Ukraine War: incompetence vs fecklessness

[A Horse Named Stranger]

22 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Well, at least the US Senate has now done the right thing.

Only for the House to say, they want it tight to a border deal, which they don't want as their orange doofus wants it as a campaign issue.

It's a perfect circle of stupid and inactivity. Maybe the House GOP can get its act together to do the right thing, but I really wouldn't hold my breath there.

Out of curiosity, who were the GOP Senators to vote for it.

I have Romney, Murkowski, Collins and Thume on the yes side. But combined with 51 Democrats and Indepedents, that would have been still a few votes short of the 60 votes they needed.

Eit: I see it were 67 Senators in the end that voted for it. Including Moscow Mitch and then presumably Graham.

Edited February 13 by A Horse Named Stranger

[maarsen]

15 hours ago, Werthead said:

Russia is propping up its economy by burning up its foreign currency reserves, which at the start of the war stood at around $300 billion (actually $600 billion, but the other $300 billion has been frozen and is out of reach). Estimates seem to vary, but it looks like they might be $100 billion down on that and the rate at which they are spending has markedly increased since last summer. They could cross the halfway threshold on that figure in the next few months, if they're not there already. Some economic analysis that they are only burning through that to stabilise the economy and ensure Putin's win, but afterwards will stop doing that and if the economy crashes, he can spin that as a western attack on Russia etc rather than being his own fault.

Russian civil aviation failures continue to mount, its railway system continues to creak and the arteries of internal life in the Russian Federation continue to show signs of weakness and brittleness: massive riots at various points in the last few months in multiple oblasts, rampant crime in other areas, people refusing to be drafted, oil depots on fire, internal dissent resulting in attacks on infrastructure, Kadyrov continuing to play both ends against the middle, the ongoing brain drain. It's still quite a long way from reaching a critical mass (if it indeed ever does), but it's growing and much worse than it was two years ago. An internal Russian realignment as things snap from under the stress of the war effort is eminently possible, if not likely. ETA: just as I was writing this, a story was surfaced of students in Kazan University, Tatarstan storming out in an independence-supporting fervour after watching a TV address from the head of the "Internet Safe League." Tatarstan is really pissed off with its recent treatment under Putin.

An interesting stat: ratings for state propaganda news shows seem to be down 15-20% since the start of the war, as Russians seem less interested in political and war discussions. Of course, the blackouts across parts of Russia might be contributing to that.

Also, the Carlson/Putin interview has been roasted on Chinese social media, where people were making jokes about surrendering control of China to Mongolia and retaking all the old Chinese lands now currently held by Russia, since apparently going back to the maps of hundreds of years ago is all the rage.

Ukraine chalked up another TOS-1 today as well.

The ex president of Mongolia has chimed in saying all the land Russia claims were once part of the Mongolian Empire. He said, being a peaceful people they have no desire to take it back.

[Zorral]

I saw that.  It was hilarious.  If I were Mongolia, I wouldn't want it either. 

[Padraig]

On 2/11/2024 at 10:31 AM, Bironic said:

Rich western countries don't want to pay for poor, corrupt, instable eastern countries, it's as simple as that (Mexico, Cuba and Guatemala would also never be accepted as 51 state, hell not even Puerto Rico is).

Just to go back a couple of days but I wouldn't say that is the full picture.  The EU has a rational side and an idealistic side.  After the Cold War ended, it saw an opportunity to finally bring peace and harmony right across Europe with the accession of the 10 Central/Eastern European countries in 2004, and Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia followed a few years later.

Those countries were certainly much poorer than the EU average before they joined.  This was the EU in idealistic mode.  Although, there were economic advantages in having them join also.

The tide did change after accession though.  The EU isn't designed to have so many countries.  The only way to solve that issue is to give more power to the EU itself but that would be to the detriment of individual countries, which most countries are wary of.  The rise of Orban in Hungary also crystalised the fact that being a member of the EU wouldn't in itself mean fully democratic.  Which made countries wary of allowing more countries to join.  But yes, the EU countries are also reluctant to throw money at other countries given internal needs.

But the tide has changed on that again with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  Now the "peace and harmony" angle is back.  I would expect more countries to join but the process will be more difficult than previously, as the EU will manage the criteria more strictly.  Except for Ukraine possibly but they have further to go, so that doesn't change much.  I doubt we'll ever see anything close to allowing 10 countries join, just because of the challenges involved with new members.

Although, that said, I do wonder when the EU faces up to its institutional challenges.

On 2/11/2024 at 10:31 AM, Bironic said:

There was no majority for a NATO or EU accession in Ukraine before 2014, hell even the prowestern politicians Yushtchenko and Timochenko were split about it, and ca. 50% of the population was pro Russian.

Even there, I don't fully agree.  Up to 2014, Ukraine was trying to balance itself across two stools.  Pro-EU and Pro-Russia but that eventually became exclusionary.  You had to choose.  The Ukrainian government choose Russia, there were mass protests and off we went...

EU accession was not on the table at that stage.  It was just closer ties with the EU.  If there had been a referendum on the issue who would have won?  I imagine most people would have wanted both but if they had to choose one?  Given the way things had gone in Ukraine, there seemed to be a trend back to the EU in 2014 (after a swing back to Russia a few years before), so I suspect the EU but I couldn't say for sure.

23 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Indeed, being hamstrung by being in the Euro makes it very hard for those countries to suddenly pump more money into the military without taking it away from other spending priorities or raising taxes.

I don't believe that.  If enough countries wanted to pump money into the military via the EU, it would happen.  The EU is relatively slow but it is flexible.  It is all about compromise.

EU countries want to control their own military.  Or are happy with NATO.

I would be less pessimistic about Europe than others, accepting that it is generally slow.  So it will hope things around it move slowly too.  If not, then I would worry.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, Padraig said:

 

I don't believe that.  If enough countries wanted to pump money into the military via the EU, it would happen.  The EU is relatively slow but it is flexible.  It is all about compromise.

EU countries want to control their own military.  Or are happy with NATO.

I would be less pessimistic about Europe than others, accepting that it is generally slow.  So it will hope things around it move slowly too.  If not, then I would worry.

Eurozone countries can't unilaterally pump up military spending without taking money away from other areas of govt spending or increasing taxes. It would require the EU (parliament?) to sign off on lifting deficit limits for the purposes of military spending to allow Eurozone members to ramp up spending. In contrast non-Eurozone EU members (and Brexit Britain) can make the decision unilaterally and significantly increase their deficits to ratchet up military production. They can then have a think about whether to live with those deficits or moderate them somewhat with taxation or budget cuts in other areas, depending on how they think the military deficits will affect the wider economy, which is really about how the resource diversion of material that competes for military and non-military production causes issues in the wider economy.

[Padraig]

Sure.  All I’m saying is that if there is a will, there is a way.  Although I thought we were referring to EU spending on military.

[Corvinus85]

Another Russian warship has been sunk by Ukraine in the Black Sea, the landing ship Caesar Kunikov. And in typical Ukrainian trolling fashion, they pointed out that the sinking occurred on the 81st anniversary of the death of the Soviet officer after whom the ship was named.

[Werthead]

The Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade has arrived in Avdiivka, immediately engaging Russian forces which had been advancing slowly from the south. It looks like they drove the Russians back from a treeline that had been using for cover. Simultaneously, Ukrainian drone and artillery picked off an armoured column NE of Avdiivka. Not on the scale of the armoured massacre a few weeks ago, but a significant success as the noose around the town continues to tighten (if haphazardly).

It's unclear what the plan is for Avdiivka, if the 3rd Assault is meant to shore up the defensive lines or even try to retake lost territory as in the Bakhmut counter-offensive, or cover a general retreat from the town. The Russians are still finding it bad though, with newly-arrived officers apparently advising troops on how to use sticks (!) to locate mines and fend off drones (what?). The Russians in Avdiivka are still suffering a shell shortage for some reason, but they are noting they're fortunate that the Ukrainians are still having to hoard their own shells.

Also, widespread missed payments for Russian soldiers on the front, or some units are paid on time, others late, and others not at all, at least until they threaten to go home and then the money shows up.

The Ukrainian Magura V5 naval surface drone has been formally unveiled at UMEX in the UAE, a weapons show, where it attracted positive attention from possible buyers (although I suspect Ukraine is going to need all the ones it has for the time being). This is the drone that was primarily responsible for destroying the Ivanovets and Cezar Kunikov.

Some signs of a successful Ukrainian defence in the Zaporizhzhia region. Unclear where, but a dozen Russian soldiers of the 71st Rifle Regiment surrendered to Ukrainian forces of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade.

Putin has apparently made a back-channel appeal to the United States about a ceasefire, but the US has rejected all communication on the matter, directing him to contact Kyiv instead. This maybe the second or third time this has happened, as it previously happened during a meeting between the head of the CIA and the head of the FSB in Turkey around the time of the successful Kharkiv counter-offensive, when again the head of the CIA said the United States would respect the decision of the government of Ukraine in continuing to fight or not, but communications would have to be directed to them first.

Apparently Putin was not well-briefed on the Carlson interview and how widely it would be reported on in the west, so designed the interview to apparently appeal primarily to Russians, hence the long diatribes on history which Russians would be more familiar with. Apparently Putin is unhappy that he came across as detached and rambling in the interview, and even says he expected Carlson to interrupt him more and ask harder questions, which he was prepared for. Meanwhile, there's infighting in the Kremlin with Kovalchuk (the richest backer of Putin) reportedly blaming Peskov for not briefing Putin properly and Naryshkin (head of the FSB) for talking to Putin at length about Poland and 13th Century history in the run-up to the interview, which gave Putin the idea to go off about it.

Edited February 14 by Werthead

[Kalbear]

I for one am glad to hear that Putin is just like a regular on Westeros, and will just start rambling about historical wars and politics when talking about current US politics events

[3CityApache]

Put(a)in says he prefers Biden as POTUS vs. Trump

Yeah, right.

Edited February 15 by 3CityApache

[Bironic]

Apparently Ukraine has used the GLSDB (range 150km) for the first time.

Apparently they stroke a target fairly close to the front line (within reach of other systems). Imho this could mean two things, either they are now so low on ammo that they just use whatever they got to hit the russians, or this was more a "test" to see how/if the weapon works, what its capabilities are, how well the russian defenses respond to it, how much damage it causes etc.

[Toth]

I'm not sure whether I got this even from here or not, but I felt suddenly reminded of these really good videos on the background of the Ukraine invasion today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exJ024Zdzdk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ_ZRBLFOXw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OFyn_KSy80

I had once again a conversation with one of the MAGA AfD pro-Putin students who wanted to tell me that Putin attacked because Zelenskiyy is a nazi because Putin said so to Tucker Carlson and after spending the entire break going through an alt-right podcast he's always listening to and sifting through its "sources" and how they boiled down to DailyMail, conspiracy theorists on twitter and more obscure alt-right sites making unfunded claims, with him eventually catching himself admitting that he's only listening to them because they confirm what he already things and is too lazy to make his own research, I ended up just... sending him these links as well. Am curious whether it's a mistake or not, but the style is certainly entertaining enough.

[Werthead]

7 hours ago, Bironic said:

Apparently Ukraine has used the GLSDB (range 150km) for the first time.

Apparently they stroke a target fairly close to the front line (within reach of other systems). Imho this could mean two things, either they are now so low on ammo that they just use whatever they got to hit the russians, or this was more a "test" to see how/if the weapon works, what its capabilities are, how well the russian defenses respond to it, how much damage it causes etc.

It looks like it was a pretty big ammo dump, begging the question why they didn't hit it before. However, this could be the beginning of a new "ammo starvation" tactic like they employed before the Kharkiv counter-offensive and they wanted to give Russia time to feel comfortable their new ammo dumps were out of range before going after them.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

That strikes me as an overly optimistic assessment. I think the they used GLDSB for a rather close target, because they are so low on shell atm they were lacking alternatives. Fucking MAGAts in the US congress.

[Werthead]

I'd have to double check, but I think GLDSB also has a higher closing speed than standard HIMARS rounds, rendering it far harder to intercept (HIMARS is hard to intercept, but there's some footage showing it apparently being done). If these high-value targets have good AA, that's another reason to use GLDSB.

At least three Russian airliners have suffered failures mid-flight in the last month or so, having to make emergency landings. The latest was a Sukhoi Superjet 100 of Rossiya Airlines which had to make an emergency landing at Moscow today.

A 100-ton fuel reservoir in Kursk was hit by a Ukrainian drone and is now burning.

The pro-Ukraine Russian Volunteer Corps has also arrived in Avdiivka and joined the defence, apparently at their own request. Seven Russian brigades are now confirmed to be operating in and around the town, but all have suffered significant damage, one reduced to less than 30% full strength. One additional brigade is apparently no longer combat-effective. The Ukrainians are continuing to inflict staggering losses and several Russian milbloggers who have kept quiet since Girkin's arrest have broken cover to angrily declare the leaders of the attack cowards and traitors.

Interesting story of Russian kamikaze drones being used to target Russian soldiers trying to surrender on the front.

 

[SeanF]

Alexei Navalny is reported to have "died in prison", I suspect to nobody's great surprise.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Alexei Navalny is reported to have "died in prison", I suspect to nobody's great surprise.

Did he fall out a prison window?

[Which Tyler]

That, or going for a wander in the arctic circle wearing only jeans and a t-shirt.

Or possibly accidentally brutally cutting his head off while combing his hair.

[Darryk]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

Alexei Navalny is reported to have "died in prison", I suspect to nobody's great surprise.

Must have slipped on some soap and hung himself.

[Werthead]

A potentially dangerous moment for the regime. I'd rate it as low-danger to them, but this is one of those things that could snowball out of nowhere. Navalny galvanised tens of thousands of people to take to the streets of Russian cities a decade ago and his death seems to be bringing at least some of them out again.