Headlines compared: Polish newspapers from 1939 and news websites from 2022

Ukrainian TV regularly describes the situation there - Kherson is lost, Berdyansk is lost, Mariupol is like Stalingrad when the defenders were pushed right to the Volga, Nikolaev - still not, and there is fighting around with various small villages and towns changing hands. Odessa - preparing for invasion, Russian Navy assault group is there and the smaller ships are hanging on the horizon periodically shelling the city. Some radars, etc. taken out by the bombing. I wonder what would you have to add/correct here.

Granted, Odessa falling will be huge in all respects. It would make the situation worse tremendously for Ukraine. It will also be a pretty tall order for Russian propaganda as for example i couldn't say which city is more dear to Russians - Kiev or Odessa. And Odessa will be fighting. It will be at least order of magnitude bigger/longer battle than Mariupol (especially given that Russian forces haven't yet encircled Odessa which is hard without taking Nikolaev, and attempting to take Odessa just by an assault from sea onto the mined beaches would be very risky). So, it isn't exactly a given that Russia can sustain such a fight given the Russian losses that have already happened and are going to happen - Russia is already starting to bring in military college cadets as well as calling reservists. Russia also wants Belarussian forces to join, yet given the Belarussian society feelings Lukashenko is afraid that the Belarussian army will desert to Ukrainians and would potentially turn against him while hoping that staying off may allow him to not go down with Putin/Russia.

Russia has also significantly decreased close air support for ground forces because of heavy losses of planes and helicopters. Thus they mostly bomb the cities from distance using unguided artillery and unguided MRLS like Grad/Smerch as well as unguided air bombing from higher altitudes. That mostly hits civilian population and civilian buildings/infrastructure while having much smaller effect against military targets. And thus even after such massive multi-days bombings the Russian ground forces still can't move ahead much.

I am cautiously optimistic for Ukraine based on reports over the past month. But I am also aware of the history of war propaganda.

The front pages of US and UK newspapers during the Battle of France, for example, were filled with headlines talking about French successes in repelling the Hun. Anyone paying attention to the details, however, could see that the successes were constantly occurring closer and closer to Paris.

If Russia wins, there is going to be a lot of cognitive dissonance among those whose worldviews are entirely shaped by Reddit headlines and Twitter takes. I'd hope that having their worldviews shattered so abruptly and violently would cause such people to reexamine all of their preconceptions, but given how previous such cases (notably Brexit and Trump's election, both in 2016) mostly caused them to double down rather than seriously self reflect, I am not hopeful.

I occasionally revisit Jon Stewart's 2015 interview of Judith Miller for some light catharsis: https://www.cc.com/video/o05yhi/the-daily-show-with-jon-stew...

But a tactic like this could make Ukrainians even angrier, not demoralized. Could go either way. Regardless, any nuclear launch would have the effect of galvanizing support far beyond the current level. It would probably also strip them of Chinese support because extreme sanctions would fall on anyone providing the least bit of support to Russia, and a massive economic blow to China hurts them more than it would hurt most other countries (though it would still hurt).

If course the above is predicated upon a rational weighing of consequences, and I shouldn't assume rationality by Putin. But enough people in power may still be rational enough to stage a coup if he truly approaches nuclear war.

Or so I hope. A few months from now I might remember this comment and how naive it was.

Of all of the reasons put forth by various sources over why this is happening, the simplest is often the correct one (not always, but often), which is that Putin just wanted Ukraine back in his (i.e. Russia's) embrace. And nobody says no to Putin.

Justifying the Russian attack goes the same way as "because her skirt was too short... oh, no, no - it wasn't her fault but of society, which lets women dress like that". It's always the aggressor's fault, full stop. For a comparison, NATO didn't perform a land invasion on Belarus when it became a Russian vassal state.

That's one piece of the Russian propaganda excuse, the one most engineered to fit with a Western audience, but it's not particularly plausible.

More like a rite of passage for every occupying force.

Now don't get me wrong, it's necessary propaganda and it's war. But it's incredible to me that people actually what amount to fan fiction. Like seriously, no ukrainian I've talked with believes those far fetched but very convenient story. They know it's a war and propaganda is part of the war effort but they don't actually believe it themselves. I've only seen westerners eat those stories and craft their own lore around it. I guess we forgot about the supposed military coup to overthrow putin, him hiding in the Ural in fear of his life, the military units that were about to defect... 2 weeks ago.

At the end of the day, it does not matter even if it was true. We need to focus on helping ukraine and actually stay tethered to the reality on the ground and concrete actions we can do. There is a war on the ground, and for all intents and purposes there is absolutely 0 way for us to know about the inner dynamics of the Kremlin that wouldn't be completely tainted by propaganda.

This map shows how far the Germans got in two weeks, and it's much more than what the Russians have done so far in Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Poland2.jpg

For starters, Russia lost ~10% of its forces so far - but so did Ukraine (side note: if seriously believe the figures that Ukrainian Ministry of Defense publishes for Russian casualties, I have a bridge to sell you). The difference is that Ukraine is already fully engaged - it's not like had a choice! - while Russia has used only a part of its forces for the invasion. Now it's true that the forces that spearheaded the invasion were supposed to be the best trained and equipped ones, and other units that they'd have to bring would have more conscripts and be otherwise less effective. But a conscript is still better than no soldier at all!

Then there's the "missing" Russian Air Force. And it's not just strategic bombing, but also ground support. The notion that they're incapable of any of this is just plain ridiculous, given what we've seen before in Syria. Now, Ukrainians do have much better AA than Syrian rebels, so Russian losses in the air would be high - but if they go all-in, it won't matter.

So, the people who are dying defending Ukraine right now are basically buying time for the West to get over its fears and hesitations and truly help them. But, ironically, the ferocity of the defense led to the popular misconception that Ukraine can basically do it through grit alone. So I hope they do get help before it's too late, but I'm also pessimistic about it.

In 2014 Russia invaded Ukraine, the world did nothing of consequence which emboldened the aggressor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_relatio...

> 2. The other side is solely responsible for the war.

Aside from good countries and people turning a blind eye and doing nothing; yes. Russia is clearly responsible for the aggression and (presumed guilty in the court of media coverage) warcrimes (yet to be tried and found guilty anywhere; but the gears of law are slow and this official designation will likely happen after the war).

> 3. The enemy has the face of the devil.

No comment, but I don't think anyone believes the average soldier on either side is this.

> 4. It is a noble cause that we defend and not particular interests.

As if anyone could ever drop 'particular interests' in any action that could border on the next world war or the deployment of weapons of mass destruction (Russia's nukes).

> 5. The enemy commits atrocities knowingly; if we make unfortunate mistakes, it is involuntary.

Some occasional error? Maybe mistakes. Repeated attacks on civilian targets? Not mistakes.

> 6. The enemy uses unauthorised weapons.

We hope not, thus far the really bad ones haven't been covered, at least just yet.

> 7. We suffer very few losses, while the losses of the enemy are enormous.

We, the general West, have so far not been involved in the fighting. Those who are involved seem to both be taking unfortunate losses.

> 8. Artists and intellectuals support our cause.

> 9. Our cause has a sacred nature.

To make the world a better place with more freedoms and personal liberties, quality and safety of life, and less war-mongering dictators?

> 10. Those who question our statements are traitors.

Which statements are in question? You and others are all free to do so in the society I live in. While I have heard that laws in Russia have 'consequences' for the dissemination of facts and opinions the government disagrees with. Some of the cases have been light. Many protestors have been arrested though.

It's a bit maddening that a NFZ has even been proposed by actually serious people and repeatedly normalized as a harsh but possible choice by journalists and the media. To me, that's so much more dangerous than any "dangerous misinformation" or call for violence that we were so obsessed about suppressing in the past 2 years.

The normalization is working, because that there's even a discussion on enforcing a no fly zone over the military of a nuclear power would've been unthinkable even in the depths of the cold war. And the comparisons to ww2/hitler are not helping at all.