The Ukraine war thread
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Speaking to journalists after a summit with regional leaders in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, the Russian leader said that the recent strikes had destroyed 22 out of the 29 targets in Ukraine set by the military and that "they are getting" the remaining seven..
I take it then in Putin’s mind those apartment buildings, children’s playgrounds and the Faculty of Philology building in Kyiv’s Shevchenko University in addition to other civilian infrastructure were planned military targets.
Good grouping, Vlad.
Full article:
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The EU responds to Putin's nuclear saber-rattling.
On September 21, as he announced his mobilization of reservists to the battlefield, Putin alluded to his nuclear stockpile and said Russia would “use all the means at our disposal” if the country’s “territorial integrity” were threatened. “This is not a bluff,” he said.
Referring to this on Thursday, Borrell said: “Putin is saying that he’s not bluffing. Well, he can not afford bluffing.”
Ukraine’s supporters — NATO, the EU and the US — “are not bluffing either,” Borrell said.
“And any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer. Not a nuclear answer, but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian army will be annihilated,” was his prediction.
As an EU figure, Borrell does not control any military force.
But in his role he represents member states including France, a nuclear power, and 21 of NATO’s 30 members, and has been involved in other aspects of the Western response to the invasion.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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That is what I was referring to on Thursday in another post (#1066 above) NATO will respond to any Russian use of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. Late last week or earlier this past week, Petreaus said the same during a BBC interview on TV.
Note that Putin has turned down the squelch on some his rhetoric the past 48 hours since the EU statement was made.
“Little by little I am learning the art of being quite content by doing very little slowly” ~ Lionel Hardcastle
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Now I read that Musk is backtracking from what he said a day or two ago…..
Curious as to what might have changed his mind?
The embedded minute and a half clip with John Bolton is worth watching too.
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“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
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I can't find the post at the moment, but there was a comment on the casualties that the Russian army is sustaining - it can't keep it up.
This tweet sort of amplifies that point.
In Gawande's book, "Better," he talks about how transformative the US approach to combat injuries became. Rather than attempting to treat at the site, get 'em out to a tertiary center. IOW, with a bowel injury, don't try to fix it in the field. Instead, clean it up, bring up a temporary colostomy and get the solder to a location where definitive care can be provided.
A comment in this tread says that the 50% mortality is US Civil War level.
Horrible? Sure.
Surprising? Probably not.
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It would seem that in spite of all Russian military doctrine to the contrary - and there is a lot to the contrary since 1945 - Russian generals are still willing to take unsustainably high human casualties in combat. Could be that steamrollering the enemy with massed artillery, armour and infantry is the only thing they understand as they see equipment and material of greater value than personnel.
Quite the opposite of British and American battlefield thinking since before WWII.
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“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
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I wouldn’t rule out anything and a more malevolent replacement to Putin is a perfectly plausible outcome. Still, Putin himself is closely surrounded by a personal praetorian guard that, to the best of anyone’s knowledge on the outside, remains fiercely loyal to the president. To get at Putin you have go through the FSO:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Protective_Service_(Russia)
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“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
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Another factor is how the majority of Russians perceive the reality. While I do not intend to draw a comparison with Stalin, many if not the majority of Russians during the Terror, believed in their hearts that if Stalin knew what was happening in country he would put an immediate end to it and hold the perpetrators accountable. The people were convinced Stalin was being being deceived by the very people he had entrusted to govern the nation. Hence many would write letters and petitions directly to Stalin telling him of the crimes and warning him of how he was being deceived and manipulated.
Fast forward to present and you can see how the likes of Kadyrov and big name media personalities in Russia are laying blame on the military leaders and state bureaucrats but not Putin himself for the unfolding military debacle. Likewise, Ukrainian success is also linked to foreign interference that is determined to breakup the Russian Federation and subjugate the Russian people.
Contrary to all appearances, as a nation Russians are a passive people who are content with being left alone in their respective communities despite having little or no sense of community as it is understood in the West. In the people’s mind Putin still represents stability in a world of chaos. Until that perception changes my bet is that he will remain exactly where he is now, in the Kremlin and at the helm.
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“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
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Fiona Hill interview on Putin, Russia and the war in Ukraine:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/17/fiona-hill-putin-war-00061894
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The Sources of Russian Misconduct
A Diplomat Defects From the Kremlin
By Boris Bondarev, a 20-year Russian DiplomatFor more: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/sources-russia-misconduct-boris-bondarev
[Upon learning of Russia's attack on Ukraine:]
“That is the beginning of the end,” I told my wife. We decided I had to quit.
Resigning meant throwing away a twenty-year career as a Russian diplomat and, with it, many of my friendships. But the decision was a long time coming. When I joined the ministry in 2002, it was during a period of relative openness, when we diplomats could work cordially with our counterparts from other countries. Still, it was apparent from my earliest days that Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was deeply flawed. Even then, it discouraged critical thinking, and over the course of my tenure, it became increasingly belligerent. I stayed on anyway, managing the cognitive dissonance by hoping that I could use whatever power I had to moderate my country’s international behavior. But certain events can make a person accept things they didn’t dare to before.
The invasion of Ukraine made it impossible to deny just how brutal and repressive Russia had become. It was an unspeakable act of cruelty, designed to subjugate a neighbor and erase its ethnic identity. It gave Moscow an excuse to crush any domestic opposition. Now, the government is sending thousands upon thousands of drafted men to go kill Ukrainians. The war shows that Russia is no longer just dictatorial and aggressive; it has become a fascist state.
But for me, one of the invasion’s central lessons had to do with something I had witnessed over the preceding two decades: what happens when a government is slowly warped by its own propaganda. For years, Russian diplomats were made to confront Washington and defend the country’s meddling abroad with lies and non sequiturs. We were taught to embrace bombastic rhetoric and to uncritically parrot to other states what the Kremlin said to us. But eventually, the target audience for this propaganda was not just foreign countries; it was our own leadership. In cables and statements, we were made to tell the Kremlin that we had sold the world on Russian greatness and demolished the West’s arguments. We had to withhold any criticism about the president’s dangerous plans. This performance took place even at the ministry’s highest levels. My colleagues in the Kremlin repeatedly told me that Putin likes his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, because he is “comfortable” to work with, always saying yes to the president and telling him what he wants to hear. Small wonder, then, that Putin thought he would have no trouble defeating Kyiv.
The war shows that decisions made in echo chambers can backfire.
The war is a stark demonstration of how decisions made in echo chambers can backfire. Putin has failed in his bid to conquer Ukraine, an initiative that he might have understood would be impossible if his government had been designed to give honest assessments. For those of us who worked on military issues, it was plain that the Russian armed forces were not as mighty as the West feared—in part thanks to economic restrictions the West implemented after Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea that were more effective than policymakers seemed to realize.The Kremlin’s invasion has strengthened NATO, an entity it was designed to humiliate, and resulted in sanctions strong enough to make Russia’s economy contract. But fascist regimes legitimize themselves more by exercising power than by delivering economic gains, and Putin is so aggressive and detached from reality that a recession is unlikely to stop him. To justify his rule, Putin wants the great victory he promised and believes he can obtain. If he agrees to a cease-fire, it will only be to give Russian troops a rest before continuing to fight. And if he wins in Ukraine, Putin will likely move to attack another post-Soviet state, such as Moldova, where Moscow already props up a breakaway region.
There is, then, only one way to stop Russia’s dictator, and that is to do what U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin suggested in April: weaken the country “to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” This may seem like a tall order. But Russia’s military has been substantially weakened, and the country has lost many of its best soldiers. With broad support from NATO, Ukraine is capable of eventually beating Russia in the east and south, just as it has done in the north.
If defeated, Putin will face a perilous situation at home. He will have to explain to the elite and the masses why he betrayed their expectations. He will have to tell the families of dead soldiers why they perished for nothing. And thanks to the mounting pressure from sanctions, he will have to do all of this at a time when Russians are even worse off than they are today. He could fail at this task, face widespread backlash, and be shunted aside. He could look for scapegoats and be overthrown by the advisers and deputies he threatens to purge. Either way, should Putin go, Russia will have a chance to truly rebuild—and finally abandon its delusions of grandeur.
