question mark so far it seems so, but who knows? These things can unravel quickly and as more and more are affected by the war discontent may spread. One problem is that people who would be the nucleus of a movement have fled' The Western leaning and educated have poured out of Russia to avoid the draft to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia. But hopefully something will break in a straight grind of attrition Russia will win eventually, hopefully Ukraine can gain some initiative in the Spring and break the current stalemate. 

[JGP]

If Lavrov eventually ends up found pickled in a whisky barrel, it ain't going to hurt my feels none. 

Edited January 18 by JGP

[Kalnak the Magnificent]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

As the number of deaths rise will the Russian Public remain apathetic?

Yes, history definitely shows that Russia values human life and is very upset about losing people

[Werthead]

6 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

When did the Russian death count hit 100,000? I can’t believe how fast this is climbing:

 

It passed 100,000 a good few months ago. If anything, there is some speculation that now the Ukrainians  might be under-counting Russian military losses. Apparently the death toll in and around Bakhmut, Soledar and Kreminna is beyond astonishing and satellite footage of the battlefields shows total obliteration and devastation like nothing seen since WWII.

6 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

As the number of deaths rise will the Russian Public remain apathetic?

The Russians are neither inhuman robots nor totally unfeeling towards death and casualties. This is a country that has flown off the handle and revolted against its government, or almost so, for taking the piss several times.

However, the political structure and system in Russia is very complex and monolithic, and there is considerable racism built into the system where Slavic Russians are seen as the top of the tree and the provincial ethnicities are seen as inferior, and also classism, where the very poor going off to die is seen as fine but the educated classes being sent to the meat-grinder would spark more anger (hence why Putin hastily backtracked on sending college kids to the war, although there have been some recruited "in error").

So as long as poor mobiks from the provinces are dying in their tens of thousands, that's fine, and even if some poor people are cleaned up from the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, that's also fine. Convicts from prison going off to be massacred, awesome.

The mistake made in Afghanistan was getting well-educated kids from the cities to go off to die, which did spark the "mothers' revolution" which the Russians found impossible to quell and led to the end of the war.

Putin has basically arranging things very cleverly so that the people who have died so far "do not matter," at least in the eyes of most Russians in the cities. That can probably only keep going on for so long, though. Almost twice as many Russians have died in Ukraine than in Afghanistan and Chechnya combined, and there's already talk of a need to expand the conscription numbers a second time, probably sparking even more panic, people fleeing the country etc.

Edited January 19 by Werthead

[Loge]

19 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

When did the Russian death count hit 100,000? I can’t believe how fast this is climbing:

 

I think the number hit 100,000 around Christmas. Casualty rates have been on this level (i.e. several hundred dead each day) since late summer. They don't get much attention in the media, though. You have to go to Twitter. Neither do we know the Ukrainian losses as Ukraine doesn't publish them.