Go, Vlad! Bleed yourself white. Adopt the conscription policies of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards mine clearing forces. Put the old guys and the kids in those rusty T-62s you've been pulling out of the scrap heaps. That'll show Ukraine who means business.
20 comments:
I don't understand the logic behind the Russian policy in the ukraine. The russians have much bewer tanks, better gear but they dragged every old pos item out of storage yards and sent it into battle.
It makes no sense to hold back the good gear and send in the crap unless there is part of the puzzle we are not seeing.
Exile1981
If this is what Russia needs to continue operations in Ukraine, it means it has zero ability to sustain operations against any one first world opponent or a small coalition of second rate opponents. Truly Russia is a hollow shell of its former self. Absent its stocks of nuclear weapons, it would be nibbled away by its former republics and China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WtH2nsJapA
this guy is half blind and has some other disabilities. and they put him in the army. the first ukranian he saw, he surrendered.
Sure hope you and everyone else has the right read on the defeat of Russia in Ukraine, but I'm not getting the warm fuzzies myself when I look at it. This is just far too too rosy at this point.
Gerard,
Describe a Russian victory, and tell me how that works in the short-term and the long-term, going from the situation on the ground in Europe right now.
Finland and Sweden change their mind? NATO disbands? Everyone decides to go back to the status quo ante, and hails Vlad as a marvelous specimen of political leadership? Turkey re-opens the Bosporus once Russia wins?
Russia could be a the Polish border tomorrow, execute Zelensky, and subjugate the entire Ukraine, and still not pull out anything that could reasonably be described as victory.
They've destroyed an irreplacable subset of their military power to achieve virtually nothing to date that they didn't have on Feb 23rd.
They've revealed to the entire world their military impotence and ineptitude.
The entire border from Turkey to Finland will become the most militarized frontier on the planet, and stay that way for a century.
And even if they conquer Ukraine conventionally, they'll only be buying into an insurgent war in the aftermath that will make our foray into Vietnam look well-considered and sensible by comparison.
Vlad's choices are get out now, or see Russians dying in Ukraine for the next 20+ years.
Minus nearly 10% of his overall military strength, and a bigger percent of the teeth that comprise Russian combat capability, which obviously wasn't that formidable to begin with.
And the only thing he's getting in return is literal piles of rubble and corpses.
It's going to be like they decided to annex Afghanistan in 1990.
They imported $25B in food every year before this year's sanctions, and unless they like rice, they're not going to get that from India and China.
And all I get in reply from the fanboys is gainsaying, without so much as a single answer to how any of that is a net benefit to Russia, even if they achieved all their military objectives.
This is a guy burning down his own house just to keep his ex from getting it, on a national scale. Attacking Ukraine for them is going to turn out as well as stealing a presidential election has turned out for the Democrats in this country.
Change my mind.
Why would anyone be in this at this point to change your mind? Or to change anyone's mind? Who wants to go into the upteenth-lebenty-leben time repeating of the repeating? Ever body done got down in their hole on this one and it seems unsporting to try to get somebody else down in the hole I'm in.
I'm just saying they ain't stopping by any measure I can figure. History will tell.
Me? I gots a run to the store where thars a red hot sale on Stove Top Stuffing.
Thus proving the point.
But you're right: they're absolutely not stopping, which the whole world will concede.
Which underlines that the bully hasn't been punched in the junk enough times to induce a critical re-evaluation of his scheme.
Enjoy the stuffing! :)
Aesop,
Vlad has already won. The Ukraine will be his prostitute, to serve him as he demands, from here forward. True Fact.
You've dug yourself a hole on this. GVL alluded to the Bob Dylan lyrics. Also, don't forget the Redneck wisdom: "When you're in a hole, stop digging".
With Friends like these? Who needs enemies?
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/olaf-scholz-and-ukraine-why-has-germany-been-so-slow-to-deliver-weapons-a-7cc8397b-2448-49e6-afa5-00311c8fedce
Thus far, not a single heavy weapon has been delivered directly to Ukraine by Germany. And even if all of the systems that have now been promised do ultimately make their way to the country, the extensive amount of time that Berlin has taken to finally send significant help cannot be recuperated.
Western Europe is going to abandon Ukraine this Winter. You know they will. Faced with their own citizens freezing in the dark, and support for Ukraine? Western Europe will cave into the Barbarians for Russian Gas and Russian Oil. Just like the cowardly bastards abandoned Czechoslovakia in 1938-1939, and then after that fiasco sat on their asses while Germany and Russia dismembered Poland in 1939, and as Russia annexed Finland, Estonia, Lativia, and Lithuania. Those keen intellects and stalwart warriors of Western Europe even managed to get Denmark, Norway and Belgium, Holland, and France completely conquered by the Nazis by the Fall of 1940. Ukraine will wonder where all their friends have gone this time next year.
Western Europe will talk a good game, but push comes to shove? They will cave like the cowardly pussies they are. Ukraine can only count on the poor impoverished Ex-Warsaw Pact countries for any real support.
RD
The war in Ukraine has come down to fighting over the Donbas. Whose army will break first? Russia or Ukraine. Sounds a lot like France in 1917.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/op-ed-new-russian-offensive-intended-project-power-it-cannot-sustain
RD
@Mahtomedi,
Show your work. Start by defining "won" in any way that doesn't look like a Buddhist priest "winning" by protesting the Diem regime in Saigon with a can of gasoline and a match circa 1963.
Vlad is shooting his own dick off by the day. He's down another three generals in the last 10 days alone. That'll leave a mark. You saying otherwise is simply naked gainsaying in the face of obvious facts. You can't gaslight your way to a Russian victory, and neither will Vlad. Him getting his grand strategy tips from Wile E. Coyote is fun for the rest of us to watch, but simping for it is unwise.
I find this dialogue amusing. Arguing that Putin is winning or that he will ‘win’ at the end of the day by taking over Ukraine isn’t even the point and while I agree with Aesop, who really knows? But in the end, Aesop is right; a Win equates to fuckall for Russia in the long run and in fact seems to be a net negative outcome.
What’s next? Poland? Good luck there, we all know it stops in Ukraine one way or the other. However, when I say ‘stop’ it doesn’t mean ‘end’. This shit is a long-haul proposition and just like Afghanistan, they’ll ultimately find a PR Win and bail.
I have no military expertise at any level. However, it seems to me that Mahtomedi makes a couple of good points. Lotsa "if"-s, but good points.
If Putin can manage to run out the clock to this winter, the European Union might fold in the cold and dark. While individual soldiers and units of the French army might kick ass and take names, French politicians, for only one example, are other than Churchillian.
I hope for an end to that ear, but, meh?, I'm simply an observer. What do I know?
The only point he made was that Russia has "won". He brings zero evidence in support of that claim, nor can even define the term in accordance with reality.
Again, why would anyone not yet on Federal Early Release do serious work in the comments section simply because challenged to --- as we once read so long ago on assignment sheets in "Hip Bone Connected to the Trom Bone 101"-- "Show. Yur Wurk."
I will note however that you have -- as you have so often before you must have it on a macro -- invoked:
"Cartoon Law II: Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease."
The question that follows from this law in any discussion is always "Who is the Wile E. Coyote?"
People sayin' which side (Rooskies or Ukes) done ONE or LAST at this time in the grinding game while waiting on the Whammo Rain from Uncle SAMS is just shakin' their 8-Ball harder than they be shakin' their johnson while dreamin' of frosting the face of Ellen Degneres.
Not definein' mean no such "term" that wanders in here in "accordance with reality." ("Accordance?" Really?)
That thars one beeg PeeAchDee requirement to which the sane in accordance with reality would say, "If thou be willing, remove this cup from me."
Me? I'm off to play me that Bruce Springsteen tictok loop "No defeat baby. No surrender."
At this point Russia's had so many different objectives that "win" can be literally anything.
The question isn't "will Russia or Ukraine win?". The question is "How badly will both Russia and Ukraine lose?"
-brian
Gerard,
Few ever do any serious work in any comment section.
I respect your opinions, but to change a position, I request a rationale.
From any thousand comments, the rationale is nearly always "Because you're wrong, because I said so."
My response to that is always, "Okay, thanks mate, you got your £5's worth of Argument, but if you wander back, this will be the Abuse cubicle."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpAvcGcEc0k
I haven't suggested, let alone stated outright, that the Ukrainians are winning, nor will. There are far too many variables in play to predict that. They have, however, done a marvelous job of pulling Vlad's trousers down, and beating his hindquarters red and blistered with the bodies of his dead generals.
I have stated repeatedly that Russia has chalked up serial failures, and shows no signs of stopping that strategy. Why they persist is as much a mystery as why they set out in the first place, other than typical Russian stupidity. Afghanistan wasn't enough of a lesson to them, as Vietnam was not for us, coupled with "they believed their own press releases", and a strategic failure to never get to the chapters in von Clauswitz or Sun Tzu wherein they might have learned "the enemy gets a vote."
But I still stand patiently awaiting anyone, anyone at all, to define "win" with regards to Russian efforts in any way that fits the facts, and explains their actions, beyond naked gainsaying.
I continue to do so, as do 200,000 Russian troops, the entire Russian people, and the rest of the world.
Probably because no one is up to the task of squaring that circle, which lesson remains the sole and pivotal point of the exercise, since the outset.
Russia cannot win, for any value of that term.
Ukraine can.
Both sides can lose.
Worst case, the entire world can lose.
Those are the boundaries of the discussion, absent facts not yet in evidence, nor likely to become so.
It also narrows the parameters of which outcome is the one most worthy of cheering on.
(blah, stuck this in the wrong comment thread the first try)
>I haven't suggested, let alone stated outright, that the Ukrainians are winning, nor will.
I'll do that.
A Russian win consists of seizing major portions or all of Ukraine, holding it past the end of combat operations, having the balance of influential countries in the world accept the new situation, and benefiting in some material fashion from the seized territory. A Ukrainian win consists of preventing a Russian win. A Ukrainian flawless victory consists of recovering all territory under Russian occupation since 2014.
I expect a Ukrainian flawless victory. I can imagine circumstances leading to a Russian win, but it requires literally miraculous levels of coincidence and fortuity in their favor.
The Russians lost this in the first two weeks. Or, they lost it in the years leading up to it, it just became clear that them losing was the only possible outcome during those first two weeks. Everything since has been trends extrapolating that were laid down in those first two weeks.
From the moment it became clear that 1) the Russian military is not capable of American-style combined arms operations, 2) the Ukrainians were willing to fight with homemade Molotov cocktails if nothing better was available, at 90%+ participation - that was it. Game over. Russia could not, can not, and will not win. The only question is how long it takes them to admit it, how many people get killed on both sides.
There is plenty of historical precedent. 1905 Japan. 1939 Finland. 1920 Poland. Russia is entirely capable of losing in spectacular fashion. In fact in the past few centuries they've lost a lot more than they've won, and when they did win, it was by throwing sheer overwhelming numbers at the problem. Small problem: Russian demographics are dramatically different now. Russia _cannot_ afford to throw men's lives away anymore. Russia doesn't seem to understand that. They will figure it out, right quick, and painfully.
I'm not as sanguine, but solely because the continued support of material from the West is not guaranteed long enough to achieve that flawless victory.
A change in that could materially affect the outcome, and it's outside of Ukraine's control.
Every day this continues gets worse for Russia though, unless they execute Plan 37: flip over the chessboard, and start lobbing nukes in a paroxysmic tantrum of national self-destruction.
Justin Trudeau and Canada are just as bad as Germany is actually supplying the Ukrainians.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-ivison-as-canada-sends-junk-to-help-war-effort-canadians-in-danger-of-losing-interest-in-ukraine-fight
James Challice, a 42-year-old Canadian Forces veteran, travelled to Ukraine in late March and has been training young recruits to defend their country.
In recent days though, Challice has been fighting at the front and in an exchange with contacts in Canada laid out a far less optimistic synopsis. Challice said he is lucky to be alive after taking part in a mission that didn’t go well. “We don’t have enough big guns or ammo to keep pushing forward,” he said.
Aesop, You know how critical Artillery is. The West is not providing enough, likely because none of our allies have enough artillery or ammunition for themselves.
RD
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