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rainworldon ‘It’s the Wild West’: Vienna’s spying problem spins out of control

saints who only do good

imperialistic, genocidal invaders

Rhetorical cluster munitions. One day you’ll run out of superlatives and then you’ll be forced to negotiate.

You know, if you were Ukrainian I’d understand the hard feelings. But I’m not getting the impression that you are.

rainworldon ‘It’s the Wild West’: Vienna’s spying problem spins out of control

Conveniently ignoring the fact that they are on their 12th wave of mobilization, and that most of these men are not at all volunteering. The regime is literally abducting men from the streets and their homes. Men are in hiding from press gangs. Because it is the Ukrainian regime’s and the West’s fight not theirs.

More for you to ignore: https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/15/ukraine-war-conscriptio...

Also, I’ve never called for Ukrainians to lay down their arms—those that actually want to fight.

wood-chipper

Foaming at the mouth. Back in the real world, this war is notable for its uniquely low ratio of civilian victims.

And if you think Russia had or has the goal of eliminating the Ukrainian people, reason and debate cannot reach you anymore. Many millions of Ukrainians have fled to Russia over the last nine years, and prosper—guess they’re next?

If it was your fight you would not be fighting me on HN.

The How does it affect you? meme. I’m part of the West and the West is at war with Russia and that does in fact affect me. And who knows where this could end.

The fact that the West is gleefully pouring oil into a fire that has already consumed hundreds of thousands; yes, that affects me.

Without Western “help” this would have been over within weeks, a few months at most. Suffering would have ended a long time ago. The regime might or might not have been replaced. For the vast majority of Ukrainians life would have resumed its normal course.

rainworldon Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

Indeed we are 2–3 orders of magnitude away from the point where our energy output itself non-negligibly, globally heats the earth. And if we kept growing, an incandescent Earth would not be too far off. There are hard limits.

rainworldon ‘It’s the Wild West’: Vienna’s spying problem spins out of control

Atrocity propaganda is great for eliminating opposition at home. It doesn’t win you a war, though. And it bears repeating: the thing about wars is you actually have to win them.

The curious thing is that historically it’s always the good guys that have won, so I’m certain the Russians will not only prevail militarily but also in the moral dimension.

rainworldon ‘It’s the Wild West’: Vienna’s spying problem spins out of control

It was also the only moral and ethical position.

If you think it through, the only reasons this “I’m a pacifist but” dime store morality can be entertained at all is because of the idea that Ukraine is winning, and because Western audiences (and to an extent even Ukrainian) have largely been isolated from the true costs of this war (to both sides; and also to Western economies and arsenals).

Ukraine is winning

I do not intend to litigate this again right now; we’re going to find out, most likely within a year, probably less.

Should Ukraine in fact lose, I hope you will remember then that a generous deal was on the table (no loss of territory except obviously Crimea), and so hundreds of thousands will have died (and in fact have already) for much less than nothing.

I'll leave you with this: https://twitter.com/mdfzeh/status/1679909338276671488

rainworldon Weapons firms influence the Ukraine debate

Nice of the Russians to support the "Western psyop"

Yes, but unironically. Decisions Were Made after the US and UK attacked (via Ukraine but fooling nobody) sites of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces at the beginning of December last year.[0][1] They got an immediate answer[2], and a couple more such messages later on, but what the Russians would have realized then (if not earlier) is that you most likely cannot reason with the ruling elites of the dying empire and its rabid little attack Beagle. Let’s hope they find a way still.

following the mass retreats of the autumn

Every drug peddler knows: Getting high on your own supply is the most dangerous thing.

numerical advantage left them without any Ukranians to shoot at.

Pretty bad taste, in light of the footage coming in from Zaporozhye rn.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyagilevo_and_Engels_air_bases...

[1]: Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows a nuclear response in such a case, for good reason.

[2]: Just lol if you think this was an accident: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/05/22/b-2-stealth-b...

rainworldon Weapons firms influence the Ukraine debate

If we side with Ukraine then let's end this as quickly and decisively as possible.

And how exactly are you going to achieve that? The thing about war is that you can’t just decide to win, you actually have to do it.

Stretching this out to years of gradual escalation

This gradual escalation is at least as much to the “benefit” of Western audiences as it is to Russia. Just imagine telling people (Germans in particular) about German tanks in Ukraine against Russia at the beginning of 2022…

Another psyop targeting Western audiences: the notion that Russia is losing[0], can’t or won’t retaliate, even that its strategic nuclear weapons won’t work, and in any case “MAD” will protect us. All these things are very wrong, no matter how mad that makes people here and elsewhere.

[0]: Open your favourite satellite image service, visit an Ukrainian city, count the fresh graves, do the math. Kharkov alone easily has 13k KIAs buried or whatever’s the official count.

Meanwhile: https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/04/14/bbc-news-russian... I‘d say it’s something like 50k total but point is: not even close to what Ukraine has lost. And even if it were, that’s not how you win an existential conflict against a country five times your size.

Finally, I don’t agree with everything but here‘s Mearsheimer with a good overview of the situation: https://youtu.be/v-rHBRwdql8?t=385

rainworldon Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction

Having failed to turn Nikolaev (and apparently no intent to take it by force), Kherson held little strategic value for Russia at that point.* Promising to never leave Kherson was political folly, something Ukrainians tried to make as costly as possible. However, they largely failed at that.

Those who paid attention saw column after Ukrainian column get mauled by VDV artillery. There was indeed a moment where Ukraine took some land but in the end nothing came of it but pain.

But certainly they did keep on the pressure (plus some other things), and so in the end Russians made the militarily prudent but politically very difficult decision (causing a period of widespread doom and gloom among supporters of Russia) to leave in good order. Ukrainians were apparently as surprised as almost anyone else.

* I know people don’t want hear it but the taking of Odessa and the rest of the coast will very likely still happen, eventually. Probably not via Kherson, preferably without force.

rainworldon Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction

If this war has shown one thing it’s that the thing that matters most is mass:

Massed artillery fire, millions of shells, thousands of armoured vehicles, and so on.

A couple of glorified regiments, green ones at that? That’s not it. No matter the quality of the gear and training.

The West is not prepared for industrial warfare, and inexplicably to me they are barely trying to change that. Massed hot air but not much to show for it.

(And besides, the fact that in Bakhmut the Ukrainian army with plenty of Western gear and training got beat by Wagner plus artillery support alone should get you to question the notion of qualitative superiority. And I just don’t understand how people can come to the conclusion that the Russian forces in Ukraine are depleted when they’ve at least doubled in size, and gear just keeps pouring in.)

Ultimately, we don’t have to fight here, by all acounts Ukrainians are going to show us in a few days what they can or cannot do. And then we’ll see.

rainworldon Passkeys: The beginning of the end of the password