Ukraine: Slava Ukraini!!!

[Makk]

If/when there was going to be another mobilisation, this is the sort of event they would fabricate to justify it. They can't just say we burned through the last 300k people so we need some more.

[Werthead]

Kazakhstan signing a "strategic cooperation agreement" with the United States (one of those things that sounds cool but is probably mostly symbolic). Blinken is doing a tour of central Asia, and will also meet representatives from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The US also confirmed its recognition and support for Kazakhstan's territorial integrity and national security, a veiled reference to Russian government sources threatening Kazakhstan with invasion several times recently.

For their part, the Central Asian Republics are playing all sides off against one another, also ensuring positive relations with Turkey, Russia and China, although there is widespread irritation in all four countries with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent posturing and vague threats to rebuild the Soviet empire. The US may feel that some or all four can be wooed into voting against Russia in another round of UN negotiations further down the line.

[Wilbur]

Holy cats the oxidation on the air surface of that radome, though.

Who stole the ladders from the Russian Air Force?

 

[Gorn]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

So the first actually-declared Neo-Nazi organisation that has played a role in the war (as compared to the Azov Brigade, which kinda used to be Nazi but was at least mostly denazified before the war even began, and Wagner, which isn't formally a Neo-Nazi organisation despite having a lot of Nazi leanings and members) is Russian?

I eagerly await Russia's denazification of itself.

To be fair, they're Russians that have been fighting on Ukraine's side in this war. Apparently, they split away from the other, larger group of pro-Ukraine Russians (Freedom of Russia) over political differences - Ilya Ponomarev, political leader of Freedom of Russia, is an ex-Communist. These seem to be mostly former Russian members of Azov (yes, those exist, Eastern Europe is complicated).

There have also been other explicitly Nazi groups fighting on Russian side since 2014, "Rusich" and "Sparta", so these are not the first Nazis in the war 

[Derfel Cadarn]

3 hours ago, Makk said:

If/when there was going to be another mobilisation, this is the sort of event they would fabricate to justify it. They can't just say we burned through the last 300k people so we need some more.

On thr other hand, a dozen guys making tiktok videos is hardly justification to mobilise another 300k men

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

On thr other hand, a dozen guys making tiktok videos is hardly justification to mobilise another 300k men

Of course it is. At least for Russia. 

[Werthead]

Mobilising 300,000 troops and then exhausting them in an advance of what appears to be about 15 miles and one moderately-sized coal town would really be quite something. At least with the summer push last year they could say they did take a reasonable amount of territory for the stupendous number of lives lost (including two major-ish cities), even if Ukraine then retook a larger amount of territory afterwards.

Also, I think this war is really making a strong argument that with modern weapons, tons of bodies will not help, because all you accomplish is a lot more deaths. It's those weapons you need in numbers, which Russia has managed to waste and they can't be replaced very quickly.

The talk from Vuhledar is around 150 Russian tanks and IFVs destroyed, 30 of them in one exchange of fire. They can't be replaced by any fresh mobilisation order.

[Gaston de Foix]

Does anyone think there is a connection with China's possible supply of weapons to Russia and the recent "leak" of US intelligence reports into the origins of COVID-19?

It sure looks like USG is using this as a pressure point given the widespread paranoia in Chinese government about global anti-China sentiment if the "lab leak" theory (and its inevitable distortions into a deliberate release) becomes widespread...

[Derfel Cadarn]

Lavrov being laughed at

 

[Maithanet]

Perhaps he means the war launched against Russia by Putin?

Spoiler

That's not what he means.

 

[Maithanet]

One year ago today.

never forget

 

[A True Kaniggit]

3 hours ago, Maithanet said:

One year ago today.

never forget

 

RIP the window. 
 

That glass had sand. 

[Toth]

It's a good example of the pure insanity of the first weeks of the war and the pictures that came out of it. I still remember videos of brave Ukrainian civilians confronting Russian soldiers and telling them to turn around, with many of those soldiers looking like wet dogs, awkwardly voicing their own helplessness about the situation, obviously not having expected or being actually told to go to war for real. I remember the reporter trying to interview soldiers at Hostomel airport and half-way through the conversation with an officer realizing that those were Russian paratroopers and not Ukrainian defenders. Over the course of the next days all those paratroopers were slaughtered, having been deployed far too much behind enemy lines while the main thrust was being picked apart by ludicrously small groups of brave defenders with manpads. We have seen videos of confused Russians picking fights with war memorials and loosing. We have seen "the convoy" neatly lined up to be torn apart.

I remember having woken up day after day anxiously checking the news first thing in the morning, dreading whether the Russians despite all their stupidity managed to brute force their way into Kyiv and being elated when they were pushed back more and more. I remember the absurdity of being able to and donating money directly to the Ukrainian war effort. I remember Selenskyy, that scrawny comedian turned president, looking more buff in every interview as he managed to hold out and rally his people through this. I remember picking fights in an inter-party chatroom with a Chinese plant spewing all the "We are just dragging out the inevitable and making the Ukrainians suffer by supporting them!!!" nonsense. Should probably go back to look how things have developed...

One year of war. One year in which the Russian army got torn to shreds almost more by their own corruption and cruel disregard for lives on either side than by the tenacity of these defenders, but one year that made it clear that they will keep blindly destroying and murdering and raping and dying for as long as they can, just so that an old man on an imperial nostalgia trip doesn't need to admit that he failed.

At this point I actually don't know how this will end. I feel that even if Ukraine manages to push every single Russian soldier out of their borders, Russia will just refuse to admit defeat and keep lobbing missiles into their neighbor just so that they can declare the war still ongoing on paper for that Ukraine can't enter NATO. This would be the ending that I dread the most as the terror would just go on and on and on for years if not decades.

[Gorn]

On 3/4/2023 at 4:17 AM, Toth said:

At this point I actually don't know how this will end. I feel that even if Ukraine manages to push every single Russian soldier out of their borders, Russia will just refuse to admit defeat and keep lobbing missiles into their neighbor just so that they can declare the war still ongoing on paper for that Ukraine can't enter NATO. This would be the ending that I dread the most as the terror would just go on and on and on for years if not decades.

Two can play that game. Ukraine is on the same technological level as Russia, and it can build missiles of its own to deter such a scenario.

Besides, if Russia loses badly enough to be completely kicked out of Ukraine, it will be too busy with its own internal problems to try anything outside their borders.

[Wilbur]

Andreii and Kolya recently spotted downing Sonoran Hot Dogs at El Güero Canelo in Tucson, as the process for "familiarization and assessment with F-16s" begins:

Two Ukrainian pilots are in the U.S. for training assessment on attack aircraft, including F-16s (nbcnews.com)

[Toth]

5 hours ago, Gorn said:

Two can play that game. Ukraine is on the same technological level as Russia, and it can build missiles of its own to deter such a scenario.

Besides, if Russia loses badly enough to be completely kicked out of Ukraine, it will be too busy with its own internal problems to try anything outside their borders.

I must admit, looking at the apathy displayed by Russians about the war, I'm at a point where I'm not betting anymore on any kind of internal disruption anymore. Yes, it would be the one solution I see to the conflict, but that's not within our hands. At the same time, Ukraine may be able to fire back at military bases in Russia, but I don't think Russia would care about that either unless troops start crossing the border and that's the one thing Ukraine can't do unless they want nukes flying. In the end I'm just fearing just another low intensity forever war...

[mormont]

The Russian people don't really care about the war, at present, it's true.

However, there are only two things the powerful folks supporting Putin in the government care about: getting rich, and restoring Russia's historic glory and status. The latter requires control of the 'near abroad' including Ukraine.

A big part of the reason Putin came to power and has remained in power is that he was able to deliver the first while promising progress on the second. Don't underestimate how fundamentally in trouble he will be if he can't get something out of this war.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 hours ago, mormont said:

Don't underestimate how fundamentally in trouble he will be if he can't get something out of this war.

If the Russian Dictator “declares victory” and claims Ukraine is part of Russia while withdrawing forces from Ukraine and jailing anyone who contradicts him… DPRK style… can he remain in power?

[Maithanet]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If the Russian Dictator “declares victory” and claims Ukraine is part of Russia while withdrawing forces from Ukraine and jailing anyone who contradicts him… DPRK style… can he remain in power?

I think that if Putin could end this war by getting official Ukrainian recognition of Crimea as Russian, that would be enough of a win that he could survive.  No guarantee, but his control over information and vast security forces do a lot of work for him. 

Putin's two biggest accomplishments as leader is economic growth/stability (at least in comparison to 90s Russia) and retaking Crimea.  The economic situation is much worse because of the invasion, and that damage will continue long after the war ends.  Many companies got burned by Russia and will not be investing there for several decades.  If you combine losing Crimea into that as well...then Putin's whole argument begins to fall apart.  Not to say that Putin is finished, but it would be very difficult to remain in power in the face of such challenges. 

[Kalbear]

Yeah, Putin really has to fear that the voting populace will be unhappy with him.

Seriously y'alll - you keep stating putin will be in trouble but have made zero effort to plausibly explain how he would be removed or who would think to do so. Dictators are not commonly ousted any more. Fidel Castro stayed in power far longer with far fewer successes and shittier popular support. Assad is still in power despite a civil war for 10 years. Do you think the electoral college is going to oust him?