The Ukraine war thread
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In another thread, someone here mentioned a meddlesome priest. As of late, Elon Musk is turning out to be just that:
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Russia makes arrests in the Crimea bridge attack. Five are Russians. Some of the add on articles are interesting as well.
I particularly like the last one about the G7 using frozen Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine. The Russian response?
"A Group of Seven (G-7) proposal to use frozen Russian assets to finance the rebuilding of Ukraine drew sharp criticism from Moscow.
"It’s just pure international racketeering," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday. "
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The irretrievable losses of the Russian army in Ukraine can be more than 90 thousand people. Two sources told Important Stories about this: one is a former officer of the Russian special services, the second is a current FSB officer.
The irretrievable losses include those killed, missing, those who died of wounds in hospitals, as well as the wounded who cannot return to military service.
The figure voiced by our interlocutors is close to the data that the UK Secretary of Defense announced in early September . According to Ben Wallace, over 25,000 Russian soldiers were killed in Ukraine. The British Ministry of Defense estimated the total number of losses of the Russian army at more than 80 thousand people.
Recall that the last time the Russian Ministry of Defense reported on losses was in September. Then Sergei Shoigu said that 5,937 Russian servicemen were killed in Ukraine.
At the end of September, Important Stories wrote about the state of the Russian army seven months after the start of the invasion.
Comments from the RWEC:
ust two weeks ago I would have told you that 90,000 KIA/WIA was crazy, but with Russian forces actively digging in for the worst in most places that they aren’t retreating, I have to give today’s report serious credence.
Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers
know I’ve been erring on the cautious side since the beginning of this stupid war, discounting Kyiv’s claims, like that “63,380 dead” in the infographic above. Last week, I was willing to concede that as many as 20,000 Russians might be KIA.The real number could indeed be much higher, so bear with me while I do some back-of-the-envelope math for you.
Typically, the ratio of wounded to killed (WIA to KIA) in modern war is about three to one. Three wounded soldiers, many lightly enough to be returned to action, for every one soldier killed.
The United States is notorious — in the very best possible way — for going to extraordinary lengths to keep our wounded alive. That’s allowed us to enjoy, as it were, a WIA to KIA ratio as high as 8.5 to one in Afghanistan and 7.2 to 1 in Iraq.
Speaking frankly, Russian field medicine sucks.
Supplies are so short, particularly for Russia’s recently drafted “mobiks,” that the UK’s Ministry of Defense released video last month that “appears to show a staffer instructing soldiers to use tampons to plug wounds.”
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A friend emailed me the following article from Time. Although I am no fan of the slick journal, it is a very informed and well written editorial. The money quote:
There’s no attempt to deal with the oppressions of the Russian and Soviet past, the way the Kremlin repeatedly colonizes, ethnically cleanses, deports, starves and mass murders other nations, and the way it kills and arrests and humiliates masses of its own people too in labour camps, Gulags, and the killing cellars of the KGB. Russia is a country that makes no effort to make sense of, define who was responsible, ask for forgiveness and move on from its legacy of mass murder and institutionalized sadism.
It's striking how little mention of the future there is in the Kremlin’s propaganda. There’s only vengeance, warped nostalgia for the USSR, a mythic, cruel “Russian World”—and resentment. The Russian project has failed, so the aim now is to bring everyone down to its own level, drag all down to its cellar.
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A friend emailed me the following article from Time. Although I am no fan of the slick journal, it is a very informed and well written editorial. The money quote:
There’s no attempt to deal with the oppressions of the Russian and Soviet past, the way the Kremlin repeatedly colonizes, ethnically cleanses, deports, starves and mass murders other nations, and the way it kills and arrests and humiliates masses of its own people too in labour camps, Gulags, and the killing cellars of the KGB. Russia is a country that makes no effort to make sense of, define who was responsible, ask for forgiveness and move on from its legacy of mass murder and institutionalized sadism.
It's striking how little mention of the future there is in the Kremlin’s propaganda. There’s only vengeance, warped nostalgia for the USSR, a mythic, cruel “Russian World”—and resentment. The Russian project has failed, so the aim now is to bring everyone down to its own level, drag all down to its cellar.
@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
There’s only vengeance, warped nostalgia for the USSR, a mythic, cruel “Russian World”—and resentment.
Years and years ago, I listened to a Teaching Company course on the history of Russia. Naturally, I've forgotten most of it, but one concept stuck with me.
"Russia is an Asian country which is trying to be European."
I'm not sure if that's accurate in its entirety, but the "trying to be something else" part is probably true.
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@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
There’s only vengeance, warped nostalgia for the USSR, a mythic, cruel “Russian World”—and resentment.
Years and years ago, I listened to a Teaching Company course on the history of Russia. Naturally, I've forgotten most of it, but one concept stuck with me.
"Russia is an Asian country which is trying to be European."
I'm not sure if that's accurate in its entirety, but the "trying to be something else" part is probably true.
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Received from a friend as part of an email earlier today.
Something to consider:
The "Putin will totally nuke the entire western world over the ownership of Kherson" argument doesn't go together with the "He's a very reasonable guy you can just strike a deal with at any time" argument, but by God a lot of people try to make it.”
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@George-K said in The Ukraine war thread:
I still don't understand how the evidence doesn't completely point to "nukes are inevitable."
When he's out of traditional weapons, it's not like he's going to pack up and go home.
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@George-K said in The Ukraine war thread:
I still don't understand how the evidence doesn't completely point to "nukes are inevitable."
When he's out of traditional weapons, it's not like he's going to pack up and go home.
If Putin uses nukes he stands to turn even his fair weather friends, India and China, against Russia. Given the messages coming out the NATO and the EU today, it is almost certain a nuke on a Ukrainian target would trigger article 5 of the NATO treaty. That happens and Putin loses his army and his Black Sea fleet.
Fear of what Putin could or would do is no solution. Fear of what he could, would or might do leads only to appeasement as his stated minimal terms amount to unconditional surrender of Ukraine to either Russian suzerainty or, more likely, loss of sovereignty altogether.
Elbows up!
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If Putin uses nukes he stands to turn even his fair weather friends, India and China, against Russia. Given the messages coming out the NATO and the EU today, it is almost certain a nuke on a Ukrainian target would trigger article 5 of the NATO treaty. That happens and Putin loses his army and his Black Sea fleet.
Fear of what Putin could or would do is no solution. Fear of what he could, would or might do leads only to appeasement as his stated minimal terms amount to unconditional surrender of Ukraine to either Russian suzerainty or, more likely, loss of sovereignty altogether.
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If Putin uses nukes he stands to turn even his fair weather friends, India and China, against Russia. Given the messages coming out the NATO and the EU today, it is almost certain a nuke on a Ukrainian target would trigger article 5 of the NATO treaty. That happens and Putin loses his army and his Black Sea fleet.
Fear of what Putin could or would do is no solution. Fear of what he could, would or might do leads only to appeasement as his stated minimal terms amount to unconditional surrender of Ukraine to either Russian suzerainty or, more likely, loss of sovereignty altogether.
@Renauda let's say he pushes the red button.
Will the rest of the government stand by him?
Never mind. Of course they will.
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@Renauda let's say he pushes the red button.
Will the rest of the government stand by him?
Never mind. Of course they will.
@George-K said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Renauda let's say he pushes the red button.
Will the rest of the government stand by him?
Never mind. Of course they will.
I think a lot of them are pissed he hasn't already.
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If Putin uses nukes he stands to turn even his fair weather friends, India and China, against Russia. Given the messages coming out the NATO and the EU today, it is almost certain a nuke on a Ukrainian target would trigger article 5 of the NATO treaty. That happens and Putin loses his army and his Black Sea fleet.
Fear of what Putin could or would do is no solution. Fear of what he could, would or might do leads only to appeasement as his stated minimal terms amount to unconditional surrender of Ukraine to either Russian suzerainty or, more likely, loss of sovereignty altogether.
@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
If Putin uses nukes he stands to turn even his fair weather friends, India and China, against Russia. Given the messages coming out the NATO and the EU today, it is almost certain a nuke on a Ukrainian target would trigger article 5 of the NATO treaty. That happens and Putin loses his army and his Black Sea fleet.
Right, but in Putin's mind, he's in an existential conflict, right? So he gets desperate, drops a nuke, we take out his fleet and he takes that as a direct assault from NATO on Russia and we're right into plan A.
No one has a deescalation plan so how is that not a certainty at this point?
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@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
If Putin uses nukes he stands to turn even his fair weather friends, India and China, against Russia. Given the messages coming out the NATO and the EU today, it is almost certain a nuke on a Ukrainian target would trigger article 5 of the NATO treaty. That happens and Putin loses his army and his Black Sea fleet.
Right, but in Putin's mind, he's in an existential conflict, right? So he gets desperate, drops a nuke, we take out his fleet and he takes that as a direct assault from NATO on Russia and we're right into plan A.
No one has a deescalation plan so how is that not a certainty at this point?
The only one who ought to have a deescalation plan is Putin himself. It would appear he does not and I would suggest the thought of such never entered his mind. All he knows is escalation - even Kremlin talk of negotiation amounts to escalation as the stated terms or nothing less than unconditional surrender.
That is the predicament Kyiv and NATO are faced. Appease Putin by ceding whatever territory of Ukraine he wants now and in future and leave the rump state of what remains of Ukraine as a vassal state at the pleasure of a re-emerging Russian Empire or Soviet Union.
When thinking and talking about how to get Putin to deescalate and stop what he’s doing through diplomacy, remember the - albeit probably apocryphal - words of Churchill when urged to negotiate with Germany following the fall of France in 1940:
“You cannot negotiate with a tiger when he has your head in his mouth.”
You know the rest of the story.
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Some truths are eternal. If we bow to Putin’s nuclear blackmail today we will just find ourselves in the same position when he may be stronger. .
“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
