The Russian invasion of Ukraine (9 Viewers)

So do people think we're entering The West Getting Bored Of The War period now?

Out of the two it's felt that prolonged war would suit the Russians more than the Ukrainians, right?
 
So do people think we're entering The West Getting Bored Of The War period now?

Out of the two it's felt that prolonged war would suit the Russians more than the Ukrainians, right?

Depends on who and what you read - the Russians have settled into a pattern of grinding incremental gains - them effectively running out of ammo for the high precision stuff has been bandied about but unlikely to massively effect how they are preceding currently as they can work through stockpiles of regular stuff. They’ve taken huge losses but can probably replace them numerically - even if they don’t formally mobilise.

The Ukrainians are increasingly reliant on the west for even more standard artillery munitions, and they too will have taken serious losses.

So a longer war probably just about suits the Russians imho - unless the Ukrainians can make headway again outside the Donbas
 
Well I read something in the Economist this morning that was hopeful that support would continue and that the HIMARS were working. The graphics were startling.

But generally yeah, we have Truss' frilly blouse now, so fuck Ukraine. I'm getting that vibe as well.

We're talking about war as a marketing exercise now.
 
Well I read something in the Economist this morning that was hopeful that support would continue and that the HIMARS were working. The graphics were startling.

But generally yeah, we have Truss' frilly blouse now, so fuck Ukraine. I'm getting that vibe as well.

We're talking about war as a marketing exercise now.

There’s definitely a strand of opinion that Russians have expended themselves to some extent, and that if the good stuff keeps coming in from the west the Ukrainians will have an advantage.

If the Ukrainians were successful in retaking Kherson it would be a strategic and morale boosting victory. They’ve already nipped away at a fair amount of territory in that general area over the past months.

Given every source has some bias I think this is something we’ll only know for sure when it happens. (Or possibly 10 years later when someone writes a book on it)
 
Yeah, I guess I've been hearing that "long wars suit the Russians" lines, but I'm not sure who this hurts more.

Both countries are losing. It's just a matter of the rate of loss along with the ability of the country to sustain that loss. It's clear that third parties will keep injecting weapons and other help into Ukraine, but there does need to be a core of guys to run things.
On the other hand Russia has huge manpower, but the story getting sold seems to run they're not all that well trained, or interested in being there.

Another winter fighting would be misery.
 
Yeah, I guess I've been hearing that "long wars suit the Russians" lines, but I'm not sure who this hurts more.

Both countries are losing. It's just a matter of the rate of loss along with the ability of the country to sustain that loss. It's clear that third parties will keep injecting weapons and other help into Ukraine, but there does need to be a core of guys to run things.
On the other hand Russia has huge manpower, but the story getting sold seems to run they're not all that well trained, or interested in being there.

Another winter fighting would be misery.

While I was waiting for all this to happen, about six months ago, I looked a little into this. Russia's military had 195,000 personnel, compared to Ukraines smaller military. Though Ukraine had a proportionally larger force in terms of population.

Russia has 20,000 dead already according to everything I've seen. I assume they were mostly actual soldiers, Their replacements won't be better.

I don't think Russia can just wang a bunch of conscripts in there against Ukrainians who've been training for this for years now. It'd be a slaughter. Not that Putin cares about a slaughter, but it just won't work. And that's a tragedy.
 
While I was waiting for all this to happen, about six months ago, I looked a little into this. Russia's military had 195,000 personnel, compared to Ukraines smaller military. Though Ukraine had a proportionally larger force in terms of population.

Russia has 20,000 dead already according to everything I've seen. I assume they were mostly actual soldiers, Their replacements won't be better.

I don't think Russia can just wang a bunch of conscripts in there against Ukrainians who've been training for this for years now. It'd be a slaughter. Not that Putin cares about a slaughter, but it just won't work. And that's a tragedy.
he just needs to buy enough time to make it last through the winter. I reckon he's banking on the energy crisis getting so bad that people will end up turning on Ukraine. Which I doubt will happen. If this is still going on next spring, he's fucked.
 
he just needs to buy enough time to make it last through the winter. I reckon he's banking on the energy crisis getting so bad that people will end up turning on Ukraine. Which I doubt will happen. If this is still going on next spring, he's fucked.
I think people might be falling into the trap that Putin is in some way carefully planning stuff out. I don't think he has a plan other than try to squeeze everyone related to Ukraine and see what happens.

I guess it's possible they have sorted logistics out by now, but last winter Russia didn't seem to handle things well. It looked like a load of Russians sitting around on the side of roads hungry and freezing their bollocks off. The Russians are the ones invading Ukraine, they have to either bring supplies in or steal from the Ukrainians. Maybe the fact that the Ukrainians are in their home country gives them advantages during winter.
 
Took a week off lads, i see not a lot has changed.

Some thoughts:

1) I read RT on occasion, have the app on my phone, I assume it's Russian propaganda to a large degree but interesting for that reason. I have a NYT subscription, I have it on my phone, I certainly assume the foreign policy stuff is US and NATO propaganda there as well. It's possible to read both things and agree with neither.

2) Pointing out the countless warnings written over the past 20 years where people were saying that needless NATO expansion is threatening Russia and will end badly isn't falling for Russian propaganda, its actually a demonstration of one of the tenets of high liberalism: read widely and deeply about a subject in order to make an informed opinion. People who think the centre way avoids the extremes and blinkered thinking of the left and the right should be in favour of this.

3) I am yet to see anyone present a credible case for ending the war through continued military action. I remember day 1 where we were confidently told that Putin could only sustain a war for 10 days with his "war chest" before he would go bankrupt. We're being told similar things right now, I'd bet that in Russia they're also being told something along those lines.

4) Until we actually, really, shut down the oil and gas pipelines with no exceptions we're still funding this war on both sides and have been since the beginning, that's no moral high ground.
 
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1) I read RT on occasion, have the app on my phone, I assume it's Russian propaganda to a large degree but interesting for that reason. I have a NYT subscription, I have it on my phone, I certainly assume the foreign policy stuff is US and NATO propaganda there as well. It's possible to read both things and agree with neither.
(RT+NYT)/2 = the truth
 
Or maybe (RT+NYT)/FT = Business Insider

I remember reading before someone saying that for straight news the FT is good because "money doesn't lie to itself."

I'm not sure I agree with that, it's obviously coming from an ideological point of view but that ideology is probably "our readers want to be properly informed so that they can better acquire and hoard wealth" as opposed to the alternately wrapping its readership up in cotton wool /feeding them stuff from the outrage machine in the way that other right wing papers like the Express and Mail do.
 
I remember reading before someone saying that for straight news the FT is good because "money doesn't lie to itself."

I'm not sure I agree with that, it's obviously coming from an ideological point of view but that ideology is probably "our readers want to be properly informed so that they can better acquire and hoard wealth" as opposed to the alternately wrapping its readership up in cotton wool /feeding them stuff from the outrage machine in the way that other right wing papers like the Express and Mail do.
It's not so much an alternative to the Express or Mail but the likes of the NyTimes and Guardian who are quite muddled in their thinking as they constantly come up to the bits of liberal discourse where human rights and capitalism cannot exist together and so they have to fudge the analysis something fierce.

It's fucking expense though. Goddam FT.
 
At one point in time, hard for me to type this out, but at one point in time The Christian Science Monitor was considered to publish reasonable stuff. I didn't believe, but I read articles here and there and they had interesting perspectives. I'm not sure what's going on with them these days, I haven't habitually read their stuff lately.

Shrug.
 
Took a week off lads, i see not a lot has changed.

Some thoughts:

1) I read RT on occasion, have the app on my phone, I assume it's Russian propaganda to a large degree but interesting for that reason. I have a NYT subscription, I have it on my phone, I certainly assume the foreign policy stuff is US and NATO propaganda there as well. It's possible to read both things and agree with neither.

2) Pointing out the countless warnings written over the past 20 years where people were saying that needless NATO expansion is threatening Russia and will end badly isn't falling for Russian propaganda, its actually a demonstration of one of the tenets of high liberalism: read widely and deeply about a subject in order to make an informed opinion. People who think the centre way avoids the extremes and blinkered thinking of the left and the right should be in favour of this.

3) I am yet to see anyone present a credible case for ending the war through continued military action. I remember day 1 where we were confidently told that Putin could only sustain a war for 10 days with his "war chest" before he would go bankrupt. We're being told similar things right now, I'd bet that in Russia they're also being told something along those lines.

4) Until we actually, really, shut down the oil and gas pipelines with no exceptions we're still funding this war on both sides and have been since the beginning, that's no moral high ground.
RT is a vertically integrated state propaganda machine. The degree to which it is Russian propaganda is 100%
Comparing to the NYT is a false equivalency. It's nearest real comparison is state media in China. Or NK. Or any other totalitarian regime.
RT is from the same organisation that is bombing cities, killing children and raping women.
And anyone that wants to is free to read their apologia and denials for that, but I can't really see why anyone would want to do so on the regular.
The nearest real equivalency I would see would be Stars & Stripes when America was napalming Vietnamese children.
Or whatever Britain was spouting when it was massacring Mau Maus in the name of the current Queen of England. If it's for a laugh or furthering liberalism, it seems to be of limited value in an ongoing context. It's excuses for genocide.


Whatever reasons Putin had for going into Ukraine..... duplicitous Nato, a country full of Nazis that needed cleansing, sure it's not-a-real-country-anyways-lads, or it's an independent militia-in-DOnbavs-nothing-to-do-with-me, or whatever you're having yourself from Putin's lucky bag of self-serving bullshit.
If the reaction to the desolation of a peaceful country, the unending bombing civilian targets, using rape as a tool of war, is "well. he kinda has point on the Nato thing", seems at best to be missing the poimt of what's actually going on in Ukraine. At worst a real sympathy for what Russia is doing. But that's just from where I'm sitting. We all have different perspectives and viewpoints. No one can read anyone else's mind.

The only case for negotiation is that an endless war is worse. Fair enough. The Quincy Institute make a very strong case for negotiation. But this is a guy that bombed Odessa the day after agreeing to grain exports from there. His assurances aren't worth used toilet paper. As the least worst option, it's still a pretty ugly baby. I'd say keep killing Russian soldiers, but this guy probably doesn't even care about how many die; he can spin it. Ukraine's shout from here. They will have to live next door to these fucks whenever it does end.

Agree 100% on the oil and gas. The Germans are at the heart of this mess. They killed their nuclear power programme, and have plenty of gas of their own in Germany but won't frack - even though it is safe. A remarkable self-delusion from a supposedly pragmatic people.
 
RT is a vertically integrated state propaganda machine. The degree to which it is Russian propaganda is 100%
Comparing to the NYT is a false equivalency. It's nearest real comparison is state media in China. Or NK. Or any other totalitarian regime.
RT is from the same organisation that is bombing cities, killing children and raping women.
And anyone that wants to is free to read their apologia and denials for that, but I can't really see why anyone would want to do so on the regular.
The nearest real equivalency I would see would be Stars & Stripes when America was napalming Vietnamese children.
Or whatever Britain was spouting when it was massacring Mau Maus in the name of the current Queen of England. If it's for a laugh or furthering liberalism, it seems to be of limited value in an ongoing context. It's excuses for genocide.
If you think RT are casting a magic spell on me because I occasionally read their website to get a grip on what Russian state media is telling it's populace that's fine by me. The New York Times' record in complicity pushing wars on behalf of the US state department and the CIA speaks for itself.
Whatever reasons Putin had for going into Ukraine..... duplicitous Nato, a country full of Nazis that needed cleansing, sure it's not-a-real-country-anyways-lads, or it's an independent militia-in-DOnbavs-nothing-to-do-with-me, or whatever you're having yourself from Putin's lucky bag of self-serving bullshit.
If the reaction to the desolation of a peaceful country, the unending bombing civilian targets, using rape as a tool of war, is "well. he kinda has point on the Nato thing", seems at best to be missing the poimt of what's actually going on in Ukraine. At worst a real sympathy for what Russia is doing. But that's just from where I'm sitting. We all have different perspectives and viewpoints. No one can read anyone else's mind.
Saying remembering what happened more than six months ago is cheating because there's a war going on is just classic shock doctrine tactics. You want to be a hard headed pragmatist about this war instead of a cowardly peacenik? Then fucking read your history.

I'm not in favour of Putin or this war, and I wasn't in favour of Putin for the decades when Ireland was happily laundering his money. I'm also not an interventionist in favour of "hawkish" foreign policy (if USA does what Putin is doing they're just being hawkish of course, perfectly legitimate behaviour), it's up to the Russian people to remove him.

Let's just leave it at we disagree at the best method of ending the war.
 
Btw, is the general agreement on this whole thing that Putin is a fucking moron because he launched a war to stop NATO aggression and now everyone wants to join NATO so he won't launch a war against them also?

Or this there some other level of 12 dimensional chess going on on his side?
 
Btw, is the general agreement on this whole thing that Putin is a fucking moron because he launched a war to stop NATO aggression and now everyone wants to join NATO so he won't launch a war against them also?

Or this there some other level of 12 dimensional chess going on on his side?
he binned that excuse way back though, did he not? I thought it was about liberating people from nazis now.
 

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