How Ukraine tamed Russian missile barrages and kept the lights on
economist.com
economist.com
The low prices that Russia cites for its military equipment is propaganda to push the narrative that they can figh and win wars more effectively than the West. The prices that are listed for their tanks are often the subsidized per unit price of a handful tanks given to some African war lord.
According to Russia one kinzhal vaporized a NATO secret operations base, even killing US officers.
Both or neither could be true. In this conflict neither side will even admit to how many of their own troops have died. The fog of war is really thick.
1. we'll come in and replace you're idiot government goons with our idiot government goons.
2. we'll come in and punish/kill all the people you don't like.
3. we'll come in and clean things up; maybe have to kill some of people too. Sorry, but it'll be worth it after we finish!
4. looks like we were actually going to come in and kill lots of people indiscriminately, take lots of stuff and your children too. If you don't like it you know where to send a complaint.
5. yeah, we're actually just going to kill everyone here and start over, even the ones who look like they're cooperating. That's actually always been the plan; thanks for your help.
The people of Ukraine seem to know the stakes, and have for a while. In fact, it seems like most of the "ex soviet sphere of influence" countries are aware of what goes on in lubyanka.
In a democracy (to some extent) the government serves the people; in an autocracy the people and everything else in the country exist only to execute and glorify the whims of the leader.
btw, the mask off moment was in 2014, when “polite men” occupied crimea
Fuck Russia, at any rate.
>The biggest mask off moment was when Russia targeted civilian electricity and heating infrastructure...
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.5.htm#_ftnref99
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>Electrical Power Facilities
>The United States targeted electrical power distribution facilities, but not generation facilities, throughout Iraq, according to a senior CENTCOM official. He told Human Rights Watch that instead of using explosive ordnance, the majority of the attacks were carried out with carbon fiber bombs designed to incapacitate temporarily rather than to destroy.100 Nevertheless, some of the attacks on electrical power distribution facilities in Iraq are likely to have a serious and long-term detrimental impact on the civilian population.
>Electrical power was out for thirty days after U.S. strikes on two transformer facilities in al-Nasiriyya.101 Al-Nasiriyya 400 kV Electrical Power Transformer Station was attacked on March 22 at 6:00 a.m. using three U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles outfitted with variants of the BLU-114/B graphite bombs.102 These dispense submunitions with spools of carbon fiber filaments that short-circuit transformers and other high voltage equipment upon contact.
Oh, wait. That's "whataboutism" isn't it? That handy defence which means you're not allowed to point that the accuser has committed exactly the same crimes as the accused.
What accuser?
Neither the Economist nor the commenter to which you replied is the United States of America.
I think.
Maybe the commenter is the literal United States of America?
edit: Your spelling of "defense" and the person to which you replied's comment history seems to indicate that a non-American is accusing a non-American of being an American.
How droll.
>seems to indicate that a non-American is accusing a non-American of being an American....
Love the downvotes by the way. If only downvoting a fact you don't want to hear could somehow make it not true any more!
I also didnt mention the US's strafing of the retreating Iraqui army during the Gulf War either [0]. Who can forget the photos of the destroyed columns of vehicles, heading back to Iraq and the soldiers burned to death in their retreating trucks? It'll be interesting to see the howls of outrage from the Americans [and poodles] if Ukraine withdraws from Bakhmut and the Russians shell their retreating forces.
Talk about pots and kettles!
[0] https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/highway-death-in-pictures-1...
[0] https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/dont-photograph-people-like...
Vs a long campaign of sending cruise missiles into a variety of power equipment. With no follow-up. Began half a year into a war, just as winter sets, in a very cold country. A strategic move to hurt civilians.
What can you do against a brainwashed and totally unquestioning populace who believe that their country is always in the right? I'ts like trying to argue logic with a Flat-Earther.
Amazing how such an ethical and morally upstanding country has been involved in some kind of war / invasion / conflict / bombimg campaign, continuously since the end of WW2. [0] It must be the rest of the world picking on you all the time.
[0] https://towardfreedom.org/story/archives/americas/u-s-launch...
[0] https://archive.globalpolicy.org/us-westward-expansion/26024...
[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-mili...
[0] https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-10-07/Graphics-Major-U-S-mil...
I marched against the Iraq invasion. America isn't perfect. There's plenty to discuss about that. But.
But you're crusading is doing no one any favors. You are deflecting from a far more malicious war of aggression, with dastardly & vile strategies of causing civilian pain en mass, being pushed at the highest levels of government.
What did America do once we invaded Iraq? We tried to build a functioning safe democracy. We turned the nation over to the people as we said we would. We built tons of infrastructure, a gift from America. We rebuilt transformers time and time again after insurgent attacks. American military interventionist keeps feeling extremely stupid & never goes right, and comes with tragic losses & horrors of war, but the contrast of intent versus the war against Ukraine just cannot be any more razor clear.
Compare it to how West bombed everything in Iraq before invasion...
From what Ive read they were using regular cruise missiles and the Iranian drones to overwhelm, tie up and reveal Ukrainian AA.
Meanwhile, Kinzhals were used to target AA installations specifically, coz they couldn't be shot down.
The ultimate goal being to be able to degrade Ukrainian AA, such that Russia can start using its air force on the front line again with a lesser fear of it being shot down.
It parallels the way that NATO took out Serbia's power grid in 1999 before executing their bombing campaign, probably for similar reasons (AA): https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans...
If the above thesis is correct and these strikes are about degrading AA, the measure of success is whether the russian airforce starts actually taking a role on the front line (recently it hasn't been much used).
> The Kremlin likely deliberately launched missiles that Ukrainian air defenses cannot intercept to achieve results within the Russian information space despite the dwindling supplies of such missiles. Ihnat noted that Russia has up to 50 Kinzhal missiles and had used some missiles that it cannot replace. Russian President Vladimir Putin likely used these scarce missiles in fruitless attacks to appease the Russian pro-war and ultranationalist communities, which have overwhelmingly called on him to retaliate for the Bryansk Oblast incident on March 2
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offens...
It's not that it's impossible, it's just that Occam's razor suggests that all other things being equal, military attacks are probably executed for the purposes of achieving military advantage.
You shouldn't view Russia as a unified block, there seem to be a lot of internal drama and politics going on, especially between Wagner and the Russian MoD, Kadyrov &co
Russia loves symbols too: dates, ceremonies, "retaliations", &c. you gotta put a good shows to keep the wheel spinning.
And what military tactic is there to send inaccurate drones and missiles in civilian areas in the first place ? They're not even remotely close to the front
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/01/putins-russian-critics-...
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-can-wagner-head-yevgeny-prigozh...
I dont think that there is any evidence that either are relevant here though.
>And what military tactic is there to send inaccurate drones and missiles in civilian areas in the first place ?
To tie up and overwhelm their air defences so that they have to be spread more thinly and can't be concentrated at the front.
I forget the exact numbers but the drones were something like $10k and ended up being shot down by $500k missiles. Indeed it was an economically efficient tactic if the goal is to degrade ukrainian AA.
Why would you degrade Kyiv AA if you can't even take Bakhmut ? It's not like Kyiv AA will stop the Russian current operations 700km away
AA deployed in Kiev is AA not deployed in Bakhmut.
I've read many articles that have claimed this but never seen a shred of evidence presented for it ever. It's just assumed. Always.
In fact, a good half of the articles that claimed it and simultaneously explained that it was a terrible tactic that historically has never worked. There is quite a lot of historical evidence for this and I think it is very clearly true. I am equally certain Russia knows this.
So... no evidence + claims of a self defeating stupid tactic suggests to me that they might be blowing up power stations for reasons other than "to break their will".
This is a dumb Russian PR narrative. Until 2014, the presence of US military in Europe was decreasing and European countries were dismantling their Cold War stocks too. For example, last American tanks left Europe in 2013[1], and Germany went from 3800 tanks in 1980s to 200 today[2].
[1] https://www.stripes.com/us-army-s-last-tanks-depart-from-ger...
[2] https://www.fpri.org/2015/03/bundeswehr-2-0-a-german-militar...
While that sounds super informed and non-biased, let's pretend for a minute that it isn't the amount of military stocks (since everyone uses missiles and drones now anyway) but the location. So let me re-phrase the question. Do you think the US would be super-cool with China putting a military base with one single missle close to us? Let's not pretend that NATO wasn't founded to take down the Soviet Union (and mostly succeded!). So, while I would be the first to admit that Putin prob. has some ulterior motives, it isn't fantasy. Also, we have absolutely destroyed countries for "acting a little too communist-y" in our hemisphere before, so it isn't like this sort of thing can't realistically make people nervous. Again, not defending Russia, but everyone pretending that this is just "super crazy evil guy doing Hitler things out of the blue" is really sophomoric.
I think that these super-duper clever questions insinuating missiles and bases in Eastern Europe are also dumb and misleading. In the founding act on NATO-Russian relations, it was agreed upon that no-one would place strategic weapons in Eastern Europe, and NATO upheld its part. Placement of conventional forces has also been modest to put it mildly, limited to a small number of light infantry, for training purposes. Things only began to change after 2014. You can guess why.
As to one-sidedness, murdering innocent people tends to be morally pretty one-sided indeed.
As further proof of this he has said that he's not concerned about Sweden and Finland joining NATO after their applications, even though Russia threatened both countries with military actions previously. And you also have to remember why these countries in eastern Europe are part of NATO: to protect themselves against Russian aggression. The Baltic states remember clearly what it was like to be invaded by Russia, as do Poland.
Russia is not some innocent victim being attacked from all sides like they want to paint themselves out to be. They're imperialists and in their own official propaganda they claim to be saviours against the decadent west. Lavrov called gender neutral bathrooms dehumanizing for instance.
Never said they were ... but that was literally the point of NATO, right? My main point is that this is nuanced. It is not just a one-sided story of maniacal Put-ler ravaging Europe in a bloodthirsty quest of destruction. Again, the US is (generally) considered the "good guys" and look at the shit we are capable of to maintain our influence in the Western hemisphere. And it isn't like Russia is a crippled country on its last gasps of air, it has more nukes than anyone on Earth and that alone means that this shit in Ukraine will only ever be the US feeding Ukrainian soldiers into the meat-grinder and trying to turn Oligarchs salty to prove a point. There will never be a "real win", which would entail an invasion of Russia or giving Ukraine serious weapons to attack Russia with. The very best, pie-in-the-sky that Ukraine can hope for is for Russia to leave a shit-ton of dead Ukrainians when they decide to leave the country. It is a very fucked situation.
My point is that it definitely is one-sided. It's only one of the sides that have invaded the other after years of threatening of doing so. Russia has also done similar things in Georgia and Moldova, and the Baltic countries that have a sizeable Russian population would have an even better reason to be scared right now if they weren't part of NATO.
USA isn't feeding Ukrainian soldiers to anyone, that's again falling into the narrative that Russia wants to use that Russia is fighting the west. Ukrainian soldiers are protecting their country just as Finnish soldiers did less than 100 years ago, and they have asked for and received support from other countries sympathetic to the idea that invading countries to take their land by force is undemocratic, illegal, immoral, and worth defending against.
Nobody has asked for an invasion of Russia, the win comes when the invaders leave where they don't belong. I agree that it is a very fucked situation, which is why Russia's aggression needs to be condemned and can't be allowed to succeed.
No. It was to destroy the Soviet Union. And it mostly worked!
>My point is that it definitely is one-sided. It's only one of the sides that have invaded the other after years of threatening of doing so. Russia has also done similar things in Georgia and Moldova, and the Baltic countries that have a sizeable Russian population would have an even better reason to be scared right now if they weren't part of NATO.
All of this is Russia big-dicking its influence in that area. Just as I said before.
>USA isn't feeding Ukrainian soldiers to anyone, that's again falling into the narrative that Russia wants to use that Russia is fighting the west. Ukrainian soldiers are protecting their country just as Finnish soldiers did less than 100 years ago
Ukrainian soldiers are hauling ass out of the country and being conscripted into the war (just the other day a young man committed suicide rather than go to war)
>Nobody has asked for an invasion of Russia, the win comes when the invaders leave where they don't belong.
How do you stop the "invaders" from coming back again then?
>I agree that it is a very fucked situation, which is why Russia's aggression needs to be condemned and can't be allowed to succeed.
I agree it is fucked. I don't agree that Russia is a maniac country just doing crazy attacks willy-nilly. These have been thought out. And there is no innocent country on Earth. That is propaganda as well.
Russia is doing two things from my perspective. First, displaying that if NATO moves military bases close to them it is going to cost. Second, they are trying desperately to retain influence in that area that they used to have back when they were the 2nd super power on Earth, but have since been passed by China.
It was to defend western Europe against Soviet expansion. NATO has never attacked Russia, and the economic downfall was of their own doing. The scars of Soviet rule are still present in eastern Europe, even in eastern Germany.
> Ukrainian soldiers are hauling ass out of the country and being conscripted into the war (just the other day a young man committed suicide rather than go to war)
And others are returning to Ukraine from abroad. And are you suggesting that the US is forcing the conscription?
> How do you stop the "invaders" from coming back again then?
Not sure what the purpose of those scare quotes are, do you not agree Russia has invaded Ukraine? You stop future invasions with security guarantees from other countries, and using sanctions to make war cost more than it's worth.
> I don't agree that Russia is a maniac country just doing crazy attacks willy-nilly.
I never said they are, just that their reasons are wrong and should be opposed. Although a lot of their attacks lacks precision and are purposefully "erratic", killing civilians as part of their terror strategy.
> And there is no innocent country on Earth.
Does this mean that every country on the planet deserves to have their schools and hospitals bombed, or their territory occupied by rapists and murderers? There's a big difference between being faultless in all circumstances and being invaded by a cruel army firing thousands of artillery shells each day.
> First, displaying that if NATO moves military bases close to them it is going to cost.
NATO have no military bases in Ukraine, nor do they have any plans for any. As a direct result of this war Sweden and Finland have applied for NATO membership, giving Russia 1340 km extra border with NATO. According to Putin, this isn't an issue, and Russia has even moved a lot of their military units close to Finland to Ukraine instead.
> Second, they are trying desperately to retain influence in that area that they used to have back when they were the 2nd super power on Earth, but have since been passed by China.
Yes, it's the imperialistic failings of a dead super power that can't accept that the world has moved on.
>It was to defend western Europe against Soviet expansion.NATO has never attacked Russia
correct and correct, never said they did.
>and the economic downfall was of their own doing.
well, now that isn't quite correct is it? We went hard as hell after them and used all manner of financial sanctions and threats of sanctions on other countries to decimate their trade. So, we helped a little in its breakdown, right? And that was the real point of NATO. No one was or is ever going to full on attack Russia when it can end most of the Earth.
>do you not agree Russia has invaded Ukraine?
From Ukraine's perspective, yes! From Russia's perspective, no!
>You stop future invasions with security guarantees from other countries, and using sanctions to make war cost more than it's worth.
Were those not already in place?
>Although a lot of their attacks lacks precision and are purposefully "erratic", killing civilians as part of their terror strategy.
I mean, I agree with you, however I am curious of a war where this did not happen? The US blew up entire fucking cities of people and we celebrate it! In your mind has the Ukraine only ever used precision strikes to take out military targets and people?
>Does this mean that every country on the planet deserves to have their schools and hospitals bombed, or their territory occupied by rapists and murderers? There's a big difference between being faultless in all circumstances and being invaded by a cruel army firing thousands of artillery shells each day.
No it doesn't. But I am curious if you can identify a war where this did not happen (from the perspective of the one getting BTFO'd, not the one winning, they always think they are righteous.)
This is some premium-quality BS right here. You're mistaking disinformation for a sincerely held perspective. But as pointed out, when the armoured columns are over the border and halfway to Kiev, then you can't really pretend that it's not an invasion, and expect to be believed. We're not buying it, and you should be ashamed of trying to sell it.
I don't know what you mean "by specific perspective" that I have whereas you pretend objectivity. But, being neutral in situations of injustice is not "objectivity", it is choosing the side of the oppressor.
As to the idea Russia would say "they have done nothing wrong and are protecting themselves" well, they would say that, wouldn't they? You do not have to take it at face value after the facts on the ground clash with it.
The idea that Russia had to do it (send troops across the border) to protect themselves is nonsense, not even logically consistent with what you said before: "It didn't happen, and you made me do it." It's the logic of a narcistic abuser. A full-scale invasion clearly happened and is ongoing.
You repeat "from their perspective they are not doing anything wrong" without addressing that this is not a factual perspective, it is a disinformation.
I never said and Ukraine will not say ,that Russia attacked "for no reason", just that the reasons are selfish, greedy, cruel, undemocratic and intolerant; and not as you present them.
I think I just did, no?
I live within range of Russia's Iskander missiles and see reports from the war each day. Russia is the local bully that everyone's afraid of. Our military basically exists for one reason, to stop a Russian invasion.
> We went hard as hell after them and used all manner of financial sanctions and threats of sanctions on other countries to decimate their trade. So, we helped a little in its breakdown, right? And that was the real point of NATO.
Speaking of being all over the place, is this in any way relevant to the current war? Russia has been given lots of chances of integrating their economy with the rest of the world since the fall of Soviet, they're not acting out of economic necessity.
> From Ukraine's perspective, yes! From Russia's perspective, no!
Then what were their column on their way to Kiev doing? They can call it whatever they want, nobody makes it illegal to call it a war if they don't actually think it's a war.
> Were those not already in place?
No, only a small part of the current sanctions were in place before the full scale invasion, and plenty of western companies has since withdrawn from the Russian market. As for the security guarantees, I'm not aware of any except the Budapest memorandum, which didn't really work out that well.
> The US blew up entire fucking cities of people and we celebrate it! In your mind has the Ukraine only ever used precision strikes to take out military targets and people?
I've never seen anyone celebrate the destruction of entire cities in a modern war where precision weapons where available. I'm sure Ukraine has made all kinds of strikes, but I don't consider them the same since they're the ones defending themselves. They've made a few excursions into Russia with helicopters and drones, I don't think I've seen any reports of a single civilian casualty from those. Meanwhile there were bodies of executed civilians lying on the streets and buried in shallow mass graves after Russian troops left certain places.
> But I am curious if you can identify a war where this did not happen
That's just proving my point IMO. Wars are horrible, and Russia are the ones that started this one. Russia can end it whenever they want, but they don't want to, so they're responsible for all the misery happening in both their neighboring country and their own right now. And the rest of us don't want war to succeed. Russia understands one thing, and that is power. They look down on what they consider to be weakness, and consider themselves to be better than others. Russian propaganda calls this a culture war against western ideas, Putin actually mentioned trans people in one of his speeches about this war that supposedly is about NATO.
“You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw” ― Vladimir Ilich Lenin
So Russia now contains the war on not-quite-its turf to avoid the war on the turf it considers integral.
Russia is currently containing the war on not-at-all-its turf to stall while they're deporting or killing unfriendlies on their illegally annexed territory.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/11/ukraine-russi...
Russia is losing "phase" after "phase" of the conflict until all the Ukrainian cemeteries will be filled with men aged 20 to 65. I hate Atlanticist propaganda.
That doesn't make it "not a defeat" for Russia unless the initial ambitions of Russia are achieved (And let's face it, they won't be). It's a very expensive victory for Ukraine and an even more expensive defeat for Russia.
They lost insane amount of men and equipment and aren't anywhere close to their initial objective, and they seem to struggle much more than Ukrainians in term of replenishing ammo and equipment
They're not losing the war but they're clearly struggling much more than they ever expected
Ukraine will never be "at the gates of Moscow" because they aren't trying to invade Russia.
This issue will be in the end again decided by power.
Anyway, I think the chance that Ukraine would continue beyond their internationally recognized borders is close to zero.
I'm not even sure what is their chance of regaining anything at all.
Who knows how this will end up, it's still very open. In WW1, Russia collapsed after about 3 years of war, in Afghanistan it took them about 10 years to retreat (and subsequently collapse).
Russia occupying Kyiv is possible, but rather unlikely. I think it's less likely than a Russian collapse.