The Ukraine war thread
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@Wim said in The Ukraine war thread:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-we-must-think-how-stop-the-tragedy-ukraine-2023-11-22/
The absolute balls....
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T. E. Lawrence smiled:
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Speaking of Lawrence, here’s Lawrence Freedman’s most recent Situation Report on the war in Ukraine:
https://samf.substack.com/p/what-should-ukraine-do-next?utm_medium=web
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Good article, if not cheery. I think the major point is decisive victory is unlikely for either nation, but Russia's economy is so much smaller than the West's. The question is Ukrainian manpower. Weapons are important but you have to preserve the people to operate them.
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@Mik said in The Ukraine war thread:
The question is Ukrainian manpower
Indeed. I've seen reports that Russia has sustained >300K casualties. Considering the size of their military, that's not crippling (except, perhaps, in public opinion).
Ukraine can't bear that kind of loss, and Russia will continue to throw troops into the grinder.
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This morning in a Zoom scrum between friends and former colleagues, we parsed through Freedman’s report. One of our number with considerably more experience in these matters than I, expressed his concern that he senses a growing risk of fraying in team Kyiv as to what and how to adjust strategy while at the same time maintaining the necessary messaging to manage expectations on multiple fronts and levels.
I suspect his concern is well founded.
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Yesterday T. E. Lawrence just smiled, today it’s sardonic laughter:
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More meat for the grinder….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67592803
And somehow NATO is to blame.
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https://www.statista.com/statistics/1334454/russian-armed-forces-personnel/
Even if the Ukrainian claim of 300K casualties is inflated by a factor of two, it's still a big hit.