President Putin has announced a partial mobilization in Russia
netnewsledger.com
netnewsledger.com
In all, I don't think the mobilization is likely to matter. The Russian problem is bad supplies, bad comms, and bad morale. When the russian front in kharkiv collapsed and everyone fled, there were many units just wandering around, and even setting up defensive lines because they didn't know the rest of the force had been routed and that the enemy was already behind them. Forcing people to the front isn't going to change this. Russian strategy has been repeating idiotic assaults on bakhmut for 2 months with no gains while just trying to hold on elsewhere. Ukraine on the other hand has been maintaining a decent momentum from their offensive, taking Lyman, and on the verge of looking to retake Lysychansk and maybe Severodonetsk again. Progress will be relatively slow, but it's not crazy to imagine another wave of collapse.
It'll take a long time to get a working army together. I'd bet on Ukraine and western support every day. The only thing that could change the calculus is nuclear weapons.
Oh it matters. More poorly trained and equipped cannon fodder means more dead and more prisoners. The influx of caskets into previously less impacted areas in Russia might start to impact the general population more - that's how the USSR had to pull out of Afghanistan.
The reason they had to leave Afghanistan was it simply too expensive due to the cost and the sanctions and they couldn't afford to do it. Which IS what is happening in Ukraine too.
How so? Putin is swimming in money Europeans send him. Sanctions are a joke.
The military spending is cushioned by the fact that they had so much shit lying around to throw into the fire, but this will continue to grow worse over time.
Contrary to popular belief, Russia cannot simply switch selling gas from europe to china either. The pipeline infrastructure does not exist to turn it into LNG and ship it in comparable quantities.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/15/economy/russia-economy-budget...
Or so I have heard -- not posing as an expert on oil fields.
Yay global carbon emissions.
https://amp.dw.com/en/what-is-the-environmental-cost-of-gas-...
At Bakhmut Russia did made small but meaningful progress with Ukrainian sources reporting the situation as difficult or even very difficult. And Bakhmut is the last Ukrainian line in Donbas that was heavily fortified during the last 8 years, after Bahmut any defensive positions will be much weaker.
And Lyman are far from being liberated. Ukrainians forces made a progress threatening to surround Russian forces there, but the situation is rather unclear there. As for Lysychansk there were sporadic reports about small Ukrainian units nearby, but nothing more.
What is clear is that without significantly increased heavy weapon support for Ukraine the war can drag for years. And it looks like West is not going to do it for various reasons. I mean I understand the fear to give ATACMS, but I just do not understand why not extended range GMLRS and heavy artillery.
That's nonsense. It was an entire front of the war. A huge land area. Russia spent months trying to conquer Izyum. There's basically no clear intel on what was left behind, or how many people were taken prisoner, but even if it's nothing, which it isn't, it's a major loss.
> At Bakhmut Russia did made small but meaningful progress with Ukrainian sources reporting the situation as difficult or even very difficult.
It has barely nudged in months. It is difficult. Fighting is hard. But it's not meaningful in the slightest and it's not strategically important.
> And Lyman are far from being liberated. Ukrainians forces made a progress threatening to surround Russian forces there, but the situation is rather unclear there. As for Lysychansk there were sporadic reports about small Ukrainian units nearby, but nothing more.
I give Lyman a week to hold out at most personally. It's surrounded on two sides, soon to be 3. If it falls you may see another yolo rush.
Lysyschansk is not currently an active fighting zone but they're pushing east from Bilohorivka, which is very close. It could take a while for that to develop.
There are a lot of other lines, e.g. near Donetsk. And with the time it is taking for the Russians to advance there is plenty of time for the Ukrainians to set up other lines.
> Kharkiv collapse was not that big
It removed the last hope the Russian had to take the fortifications you mention from behind, descending from the north.
Now the Russians are just throwing everything they have at fortifications specifically built to defend against this kind of attack. No wonder they advance so slowly.
What worries me is that from an historical perspective it is reminiscent of the Spanish Civil War that preluded WW II. Such a direct involvement of foreign superpowers was not seen even in the Syrian Civil War.
Russia and NATO Turkey have both been engaged in Syria. This led to a Russian incursion into Turkey being shot down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shoo...
I can see why the West was so reluctant to get involved in Syria given the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan, but I do wonder if more decisive action of some kind against Russia's involvement, or their shootdown of a passenger jet, or the Salisbury poisonings, might have discouraged the invasion of Ukraine in the first place.
Neither are likely, but both are possible and have been rumored.
TLDR: DPRK munitions are more likely to explode in transport and kill RF units than to ever be used against AFU.
As for DPRK soldiers, I'm not sure even Kim is stupid enough to follow Putin into this morass.
Most have never fired a live round in their lives, even for training.
Fortunately, it seems like launching nuclear attacks is frowned upon by the armies of every member of the nuclear club, it's not as easy as pushing a red button.
It would be probably civilian target.
Kiev getting nuked means all out nuclear war. At the very least you know Putin loves himself too much to die like that.
Ukraine is in Europe. Nuking Ukraine means the wind will likely carry the fallout radiation into Russia, Belarus and Poland at the least.
I doesn't matter if its 1 nuke or a 100 nukes, irradiating NATO citizens is THE red line.
If Russia can nuke Europe without fear of reprisal, then NATO is defunct and a new nuclear arms race will probably start in Europe, with unforeseeable consequences.
So I would say yes, if Russia nukes a European capital with a multi-million pop, then nuclear war with Russia is the only course of action.
Letting Russia nuke europe and get away with it does have unforseeable consequences, but the consequences of all out nuclear war is 100% certain and maximally bad. You literally cannot do worse than this.
You could instead, for instance, deploy the troops and just do a straight up invasion with the intent to destroy Russia entirely. Which maybe they do a nuclear response to. But maybe they don't. Because it's still the worst possible option and perhaps they'd like to instead just kill putin, accept a russia fragmentation into tiny vassal states.
I'd also ask then, because you're saying "irradiating NATO citizens is the red line", whether you support killing everyone if there's a russian caused meltdown at the Zaporyzhzhia plant (sp).
> Yes.
> Ukraine is in Europe. Nuking Ukraine means the wind will likely carry the fallout radiation into Russia, Belarus and Poland at the least.
> I doesn't matter if its 1 nuke or a 100 nukes, irradiating NATO citizens is THE red line.
You're insane, and I'm glad you're nowhere near the button. An all out nuclear war will carry far, far more than "radiation" to Europe. And by "more" I mean actual warheads. It's like getting into a suicidal gun battle over a papercut.
MAD means you need to maintain an absolutely credible threat of an apocalyptic reprisal, but I think it's arguable that no one should ever actually carry out that threat (though that's information that absolutely must be kept secret). Do you really want to turn a holocaust into an extinction?
Edit: Typos.
Have you seen any zombie movies?
Bongcloud opening maybe
The Russians may be suffering from "bad supplies, bad comms, and bad morale," but I've read in several places that they're also suffering from a lack of manpower. Or, more specifically: too much equipment in proportion to their ground troops, and also too many combat troops in proportion to support personnel.
But hard resources are highly commoditized, and there are few nations with any sort of monopoly over them. The world will be better off with Russian resources, but if it can't access them, there are plenty of other alternatives that can be brought online with some investment.
For CNC and lathes its p-code.
There is a surprising amount of camera vision, etc used in automation as well.
Entire industrial processes were replaced with code and automation (read, more code) and robots.
And of course robots are produced by factories with robots.
Second, a lot more of what we are doing has been dematerialized. The entire factories that used to make film camera (as just one example) have essentially been replaced entirely with software, and the experience is better in every single way for customers.
If I had to attribute one thing to Russia's downfall, it would be its geopolitical decision to align itself with China and Iran in global anti-Western sentiment, rather than moving towards joining the rest of the West and the EU as some countries hoped they would back in the 90s.
Russian economic systems and state/societal incentives unfortunately aren't conducive to helping these engineers build world-class companies and products at any appreciable scale.
But they are sanctioned off from the technological advanced world and they can't even import modern chips. Add to that that the corruption and lack of freedom are impediments to building a thriving economy.
I think we will see a huge brain drain towards the West. Germany had top notch excellences too, before the Nazis took power.
If skilled intelligent people leave? Good, more loyal and easy to manipulate remain. People are dying in wars? Who cares if something is reached, like protecting motherland from made up boogeymen.
Russian psyche relishes in suffering and misery and drinking into oblivion in vain attempt to forget about it. The worse it gets the more to blame that evil west for. This can be truly endless cycle that you can't break from outside.
Really, this clash of civilizations is coming at a seemingly good time, while Russia is obviously weak. Obviously better would be to have no conflict at all, but that's not what Russia can offer to rest of the world, only arrogance, suffering, and primitive disfunctionality of its system. Since nobody willingly wants it, clash is inevitable.
That's true of most dictatorships but actually Putin always kept skilled professionals in his entourage (to the chagrin of the nationalistic bunch that despised this policy and those pesky liberals, often Jews). Now obviously this is changing but because of bigger issues.
If/when Putin falls, if Russia remains, the people who will govern Russia will probably be the hyper nationalists that are much less intelligent than Putin and will be much worse for the population. Unfortunately this is going to be bad for those living there.
In Iran, in Turkey, in the USA, in Hungary, in France, in South Africa, in Russia, in the UK there are people who all they want is a decent life for the work they do and there are people who want to make America Great again, show Greeks that Turks are the boss or show Turks that Greeks are the superior culture that one day will rise and take back Istanbul, show EU that they are the man, revive the French greatness, preserve British ways against EU, screw the liberals, make the Vegans cry, keep the women in line, stop Netflix making the youth gay, preserve the Islam in a specific way, preserve christian values etc.
It's almost as if there are class wars everywhere but those in power fight their local class wars through external fights. That's why it almost feels like Brexiteers, MAGA, le Pen, Putin, the guy in Brazil or Philippines are all coordinated.
It's bizarre and I don't see anything special about Russia TBH. It's just that they seem to be ahead of the west in the direction the world is headed.
You know people who disapprove Putin and try to run away from Russia but unfortunately Putin continues to enjoy very high approval ratings[0].
[0] https://twitter.com/grkdirik/status/1572242924460556288/phot...
Is that just a bezire spelling of bizarre?
On the contrary, they seem to be a century behind. Even China told them they should try to find a diplomatic solution. India told them this is not the time for war. The world has other problems than an old man's ambitions.
Europeans and British can no longer live and work in their respective countries because of old mens ambitions.
Because of old mens ambitions large number of Americans no longer believe in democratic elections.
Because of old mens ambitions countless people have died in the middle east and other places.
What Russia is ahead of is that they are first in the game of attacking neighboring countries with regular armies for old mens ambitions.
This is nonsense. There are millions of people from different European countries working in the UK, including new arrivals post-Brexit. Around half of women voted to leave the EU. One of the senior politicians who supported Vote Leave is a middle aged British Indian woman.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/567922/brexit-votes-by-g...
That’s the case for every country. Even North Koreans can work and live anywhere in the world if you choose to dismiss the difficulties.
It's like Windows games won't run on Mac unless you install specialised software that might run some Windows games in varying degrees of playability.
I guess you can't cater to everyones intelligence all the time, some people don't know about work visas and they can feel deceived when look at the statistics clearly showing that some people indeed can work in countries that someone declared not possible to work. My apologies.
The gist is, EU/UK no longer can work freely as they and their employers sees fit and government permission which is usually called work visa but can have different names is required. Some people qualify and obtain those, others don't qualify or don't bother. Usually comes with complications at retirement and long term life options and travel complications.
I'm confused why this has become a problem of speech precision. Even if the language is prices and people don't melt down, the reality on the ground often doesn't match the paper trail. Lots of people work without visa(arrive illegally?) or they arrive on one kind of visa but do stuff that require another kind of visa. Although these people work in UK/EU, it doesn't mean that they can work in the UK/EU.
FACT: the end of this war must be positive for the Russian people, no matter whether Russia loses or wins the military operation. Putin came to power because the West didnt help the former Soviet republics. If Russia is left alone humiliated again then we will have the next anti-western system in 10 years.
Caution is certainly warranted but it doesn't seem productive to reward Russia for invading another country.
What is your proposal to how not humiliate Russia? Russia already humiliated themselves by not wining this conflict for so long. In their book anything less than total conquest of Ukraine is humiliation.
In fact, the Republicans under Henry Cabot Lodge wanted exactly that, Germany had to be defeated and invaded. It was the only way to get lasting peace in Europe. And of course many in France like Foch wanted the same thing.
The mistake was corrected after WWII by splitting the country into occupation zones. That is the only way to deal with Russia too. Pushing out of Ukraine isn't enough. Russia has to be demilitarized, most importantly - denuclearized, it should lose its place in UN Security Council. It also should be denazified - the current fascist regime must be totally dismantled, and the country must be split to avoid such regime coming back again.
>Putin came to power because the West didnt help the former Soviet republics.
Putin came to power because the "system", ie. KGB in particular wasn't dismantled, and because the further splitting up of the country was prevented. Whole world, including US, was afraid of appearance of several new smaller states, instead of just one big Russia, possessing nukes. Now, one can expect everybody learnt from that mistake made 30 years ago - this time the nukes need to be taken away completely and the country split.
> the end of this war must be positive for the Russian people
No. Only crushing humiliating defeat with the split of the country can reach into Russian brain and cure it from the "Great Russia chauvinism". Without such a process of cure, the monster will soon be back.
However, it could happen naturally. If the Putin regime collapses it is quite likely that a clear successor widely seen as legitimate doesn't materialize. If so, the many autonomous regions of Russia with regional identity could declare independence and make it stick.
>The west does not have anywhere near the manpower necessary to make this happen.
One of the biggest occupying/controlling power for the biggest piece of territory - Far East and East Siberia - is China. And there is no need to actually occupy whole Russia. Only in Moscow and a bit of force (more like credible threat of it), and that is work for the West and Turkey, to make sure that nobody would prevent those autonomous regions going their own independent way (which in many cases would be just naturally falling into orbit of a near by big country like Turkey, Kazakhstan, China, Ukraine or a block like EU)
Unless they're invited there as peacekeepers by a new government. But even a pro-US government is unlikely to invite US peacekeepers. Maybe Canadian ones.
Reading this would have been funnier had it not been for the behaviour we’ve seen this year.
>Reading this would have been funnier had it not been for the behaviour we’ve seen this year.
until this year i've never wrote nor even thought this way. Until Feb 24 i still believed in my Old Country having a chance at playing great positive role in the world - i still thought that the harsh authoritarianism of Putin regime is a phase that will pass with minimal damage say once he dies. I hadn't noticed how instead it became Russian Nazism, "Rashizm" as its known, though all the signs have clearly been there at least during recent few years. It became clear on the Feb 24 though, and the 7 months since then have been showing it more and more, that the Russian society deeply poisoned by Rashizm has lost its ability to even minimally responsibly manage the great power stemming from such a large country and nukes in particular, and thus they lost any right to such a power, and became a menace to the world that must be taken care about.
The denazification wasn’t a moral duty. But a smart thing to do, to defang your enemy when they were defeated. Americans thought they were de-baathifying Iraq. When that blew up in their face, they unanimously agreed that it was a mistake, even though the Baath party actions were quite evil.
Europeans have a cultural tendency to create moralistic almost religious justification for war and conquest. Whether it is the white man’s burden, or now denazification. It is used to squash internal dissent. And that’s fine. You need to whip up your peasants into joining your crusade, in one way or another. But the story crumbles when it’s exported across the world.
The rest of the world has no reason to sympathise with actions that might trigger a nuclear war in Europe. I used to think that European leaders understand that and it’s OK for Ukrainians to idly dream of wrecking great vengeance on Russia. But now, I’m not so sure.
The hate isn't on Russians as the carriers of Russian ethnicity. Such hate would be racist, i agree. The hate you see is on the carriers of Russian Nazism who openly espouses and propagandizes it. For example, many prominent targets of such a hate like those especially rabid Rashists propagandists on Russian TV are visibly not of Russian ethnicity. As another example - i'm a Russian and hasn't experienced any such hate even from Ukrainians i met here in teh last few months. I'm pretty sure though that if i were a Rashist and put the Russian Nazism Z-swastika on my car i'd become a target of such hate without people even bothering to check whether i'm of Russian, Jewish or Chinese ethnicity.
It is a trick that Russian propaganda actively using now - present legitimate hate against Russian Nazism as a racist hate against Russians. Don't fall for it :)
>Europeans have a cultural tendency to create moralistic almost religious justification for war and conquest. Whether it is the white man’s burden, or now denazification.
The main point of denazification isn't moralistic. It is a matter of survival. A nazism is "more" than just a fascism. The key foundation of nazist state is the "master-race/nation" ideology, and as a result one of the key characteristic of nazism is Lebensraum - "living space" for the "master-race/nation". While a plain fascist state, like Franco's Spain, can peacefully co-exist with its neighbors, it isn't an option in case of a nazist state like Germany back then or Russia today. Without denazification of Russia there is going to be no peace in the region, and with Russia being nuclear state it means that without denazification Russian presents a real nuclear threat to the world.
>The rest of the world has no reason to sympathise with actions that might trigger a nuclear war in Europe.
Of course nobody in the world is expected to sympathize with the Russian actions, and in particular with their intentional dragging of the world toward nuclear war. To avoid nuclear war Russia has to be stopped and the force is the only option for now.
> I used to think that European leaders understand that and it’s OK for Ukrainians to idly dream of wrecking great vengeance on Russia.
As far as i see, Ukrainians dream not about vengeance, they dream about Russia leaving them alone, something like having a kilometer high wall on the border with Russia. Unfortunately, without demilitarization, denuclearization and denazification of Russia the peace in the region isn't possible. In particular Russia wouldn't leave Ukrainians alone, and thus Ukrainians and the rest of the world have actually no choice wrt. what to do with Russia.
I can see a plausible end that avoids ridicule on either side:
- West will maintain that Putin meant to destroy Ukraine. So, limiting him to the new status-quo for Luhansk and Donetsk (whatever that would be) is a success.
- Putin will claim that the target of the "military operation" was to make Luhansk and Donetsk safe for the Russian-speaking population there. The new status-quo provides for that. So the operation was a success.
(but this an international phenomena, so yeah, agreed.)
But they still want revanchism and imperialism in the 21st c.?
They were not. The reality is that if you put all post-sovit countries on a graph and look at those that actually did neoliberal policies correctly, those are now the nations that are by far the most successful.
Its not the fault of the West that the Russian elites were totally an completely corrupt and had no interest in real reform. Russia actually resisted many reforms and the elites simply put themselves in a position to take advantage. To just blame all of that on the West is nonsense.
> Oh yeah, super good idea. We had fantastic experience with humiliated nations before. It worked so well for Germany after WW1 /s
Germany was not humiliated. The terms imposed on Germany were not actually as bad, the idea that these were some horrible terms come from a few British intellectuals and German Foreign office.
Germany was treated with gloves of silk compared to how Germany treated France and Russia. But the fragile German ego couldn't handle it.
And of those terms imposed at Versailles Germany never even remotely payed any of it. I fact Germany took in more foreign loans then they ever paid back.
In the 20s Germany basically managed to negotiate all those debts away and before they even paid the little they had left, they stopped paying.
What was done to Germany after WW1 was NOT HARSH ENOUGH, and even what was agree on, was not enforced.
> Putin came to power because the West didnt help the former Soviet republics
Ask Estonia about how that.
> If Russia is left alone humiliated again then we will have the next anti-western system in 10 years.
They had an anti-western system for the waste majority of the last 300 years. If paying for their crimes with the London flats of of Russian oil millionaires then they will have to live with it.
Is it time to make this a reality? I really don't see it ending without it happening. russia has shown that it has no regard for the suffering of any troops of any nationality. So purely from a population perspective, Ukraine will fail eventually unless they can effectively force-multiply like we've never seen in any other armed conflict.
Btw, history calls with a rude interruption to remind that the Germans were also the first to give the Yugoslavian civil war a nice big push to get it going.
https://apnews.com/article/f07f4162e6bb20a7039c69d10e526a62
p.s. EU (Germany+France) + Russia + China as foundational to next layer BRI + BRICS, countering "Anglo-Saxon" Empire of Waters.
This is what the war is actually about. Take out the Schnaps and get Schroeder and Merkle drunk and they will tell you all about it. :-)
[preemptive p.s.s. Yes, of course, but that's why NS2 had to be stopped.]
And thats fine, because the issue is neither russia not the west. The issue is east europe, the region of it thats sandwiched between russia and central europe (germany). Just to be clear, my aim is not germans but german politics which find it extremely convenient that a weak east europe cant compete with germany.
In regards to croatia and slovenia, and pretty much all other east eu countries, indeed germany has a good humanitarian track record and has been a steady supporter of democratisation of these countries. But somehow it managed to block their development through excessive regulation, and excessive chauvinism.
There is no debate about east europe on here where a person from that country doesnt throw in corruption and poverty, none of which are on a scale as bad as so dominate every.single.discussion.
Americans dont exhibit the same behaviour when it comes to india, yet india is far poorer and far more corrupt than any east eu country, yet germans always poop on poland, hungary, romania, and so on. A very inhibitive approach in my view, and very non allied like behaviour.
That is not intended to defend people who speak ill of their neighbours. Bad manners are always ugly. Just pointing out that being nice is not a prerequisite for being a useful and even so.ewhat dependable ally.
To me it appears exactly that. One is abusive one is complacent. S/he hits me because s/he loves me. Thats the attitude of people in allied countries each time germany or the eu imposes sanctions because of “corruption” or some other wanna be do good reason, all the while their corrupt partners in the two entities walk free. In fact it hits the very same people, whom somehow think bowing their heads and slaving around europe is a good idea. Instead they should develop a personality and standup. When they warned germany its policies towards russia would backfire and were ignored they should have played the sanctions game just as hard. Do business with russia, but dont sell scrapyard cars in east europe. Abuse workers and smear them in the media, dont do business in east europe.
That feels like it would increase the risk of nuclear escalation and strengthen domestic Russian support for the war.
But the prospect of full blown WW3 is now much more real than it was a month ago, that's for sure.
China is a question but I'd say that noone is benefiting from WW3 apart from perhaps military industry. So I don't really believe China will be too happy because they have a lot going on internally and they don't really need aditional problems that RUS will inevitably cause them.
But as I said: I really hope that time will prove me wrong.
What do you mean? If nuclear escalation happens and WW3 is triggered there is absolutely no world for the military industry to benefit from. Weapons will be required, of course, so production will continue but there would be no semblance of economy or governments as we know them now.
Nukes flying are world-ending, at least the human world and societies we currently experience. There's no profit to be made in total global mayhem.
WW3 does not necessarily mean nukes at all. I personally think - based on how Russian generals used the military funding to enrich themselves - that most of the Russian nukes are not operational. They might have some low-yield "tactical" nukes (something like nuclear grenades). And I seriously doubt that US would use theirs since as soon as you use nukes, everyone will and after that there is no winner anymore.
Unless you calculate you can be the last man standing in a world with drastically reduced pressure on natural resources due to depopulation
Even if it stays that way - Russia against the West - and even if on paper Russia will lose since they are alone - nukes can fly especially over Europe. I'd understand why someone would call that a World War.
There is also a formality in the definition of war vs "special operation". When Russia formally declares war against Ukraine, the West will be considered a cobelligerent if they supply Ukraine with weapons. The partial mobilization is a step towards that
Thats interesting, I'm not doubting you but I would like to see the original source if possible, got a link?
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/157165441023281152...
Extending that thought process, if a partial mobilisation realises 200,000 troops to fight, then the next logical step after that fails is a full mobilisation with pundits suggesting up to 1,000,000 "soldiers".
There is some merit in thinking that the sheer size of Russia means they can just keep churning out men for a zerg rush at a rate exceeding that which Ukraine can deal with, at a cost:benefit ratio acceptable for Russia but crushing for Ukraine.
It is a very hard task even to just deploy, let alone with any gain. In February after months and months of training Russia has deployed to Ukraine about that number of the best forces it had (like Kantemirovskaya tank division). We've seen how it went.
The newly mobilized forces, even after 2-3 months of announced training, will be an order of magnitude worse with worse hardware (that if China doesn't help - there is a reason Putin made the announcement right after the Shanghai Organization summit, may be China promised something, though that would most probably accelerate US hardware to Ukraine). Deploying such forces to a battlefield, especially a one like in Ukraine - as they say it is much more harsh than even Chechen war - one risks loosing them as they come. For now Russia announced plans to use them initially in the 2nd/3rd lines of defense.
As an example - during recent Harkiv counter-offensive by Ukraine Russia was trying to stop Ukraine by throwing in significant new, recently recruited, additional forces without any staging, battle order forming, etc. - those forces were just destroyed as they came by Ukraine as a result.
Giving Ukraine more and better weapons will nullify any Russian number advantage and thus is the shortest path to end this war.
Even prior to the arrival of HIMARS, the decimation of Russian armour was astounding. And that was with weapons NATO infantry teams, the least specialist, most numerous bread and butter soldier force, are all trained on and supplied with.
As it stands; the Ukranians are better fed, equipped, supplied, intelligenced (!), and have the ability to rotate in and out of theatre to keep up momentum. As the offensive continues, their armaments increase in both quantity (captured russian equipment) and efficacy (NATO finally testing their weapons against that which they've theorised about fighting for the past 50 years). With every passing month, cadres of soldiers pass out from NATO training in the UK and throughout the EU.
Prediction - with that in mind - the Russians won't wait 2-3 months to deploy conscripts. They'll start loading trains this week.
It's going to be horrific. The metaphor of Russian gloves coming off will prove to be nothing but allowing them to shove greater quantities of meat into the grinder.
Already happening. https://t.co/Wklq8me5tq
Also keeping the mobilized in 2nd-3rd line defense makes little sense. The current units on the front must be tired, decimated and in need of either retiring back for some rest/recovery/replenisment.
Rusty soldiers will get sent right into first line with all their rusty weapons, and other stock they have to buy themselves if they wish to not bleed to death from simple wounds. https://t.co/JEAxSNOLer https://t.co/GBhRj0g3y3 https://t.co/JnlN5lq51G
Also all this mobilization is unexplicably happening at the start of fall/winter seasons. When/if Russians finally manage to ship most of the people to Ukraine, it will already be winter, and they'll be freezing to death in areas with no working infrastructure, just like during late winter/early autmn earlier this year.
I really don't get it. The leadership must be grasping at straws with very little regard for human life.
The Ukraine needs a lot of that, more air defense (the German Gepards seem to work quite well) and of course some main battle tanks. There is no need for NATO troops to get directly involved as long as there is enough supply for the Ukraine (Poland still has a bunch of Mig 29 which could be immediately be used by the Ukraine).
It seems most Ukrainians agree that the worst would be to live under Russian dictatorship. Maybe they have experience in this area.
I'm not sure what the western forces game plan is and i'm not sure they actually want to help Ukraine too much, I think they are walking the fine line of wanting to hurt Russia enough and see what happens, but they don't want to truly arm Ukraine because if Russia really loses, they might just nuke.
They could have done much more and given way more, why those are large numbers, it's still not on the scale truly needed to defeat Russia. They still hold back plenty.
They are obviously not going to say that directly in public, so public statements mean little.
All of this could change in a second if Pooty either messes with Moldavia/Poland/Baltics or uses um unconventional weapons. I would not consider measured responses to be an open invitation for silliness
As far as conventional arms go: Russia has quite a few planes, tanks, and artillery; however, so long as the USA wills it, the Ukraine will have more anti-air missiles, more anti-tank munitions, and more long-range rockets.
In any long-range fight, being able to locate your enemy is key; the pentagons ability to identify the location of Russian positions appears to be unsurpassed. So long as they are passing this intel to the Ukraine, along with long-range weapons to act on it, any attempt at a Russian advance will be done without access to local command/supply posts.
Edit: suppose the old man has properly lost it.
If Putin drops a tactical nuke on a Ukranian military position, will Nato really respond in kind? Seems like damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
Both countries can’t use nukes because the other has them too. India has a fast growing economy at stake and Pakistan may be an economic disaster but Pakistani elites have huge assets in the west which can be frozen.
Usage of nukes in the Indian subcontinent has easily calculable first order effects.
In Ukraine it’s entirely different. It is ridiculous to suggest that the US will welcome the destruction of the entire human race if Putin even nukes civilian centres in Ukraine. They won’t. But there are second and third order consequences of such actions which are not in favour of Russia and certainly not in favour of Putin and his friends.
It was a small but interesting news item, that a few days before the invasion, some of the US stealth bombers were moved to Rammstein air force base. So at any time there would be the capability of a forceful answer. But this also shows how ridiculous the claims were, that the NATO would seek to attack Russia, as that is the thing the NATO has tried hard to avoid so far.
The new Cold War will be sealed and it will be game over for his regime. He wants western apathy and social disorder to continue. And he wants a disaster zone in Ukraine as his personal entry point into Europe proper.
If that happens, US helps to Ukraine stops, period. I would expect Europe is left on its own and that may be a bad time for Ukraine and actually not only Ukraine.
I certainly hope all this is incorrect since I have family and life in Europe.
Just what Russians are waiting. HIMARS flying over Ukrainian border into Russia and Balarus. Get some other allies involved, declare it a WW3 as pretext to invade Baltics.
How does Russia plan to take the Baltics when they cannot even take a city less them 300km from their border in 6 months?.
> However, since Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991, [calling Ukraine "The Ukraine"] has become politicised and is now rarer, and style guides advise against its use. US ambassador William Taylor said that using "the Ukraine" implies disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty. The official Ukrainian position is that "the Ukraine" is incorrect, both grammatically and politically.
The world used to call Argentina "The Argentine," but that changed, too. There are a number of similar examples in the last hundred years or so.
Not everything is overnight, and your own link states that the change in terminology is both political, and recent. And while Wikipedia states the change was 1991, it's not like every person on the planet got a memo in the mail the next day letting them know what the new, approved, language is. For millions, it's still newish information.
This is just wrong. If you search for the word Ukraine on the Russian government site kremlin.ru (there is an English-language version), you will find that this word is used there without the article. I am sure you'll get the same results if you search RT's web site.
The article isn't the Russians' doing, especially given that there aren't any articles in most Slavic languages, including Russian. It is a historical happenstance of the English language, probably back from the time when the name Ukraine was perceived as meaning borderland. People using it probably do so because they learnt the word decades ago.
"Ukraine" doesn't mean borderland, it's another Russian attitude with the aim to humiliate Ukrainian nation. You can also look at the map and see who is really a borderland of the civilized world.
This is an old and complicated argument. The Russians have their language. In that language, for several centuries, probably as long as the word Ukraine existed in it, it was governed by the preposition "на". There are other Russian toponyms that are governed by the same preposition — Cuba, Caucasus, Manhattan, "the West", Middle East, "the East", etc. It really is a question of whether the language should change because of a new political status of Ukraine (and therefore all its speakers should change their linguistic habits); or whether this word should continue to be among the exceptions that take the preposition "на".
The whole situation, in which people get annoyed about a grammatical factoid of another people's language is just... bizarre.
Surely, the main factor is that Russians disrespect everyone else too, including their own less lucky compatriots. Russia must be destroyed as a culture if they can't learn to behave as civilized humans, if they want to be enslavers only. Though, it looks like Putin is already succeeding in this task.
No. There is no need to change language. If in any given phrase one means Ukraine as a region, like Caucasus, then it is "на", if one means Ukraine as country then it is "в". With Ukraine becoming independent country most semantic contexts though from the "region context" have naturally become "country context".
The issue here is that Russians to intentionally demonstrate their unrecognition and disrespect to Ukraine use "на" (as in the "region context") when they really speak about Ukraine as a country and thus, by Russian language rules, must have used "в".
>The whole situation, in which people get annoyed about a grammatical factoid of another people's language is just... bizarre.
It isn't annoyance. It is tens (actually looks more like early hundred) of thousands people dead for the reason that that factoid demonstrate - Russian refusal to recognize Ukrainian right to exist and to exist independent of Russia.
There is no such semantic distinction between these two prepositions.
You speak of a human language as if it were a programming language disregarding its history (while even for programming languages, history is important, which is why javascript or php are in the state they are currently in). Just as no-one was thinking of the troubled American past when they were using the word "master" as a name of their default git branch or of the primary database, so no Russian (at least none that I am aware of) relies on the preposition "на" to tell them that something is or is not a country. They do, however, rely on their vocabulary of linguistic collocations, developed through the years of using the language, that tells them that the word "Ukraine" wants the preposition "на".
Were you bothered by the preposition "на"? Did you feel, back in secondary school, that saying "на Украине" somehow made it into something less than a country? Can you remember the time when it started bothering you?
And yes, we also use "na" for islands (Cuba, Manhattan) but it's still deprecating.
What happened when your country invaded Ukraine was that practically from Day 1, everyone in Poland switched to "w Ukrainie" - a preposition used normally for the country.
Edit: "w Ukrainie" instead of "w" to make it more clear what I mean
Which part isn't true?
There's an online corpus of the Russian language [0], whose entries of usage of the word Urkaine date back to the 17th century — you can easily see which preposition that word took throughout centuries. If you search through books on Russian grammar on Google Books, you will find examples specifically prescribing the preposition "на" throughout the 20th century.
The whole controversy about the preposition started somewhere around the year 2000, and quickly became political. For a disinterested Russian, who is not into politics, "на" would be a natural preposition to use with this word simply because he would have encountered it in classical literature, in the movies, or on TV. It was semantically charged only for those who were aware of the debate. The response from the linguists used to be that if Ukraine wants to use the preposition "в", it is free to do so for the Russian language spoken on its territory; but that it should have no say on how a language is used in another country.
I understand that in the recent years the usage of this preposition has become a political shibboleth; but I am not speaking about it from a political angle. My points are that the usage of this preposition, with this word, in Russian, is 1) historical, and 2) to those who aren't making a political statement, semantically neutral (i.e. it does not, in itself, connote derision, imperial ambitions, or anything of the kind). I have not made any claims about the Polish language (other than that, to my knowledge, it doesn't have articles).
[0] - https://ruscorpora.ru/
Wrong grammar is when you put the verb before the subject in English. The grammar does not decide whether you say "on a call" or "in a call".
Wrong grammar would be if you used an incorrect case after the preposition, but the very choice of it involves the speaker and what semantics or meaning is meant by them.
Okay - you would find "NA" in the Russian corpus from the 17th century - but it is totally meaningless because East Ukraine was annexed in 17th century by Russia. I would have bet that this particular preposition was preferred.
I don't think any books on Russian grammar recommend a specific preposition - most likely you meant some stylistic compendium, but the style is something more subjective and even political in nature, isn't it?
In a nutshell, it's not a grammatical or historical thing, it's just shameless linguistical colonialism in its purest form.
Ukrainian equipment is getting better with western donations while russian one is effectively running out of it. The newly mobilized units won't have anything better than soviet-era versions of T-72 and T-80, BMP-1 and D-20 howitzer, not even talking about T-62M. Ammo, missle and protective equipment already is getting really low.
Meanwhile, there are serious signals from US to provide M1A1 Abrams sooner than later.
This measure rather aims to prevent looming crushing defeat.
The Russians are “fighting the last war” again, expecting numerical superiority in armor and artillery to win. It isn’t working.
Latest Ukrainian offensive disproves your notion. Maneuver warfare still works and can be employed by capable troops. And this was with done with relative parity of equipment - situation would look way different if Ukraine had order of magnitude better western tanks.
If you want to go and fight, do it yourself
If I look at other conflicts, especially in the middle east, population numbers aren't everything. Occupying a territory cost money and people the longer it last unless the occupation is willing to commit genocide and eradicate everyone who lives there. Ukraine is also a very large country, and even with the goal of lebensraum, it will take time for Russia to move Russians settlers over there so that they don't need to spread their military to uphold control over all the land. Ukraine on the other hand can focus their military on the conflict border without needing to keep troops behind to prevent insurgence.
I was in favour that NATO would secure the skies, but that is now too late I guess.
Ukraine didn't even receive the latest and best equipment such as battle tanks. Once they receive those (I'm confident they will), it will make it easier for them to retake land.
'Securing' skies is a term that has been repeated a lot but in practice it means potentially shooting down Russian aircrafts to 'secure' a corridor.
This would mean a NATO member doing an act of war against Russia _without_ the purpose of defending a NATO member state.
The main argument is where do you draw the line? Why did NATO not provide air support for Georgia in South Ossetia, or for Crimea in 2014 but now does so for Donetsk in 2022?
In my opinion doing so would just give Russian propaganda a stronger argument that NATO is intended on attacking Russia rather than securing it's member states.
Shooting down Russian airplanes over Ukrainian territory when they are literally bombing Ukraine is not "an act of war against Russia". That's a bit of a far stretch don't you think?
If NATO bombs Belarus and Russian airplanes defend, you can hardly call that "Russian war against NATO".
That is literally a casus belli. It very much is an act of war.
Edit: So what would happen if Russia flies a fighterjet over NATO territory and they shoot it down. An act of war?
It is an act of war. It is not a far stretch.
Russia did nothing, as usual.
Nobody is going to directly engage a global nuclear superpower in armed conflict unless they are literally being invaded.
> purely from a population perspective, Ukraine will fail eventually unless they can effectively force-multiply like we've never seen in any other armed conflict.
Successful invasions and occupations are not decided "purely from a population perspective".
USSR directly engaged USA, China did the same in Korean War.
Those aren't active US serviceman.
Not only that, an approach that doesn't have enough vehicles simply cannot work. They're limited to moving a few miles a day; how are they going to be supplied with food, let alone enough ammunition?
Ukraine has a long waiting list of people wanting to fight, Russia has been having to recruit in prisons as there is a shortage or Russians wanting to go be cannon fodder. This mobilization is supposed to help that but even so I'm not sure Russia has much of a manpower advantage. Also with modern weaponry sending out crap unmotivated troops doesn't work that well - one of the first groups of prisoners sent out just surrendered to Ukraine en mass.
Not on the front page or the second page of HN.
The comments have been civil, all things considered. These events have been extremely consequential and possibly the root cause of the looming global recession.
At least he doesn't purge /active which became my default some time ago.
I didn’t upvote the article because I thought the article was lacking details. Example:
>>>“New concepts were introduced into the Russian Criminal Code: including “voluntary surrender,” “looting,” “mobilization,” “martial law” and “wartime.””
>>>The rulings were passed unanimously.”
In my opinion, the article is lacking for not including the actual new code or sentences from the code.
Address by the President of the Russian Federation (English transcript) [1] (video in Russian, no subs)[2]
As I have said, we are talking about partial mobilisation. In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.
Additionally, the Executive Order on partial mobilisation also stipulates additional measures for the fulfilment of the state defence order. The heads of defence industry enterprises will be directly responsible for attaining the goals of increasing the production of weapons and military equipment and using additional production facilities for this purpose. At the same time, the Government must address without any delay all aspects of material, resource and financial support for our defence enterprises.
And, of course, I want to precede the questions that can appear in this regard: there is nothing to do with mobilising or conscripting students that currently study in higher educational institutions. All of them attend classes and nobody is going to conscript or to mobilise them.
The same is about those who are currently in draft service. They are neither involved in it. They are not to be mobilised or sent to be involved in the special military operation. Our conscripts continue serving at the territory of the Russian Federation as they did before.
That is because we have got an enormous mobilisation resource, the resource of those who have served. There are about 25 million of those who have combat experience and military profession.
Therefore you can understand that this mobilisation is partial: one per cent or a bit more from the entire mobilisation resource.
[1] https://t.me/mod_russia/20029 [2] https://telegra.ph/Intervyu-Ministra-oborony-Rossijskoj-Fede... [3] https://t.me/mod_russia_en/4198 [4] https://telegra.ph/Interview-of-the-Minister-of-Defence-of-t...
Reliable source? That isn't what I read anywhere from not-so-partial sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrain...
Not sure about 10x casualties as Ukraine, but I'm sure it's 10x of what they're saying
There is no use discussing it if any results that contradict you are "propaganda"
As I said all I can find for Ukrainian losses is Ukrainian propaganda straight from Ukrainian gov or Russian propaganda from Russian gov. I wanna filter out both of these extremes and see some reasonable numbers since any data from RU/UA are clearly completely unrealistic for their own purposes.
"Information" spread by Ukrainian gov ais well known propaganda and not "information", there is no point to call them otherwise.
There is really no use of discussing it if you can't provide independent estimates by UK, US or even better some more neutral observers like China, India, etc.
Edit: except their bubble seems a lot harder.
Honestly, we don't know either.
It looks like panic? A last resort (before nuclear, god forbid)? An agony? Rejection of reality? Some kind anger/bargain, in terms of stages of grief?
This whimsical child plays with our lives and lives of Ukrainians, I've never been so ashamed to share a country with him.
Yep, same as Luhansk and Donetsk "volunteers", with WWI vintage rifles and 1960s tanks. This hasn't worked since WWI, or even before (the humiliations against China) so I'm curious how they see this playing out.
Because I can't see any.
Seems to me like the Russian govt are now in a situation where they have no choice but to see this thing through just to try and save face.
Keeping up the facade of this being a „special military operation“ left alive the excuse of „we are not really trying all that hard to win this“ whereas (partial) mobilization more signlas towards „this is going south lets do whatever works to end this“
If they manage to hold the land bridge to Krim and negotiate a cease-fire, it can be argued that they had limited success in their objectives. But at a huge economic and humanitarian cost.
And in a nuclear war, nobody wins. So stronger could only be used in relative terms.
On the other side, I don't know who would intervene. The risk of further escalation might lead to the acceptance of nuclear genocide limited to Ukraine. And Ukrainian capitulation would be swift if Russia demonstrated they were willing to attack the population with nuclear bombs. The whole scenario is difficult to imagine. The last time civilians got nuked is 77 years ago. And the Japanese people had nobody who could have retaliated for them.
Even that is doubtful. They have lost tens of thousands of their best troops, tons of expensive equipment, and destroyed their economy short (sanctions and blackmail) and long term (nobody would trust them again as a reliable supplier, so their exports of raw materials economy will suffer).
Losing troops and military equipment is insignificant in the long term. Both have to be replaced regularly anyway. That is no loss unless one counts the pollution and the humanitarian cost. And we know the Russian government doesn't consider those costs.
From my point of view, if they could pull it off, the Russian Federation would be stronger having annexed Ukraine. Not that I want to see that scenario, or think it likely.
I doubt that. The sanctions from 2014 have remained in place even during the "quiet" years.
The past 10-20 years have been a tragedy for the relationship between Russia and Europe, and a failure from Putin to take advantage of the goodwill that existed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Many European countries actually wanted a close relationship with Russia, as they (naively) thought that it was moving in a democratic direction. Lots of companies started offices in Russia and countries like Germany trusted Russia enough to supply them with gas. They will probably not do that again unless they have alternative suppliers.
There were of course some negative rhetorics from old school politicians, and Europe were still close allies with US. But the general hope was that Russia was moving closer to Europe and that in time they could perhaps even join the EU to create a new political and economical power.
Unfortunately Putin decided to go in the opposite direction and trying to rebuild the old empire. Oligarks made it difficult to do business and the political rhetorics made "the west" into an enemy.
The only way I see Russia coming out of this stronger, is if the pressure from the people is high enough to let a real democratic election vote in a new leadership that can reduce corruption. This could start repairing foreign relations which would improve the economic situation. Maybe we could get back to the optimism we had 15-20 years ago.
This is probably not likely to happen in the short term.
The only "upside" of this war is that due to the dependency on gas from Russia, Europe will accelerate the process of switching to greener energy. Windmills, solar power and maybe even nuclear power plants. This may be remembered in history as the turning point in the reduction of global warning, that came with a high human cost.
Aeroflot stopped selling air tickets to all Russian men aged 18-65 who don’t have authorization from the military office (voenkomat).
I heard that the February invasion was too late and that the thaw was beginning, hampering access.
Of course, I might be wrong on all this and the Russians launching a new offensive on Kiev and Kharkov.
I think it is more correct to use Ukrainian names for Ukrainian cities over Russian.
In a rare pre-recorded televised announcement, Putin said the West "wants to destroy our country" and claimed the West had tried to "turn Ukraine's people into cannon fodder," in comments translated by Reuters, repeating earlier claims in which he has blamed Western nations for starting a proxy war with Russia.
Putin said "mobilization events" would begin Wednesday without providing further details, aside from saying that he had ordered an increase in funding to boost Russia's weapons production, having committed (and lost) a large amount of weaponry during the conflict, which began in late February.
There is no such thing as "partial mobilization".
There is a law on mobilization, but who cares about laws there days in Russia.
The main objective of this mobilization is to call up to 5mln conscripts in the army.
This morning, people already started to receive summons in person.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2022/sep/15/putin-th...
What do you mean by this? If you have 2 million men available in a full mobilization but call up only 300.000 this seems partial?
So anything short of that is a "partial" mobilization, which would be basically be any actual mobilization.
High tech equipment in good numbers is what decides outcomes these days when armies clash. Plus Ukraine can and does use insurgency on their lost territories, no army ever including the best one won against this.
With the referendum in Donetsk and Luhansk, Russia is reframing the conflict as happening on Russian soil. That allows them to declare it a war and open the door to nuclear retaliation.
Mobilising and calling it a proxy war play with this line. It’s basically Russia telling the west they are serious about escalating if they keep pushing.
I think that's the message Russia believes it is conveying. The information I think they are really signaling (outside of the rhetoric), and what I suspect Nato sees, is that Russia is conceding that it cannot win and hoping its bluff will freeze the conflict, which I don't think it will do.
I agree they know they can’t win but they now need an exit ramp. That’s what I personally read in their posture.
It would probably be wise to give them one.
I'm really not sure what else people who say this mean.
The alternative is escalation and that doesn’t seem to end well. It might be what the USA wants - they are unlikely to be the ones nuked after all but Europe would be bearing the most of it and that’s not something I wish.
The problem with your line of thinking is that Russia needs to lose. It's citizens need to understand that it has lost. Germany after WWI didn't and it gave rise to the stab in the back myth and nationalism. If Russia is allowed to spin anything as a victory here, it and it's citizens would learn nothing and it will just be a truce. Not to mention how extremely unfair would be to deny Ukraine it's integrity to placate Russia, a violent genocidal invader.
Nuclear countries must not be allowed to take what they want and threaten nuclear destruction if anyone tries to stop them.
That would be a terrible outcome.
The reverse of what you are writing actually happened at the end of WW1 by the way. Germany definitely understood they lost. They were humiliated, were dragged to Versailles to sign an armistice treaty and had to pay an insane reparation amount. That’s what gave rise to nationalism.
Russia army has been mostly destroyed. Its economy is faltering. Its ability to wage war is greatly reduced. Its standing on the international scene forever diminished.
There is no point in dragging them in the mud further than strictly necessary. Why back them in a corner to the point they are tempted to do the unthinkable?
Technically the armistice is in Compiègne, the peace treaty is in Versailles (as revenge for the proclamation of the German empire there after the Franco-Prussian war), but yes, however
> Germany definitely understood they lost.
This is false. Germans were getting glorious victories propaganda up until Ludendorff said they can't win, and threw the hot potato at the Kaiser and a civilian government was formed to seek a peace. So from a citizen's perspective, there were privations but they were winning until suddenly there's a civilian government, communist rebels and we have surrendered (to be later humiliated). Germany wasn't occupied. The German people didn't understand they lost, really, and why. Hence Ludendorff's stab in the back myth and nationalism proliferated.
> Russia army has been mostly destroyed. Its economy is faltering. Its ability to wage war is greatly reduced. Its standing on the international scene forever diminished.
But Russians don't know that because they're being fed propaganda to the opposite effect. So if today Putin declares withdrawal, Russian people won't know what happened and why, so we'll be back at it in a few years time.
The point isn't to make Russia suffer for the humiliation, but Russians need to understand they've lost and all the horrors they've inflicted while losing. And yes, they should pay for it.
The alternative isn't escalation, it's what we've seen to date: a long, grinding war.
There are plenty of things to be negotiated here: the lifting of economic sanctions, what happen to Crimea and the Black Sea port, how far will Ukraine integration into the EU go and how fast.
I don’t understand what the USA is aiming for in Ukraine. The American media have generally been far more bellicist than they usually are for foreign regional conflicts since even before the invasion. There is something at play which I don’t entirely grasp.
This should be only between Ukraine and EU.
Appeasement rarely works.
You understand he will do it again and again, until he cannot or he is dead. Lets work on the former part for now by draining his military of any capabilities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Polish_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1976_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Lublin_strikes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacification_of_Wujek
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Popie%C5%82uszko#Assassi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Polish_strikes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_(Polish_trade_union...
Similar things were happening in Czechoslovakia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution and other European countries under Soviet occupation.
If they want a future they have to fight for it.
He did it in very smart way, I leave him that (plenty of KGB experience to learn from). Hitler and other dictators were proper amateurs compared to how Russia is run today. Nobody on their own has enough power to stand against him. He has a separate branch of paramilitary forces (on top of Wagner, GRU and KGB forces) that answer only to him and is there only to protect him.
What it would require is massive conspiracy and cooperation of literally all of his underlings to topple him down, which is unrealistic to ever happen. Lone shooter/poison deliverer from his closest circle may have the best chance, but I presume he has multiple safeguards there too.
In the end, aside from talking to a bunch of Russians, I don't know the place. So my understanding is incomplete I'm sure.
By their logic it would allow them to declare it a Ukrainian Special Military Operation...
I am not sure if you were making a joke or actually misunderstood.
And it's not like they did it because that's the law they have to work with. Just yesterday they made extensive last-minute changes to many laws - especially these concerning refusal of mobilization, refusal to fight, and surrender in combat (they made it all criminal).
Wow... That's actually quite terrifying how fast these things can go south.
You either served in the army or went through higher education and got away earning a leutenant rank along the way.
In reality, the state will call in all men between 20 and 27, sparing Moscow residents for the time being.
about that https://twitter.com/KramarenkoMari3/status/15725291528337612...
> In reality, the state will call in all men between 20 and 27
- source ?
- all men between 20 and 27 is only 300 000 ?
Calling for mobilization now gives them a few months to train and get equipped when winter brings fighting to a close. It'd be interesting to see where Russia finds officers for these new troops. Or maybe training/equipment/officers don't matter, if the plan is to use them as cannon fodder.
Regardless, Ukraine will find it harder to make progress next year like they've done in the last few weeks. There won't be any fronts that are thinly manned and easy to punch through like Kharkiv was.
These numbers are meaningless. Approval could be 5% and you wouldn't know, amd average russian wouldn't know.
Its difficult for a western mindset to understand the mentality.
In Russia no-one trusts that a rating agency is independant or real or has nothing to do with the government.
They will always reply that they support any official policy, even if the policy is anal probing.
Many have gone to jail for 15 years for voicing dissent. Prisons with widespread torture
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-introduce-jail-t...
I am hoping that mobilisation will cause some sort of social unrest. You don't know what everyone else is thinking, it's like the opposite of manufacturing concent
This is not cannon fodder. Russia is running out of willing soldiers, not soldiers in general.
I think mobilisation and moving toward declaring the special operation a war (more mobilisation) could be the beginnings of that slippery slope.
The fundamental question is - is NATO committed enough to the Ukraine cause to demolish Europe? Probably not.
Everyone talking about Russia being "already defeated" knows little of the Russian capacity for misery. Napoleon learned the hard way. The Russians also accepted losses in WW1 and the following civil war that would have destroyed most other societies (and indirectly destroyed Russia too), and of course, they continued fighting in WW2 when most democratic societies would have surrendered. Do not underestimate Russia.
Compare losses in the Brusilov Offensive alone to all-time combat losses for most other nations (including the US)...Russians will keep fighting long after it seems sensible.
Eventually Biden and Blinken will back away from Ukraine...the US public will find another Current Thing to obsess over, and US troop commitments are completely out of the question.
Basically, Russia gets Ukraine eventually, its just a matter of how bad the carnage is
This gets trotted out every time but it's a really stupid argument. Russians may have been willing to endure extremely poor conditions to defend their homeland. They're not going to do the same to invade ukraine. And no, people are not going to suddenly believe that Ukraine is their homeland because Putin has claimed it so. This is an offensive operation. If Russia declines to extreme poverty, it will simply be unable to maintain effective logistics to the front. Which is really hard to do when the enemy has accurate long range missiles and all you have is trains.
Thank you for echoing Russian state propaganda, however your predictions are predicated on false premises that don’t match the commitments already made and fulfilled.
Your scare tactics might have sounded plausible 6 months ago, but it appears impossible for Russia to ever own and manage Ukrainian territory. The occupation has done no rebuilding, hasn’t brought drinking water supplies to occupied cities, hasn’t even managed yet to bury the bodies that still litter many streets and is an oppressive and failed occupation in every sense of the word. Presuming that this occupation is inevitable is itself a point of major contention I can’t see any evidence for.
Russia has already lost. How many more will die before it’s leadership realizes this?
AS far as I know Russians from Napoleon are no longer alive so not sure how this sentiment is relevant.
During the Gulf wars we would get all these "embedded" reporters; seems there aren't any now.
If not, he will be killed.
Now its a life and death situation for him.
If you look at the map russia has quite a few other cities with direct access to black sea. e.g. Rosnov, Sochi, Novorosijsk...
Never mind that the Bosporus is closed for military vessels.
Putin's regime has demonstrated that the lives of ordinary Russians are meaningless in the pursuit of its political goals - just like every Russian/Soviet regime before it. This implies that the war can only end with a total defeat for Russia or Ukraine.
Ukraine is in an existential fight, while Russia is in a political one. Disregard what anyone claims about corruption in Ukraine: its decentralized democracy has enabled it to survive so far, while Russia is (literally and metaphorically) disintegrating.
Russia is bigger with limitless brutality; Ukraine is determined and smart. We'll have to see which of these qualities brings victory...
Not sure what he tried exactly. He talked to Putin, but did he bring anything to the table?
Whatever you give Putin, he will want more. You could give them all of Ukraine, and Putin would start plotting his next invasion on whatever country he wants next (Moldova, Latvia, Poland, Georgia, etc)
Ultimately, He wants the "right" to expand and grow the his new Russian Empire to at least the size of the old Russian Empire or the USSR without the US or the EU or NATO interfering and getting in his way.
I mean nothing is as simple as it seems...
If the Western leaders had any foresight, they would come up with a scheme that enables them to do so and drains Putin's manpower. Anything from rebuilding Ukraine to getting them a free ticket to Brazil.
Unfortunately, as demonstrated by dependancy on Russian gas, western leaders have the foresight of a frog.
The recent visa restrictions only help government propaganda that the West hates the russian people so you must fight.
Also braindead decisions like language test centers banning Russians so now you can't get a test to apply for a job or visa.
And what gas? Currently Russia is exporting a negligible amount of gas to western countries. They played that card a long time ago.
It's almost comical to talk about foresight and Russia in the same sentence without even acknowledging how blind Putin has had to have been to even have considered starting this mess.
I don't think our benchmark for foresight should be an aging dictator thats probably loosing his mind.
> The people that could realistically move from Russia already have.
What is the basis for this assertion? You could say 'we don't want them here', at least it would be honest. But let's not pretend they had every opportunity to leave and simply chose not to.
Most people can't leave because they have no long-term visas to anywhere.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled to Georgia because it's one of the very few countries that allow visa-free entry. Many are illegally overstaying, because there is nothing else they can do.
For the top 5% of Russians that have knowledge of English, the legal chops,the income and the grounds to get a western visas, embassies take many months to process your documents, have quotas and limited processing capacity. And they reduced their staff levels since the 'special operation' started.
You can even be refused visa to donate an organ to your family https://www.ieyenews.com/uk-leukaemia-transplant-blocked-by-...
Suppose you are an upper class Russian that has savings, earned every penny honestly and wants to leave to Britain. What can you do? Well maybe you get yourself an excellent job that sponsors your visa, suppose you have 300k+ of salary and all the time in the world. But can you bring with your dumb brother? No, you will have to leave him behing, watch him get drafted and killed. Can you bring your aging mother with arthritis that needs regular help just to get through the day? No, you cannot. What are you meant to do, leave them behind to die?
> Hundreds of thousands of people have fled to Georgia because it's one of the very few countries that allow visa-free entry. Many are illegally overstaying, because there is nothing else they can do.
Russian citizens can stay in Georgia up to 360 days without visarun (to nearby Armenia for example), so they are hardly overstaying there yet.