За здоровье!
Glorious Russian Army Finally declares victory in Mariupol after 21 33 45 days of trying!
Russia reports 265 Ukrainian fighters, most of them unwounded and fully able to continue to resist, bored and tiring of waiting nearly six weeks for the Russians to finally win on their own, decided to shorten the contest, and under direct orders from their own military command, walked out and surrendered instead. Which time period is slightly longer than it took the U.S. to militarily defeat the Afghani and Iraqi armies, depose Noriega in Panama, and free Grenada from a communist coup, combined.
Better news: at that rate of attrition, and after the expenditure of tens of thousands of rounds of artillery to not kill any Ukrainian fighters, Russia can look forward to conquering all of Ukraine, in only an additional 16,272 years, 1 month, and 18 days.
It looks like it will be a fine day for Mother Russia on July 6th,18,094 A.D., when they finally get the last Ukrainians to walk out and give up.
Of course, that assumes Russia can ever cut the rest of Ukraine off as rapidly and totally as the six weeks it took to do so in Mariupol, to achieve this stunning victory over one single steel plant in a single mid-sized city. If, on the other hand, they fail to cut off all further military re-supply from the West, it may take Russian military incompetents considerably longer to conquer all of Ukraine than a paltry sixteen millennia.
Walk tall, Ivan! A Mariupol "victory" is now orders of magnitude worse than a mere Pyrrhic one.
But seriously: Watch what happens next. If Vlad was serious, rather than just offering a pizzling excuse as a pretext for a naked land grab, now is the perfect opportunity for Russia to declare victory over the Nazi bastards, and get the hell out of Ukraine, before risking any more blood and treasure while they embarrass themselves in front of the entire world. If they do that now, they solve a ridiculous number of self-inflicted problems, and scrape a lot of egg off their faces. Not all, but a lot.
If, instead, they redouble their flailing efforts, that crapola was just boob bait for the bubbas, and they're going to keep shooting holes in their own junk until they run out of sausage, until someone gives Putin a 9mm Q-tip, or until half the northern hemisphere glows in the dark.
I think your conclusion is in the X-ring.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not sure that using the US Military's "success" in Afghanistan and Iraq is as on-point. Unless you mean to show what Russia staying in Ukraine indefinitely will look like. In 20 years they'll withdraw leaving behind tens of thousands of Russian citizens and billions of rubbles of military equipment.
I'm not at all sure that the Purfumed Princes of the Pentagon are in any way superior to Vlad's General Staff.
I think it's far more likely that Vlad opens a bottle of sunshine than anyone pops a cap in his ass.
ReplyDeleteHe's already gotten rid of everyone in the military command likely to tell him to get bent, and none of the oligarchs are going to risk their lives trying to take down the Tsar.
I survived the first cold war only to get nuked in the second stupid one.
-brian
@brian,
ReplyDeleteI think Putin ordering Canned Sunshine is what gets a cap popped in his ass.
He inspires fear, not loyalty, and exactly like Germany when der fuhrer was in the bunker, he either auto-defenestrates his grey matter, or someone helps him along.
Ain't no one in Russia going to climb onto the missile like Slim Pickens, and ride it with Vlad right into the ground.
"I think Putin ordering Canned Sunshine is what gets a cap popped in his ass."
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem Aesop. You don't KNOW. You THINK. Yet you act like it's the truth and is fact. It's just your opinion and it's usually wrong.
Russia is winning. Ukraine is falling. It isn't rocket science. But you keep lying to yourself.
No, Hedge. I differentiate between what I think, and what I know. That you can't do that, or separate the two, explains the trouble right off.
ReplyDeleteIt's not my opinion that Russia has stepped all over their dick for three months.
So define "winning", and account for what you know, and tell me how the one lines up with the other. Then tell me what you see that says Ukraine is falling.
If what you're seeing is what you call Russia "winning", you need to visit an optometrist.
I've shown my work, and all I get back across the board is butthurt and gainsaying, because it gores the ox of the Putin lovers. Boo frickin' hoo.
The pictures of Russian dead, and burnt out Russian vehicles, are legion.
And you keep missing it, but even the Soviet state press is starting to soften the blow by leaking out more truth of this epic catastrophe, with every day that goes by.
https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2022/05/17/why-is-a-retired-russian-military-officer-suddenly-dropping-truth-bombs-on-state-tv-n469929
https://metro.co.uk/2022/05/19/putins-inner-circle-believe-ukraine-war-is-lost-and-russia-faces-coup-16672422/
ReplyDeletePutin ‘facing a coup after his closest allies accept they’ve lost the war’
Vladimir Putin's top security officials think the war in Ukraine is 'lost', making the chances of a coup more likely, an analyst in Moscow says. The chances of the Russian tyrant launching a nuclear strike are receding as it is likely people would refuse to carry out his order. That's according to expert and investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who suggests Putin is losing his grip on power. He says leading officials are unlikely to obey Putin's commands to launch nukes as they don't trust he will still be in power in three months time. 'I think that it is the informed elite within the security forces who understand that the war is lost,' Grozev told Radio Liberty. He said Putin's inner circle understand the president would need a full mass mobilisation to win the war, but this would cause a 'social explosion' in Russia. Some hardliners may pressure for use of nuclear or chemical weapons, Grozev warned. But others will say 'enough is enough' and 'it is better not to waste another 10,000 lives of our soldiers and officers'. Grozev, lead Russia investigator for investigative journalist group Bellingcat, said one or more of the 'five hands' needed to launch Russia's nukes could end up defying Putin. 'And this refusal will be the trigger, most likely, a coup d'état, because after the refusal to comply with the order of the king, everything will go down very quickly,' he added. 'If Putin decides to give an order to use nuclear weapons, he must be sure that everyone along the chain will carry out this order'. If one person does not comply, Grozev says this will be a 'signal of insubordination' which could lead to the 'death of Putin'. 'So until he is sure that everyone will comply, he will not give this order,' he added. It is known that defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the defence staff Valery Gerasimov would both need to sanction a nuclear strike. The journalist said senior figures from the FSB security agency and the GRU military intelligence organisation are preparing for life after Putin. He said the 'FSB elite' knows exactly how many Russian troops have died in Ukraine and knows that the loved ones of the dead or missing 'do not stop asking questions'. 'They know that this situation will eventually get out of hand,' Grozev added. 'This is already a kind of betrayal by these people, because they do not follow the ideological orders of the Kremlin, but are preparing for an alternative reality'.
Gee, "If Putin orders a nuclear launch, he gets Arkancided"...now where have I heard that before this went to print today at 7AM EDT??
Rock on Hedge. I'm giving you tomorrow's news, and you're watching yesterday's forecast.
@Hedge - There is no win condition available to either side in this "war".
ReplyDeleteThe best outcome is for Russia to fuck off, for both sides to accept the stalemate in the Donbas, and go home to lick their wounds.
Kissinger finally gets his wish: they both lose.
-brian