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FishMcCool posted:Oh, right. Makes a lot of sense all of a sudden. I was thinking of soldiers with a conscience, but no, it's just the gay-beating, protest-suppressing crowd scared of being sent against actual resistance. ACACowardlyB
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Mar 24, 2022 17:03
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Fray posted:One interesting piece of hard info about the NW Kyiv situation is that the Ukrainians have advanced as far as a small village called Teterivske and held it against a Russian counterattack yesterday. That places the front line well within artillery range of Ivankiv, and FIRMS shows some significant fires there the past 24 hours. I suspect any Russian pontoon bridges around Ivankiv are not long for this world. They reportedly have a couple more bridges set up towards the east end of the river, but the roads in that area are awful and sparse - far less suitable for heavy traffic than the major highway through Ivankiv. https://twitter.com/hdevreij/status/1506729852719837196 etc etc
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Mar 24, 2022 17:04
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dr_rat posted:And yeah, at the moment it really doesn't seem like russia is doing much long term planning. Just a whole bunch of short term stop gaps, propaganda, and I guess hope that things will somehow just turn out okay? I don't think Putin understands how a modern globalized economy works. Also, I don't think he listen to those who do. The director of the Russian central bank allegedly tried to step down, but Putin wouldn't let her. She is from what I've been told by people I trust in the financial industry, a very competent economist, but she has been wearing what looks like funeral blacks (and a facial expression to match them) since the invasion happened, so I think she knows this is bad, noone is going to listen - and she will probably be blamed. If Putin and his cronies think that natural resources and a big population are all that is needed for a great economy - and all those foreign companies are just stealing our graft money, then they can't understand the severity of being cut off from global supply chains and highly specialized (and monopolized) sub-contractors. No more European and American thingamabobs? Just buy some from China or India! What's the difference? Aren't they just copied. International finance? Isn't that just something to be used for money laundering and stashing away our personal fortunes? International specialists? We have universities - why do we need foreign specialists? Old rich nationalist bastards don't understand how interconnected the global economy is. They didn't plan for independence properly, because they thought making sure they had oil, grain, metals, etc. was enough. Everything else is just bullshit to such people. Basic and luxury foreign commodities? That's just a waste of money by the plebs - they shouldn't import such things anyway! And as I mentioned before these guys simply don't understand economy. Now they want to run a planned economy. How hard can it be? Really. loving. Hard. That's one way to conceptualize capitalism - it's a way getting rid of the difficulty and responsibility inherent to a planned economy, at the cost of capitalists making a big buck of it. That's why the Chinese CCP accepts capitalism - not from the goodness of their hearts, but because by integrating capitalism into their state-run economy they can divest responsibility for a lot of poo poo. Getting rid of capitalism means they have to shoulder the burden of running the economy themselves - and they have to do so while the capitalists of the world are angry at them for doing so. I fully expect that Kremlin can't see the problem and also are entirely unprepared for running a planned economy. Their economy isn't just going to suffer - it is going to crash and burn completely. I'm sure China is willing to step in and help, and that's how they're going to vassalize Russia. By running their economy. If the nation doesn't just collapse and fracture before that happens. And I fear it will because Kremlin is being so incredibly stupid. Antagonizing global capitalism, abolishing it nationally, winging the transition to a planned economy like it was a trivial matter - all this while fighting and losing a war in Ukraine. This is a recipe for disaster. I'm honestly surprised that some of the smarter people at FSB and other key institutions haven't realized this yet and launched a coup. PederP fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Mar 24, 2022 |
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Mar 24, 2022 17:09
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So the Ukrainians have the northwest-of-Kyiv Russians almost encircled? This is just  I really wouldn't have thought anything other than steamrolling would have happened but damned if Russia's military propaganda just didn't live up to the hype.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:10
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Concerned Citizen posted:i don't want us to derail this thread into natochat again, so i will more say as an ancillary point that the perverse thing here is that it is better for that to be true than it is for russia to believe ukraine is an existential threat. a russia that is acting purely out of expansionist tendencies will see ukraine as a prize that has a specific value, and eventually the cost exceeds the value. a russia that sees ukraine as a threat will attach infinite value to victory and essentially endure any necessary punishment to accomplish its goals. You underestimate the toxic mindset of great power colonialism. Ukraine is a core state of greater Russia. It is to be governed directly by Moscow. It's not some far flung logging and fishing villages but a part of the machine of the empire. It is simultaneously a lesser portion and a critical component. It's crime was breaking the fake independence nominally granted to the other former core state of Belarus. The whole systems goal is to prop up the economy of the great power with the output of these states. It's the idea that a system where you ship raw wheat to Moscow and baked bread back and banning local mills and bakeries is valid. Juicing the powers economy with discount materials and captive markets. Through the lense of modern economics it's absurd because it weakens overall production, but it centralizes much more wealth generation directly in the hands of the great powers upper class.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:12
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https://twitter.com/DanLamothe/status/1506855555415121920
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Mar 24, 2022 17:21
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PederP posted:Antagonizing global capitalism, abolishing it nationally, winging the transition to a planned economy like it was a trivial matter - all this while fighting and losing a war in Ukraine. This is a recipe for disaster. I'm honestly surprised that some of the smarter people at FSB and other key institutions haven't realized this yet and launched a coup. Weren't the FSB heads locked up recently and the lower ranks being investigated or locked up? It may be that Putin and/or his cronies know well and good how to stop any potential sources of a coup in their own govt. while its still in its crib.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:22
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D34THROW posted:So the Ukrainians have the northwest-of-Kyiv Russians almost encircled? This is just Okay seriously I don't want to oversell this, even trying to close that pocket would be incredibly difficult. But you can go on googlemaps and count the roads that Russia has leading to its southmost positions and the number they have keeps ticking down and the route you would have to go to get to the units at the bottom of the pocket keeps getting more circular. An army can't fight if all the supplies have to go down one road and that one road is getting regularly shelled by the enemy. This is also the kind of position that's incredibly difficult to evacuate because you would have to do it in phases in full view of the Ukranians. Here's another way of looking at the situation. If the Russians can't reliably put supplies through Ivankiv then everything south of that point is going to get in a lot of trouble very quickly. https://twitter.com/JulianRoepcke/status/1506659820174204936/photo/1 Alchenar fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Mar 24, 2022 |
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Mar 24, 2022 17:23
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:Weren't the FSB heads locked up recently and the lower ranks being investigated or locked up? There is something like 1 FSB per 300 Russians. They're not all locked up. In any nation there are people running poo poo - especially during a crisis. I hope at some point enough of those will see where this is going and react before it all disintegrates. A balkanized Russian Federation is bad news for humanity, I think.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:24
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Fair, Mr. Kasparov: https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1506113946113220612 priznat posted:It's not that bad, they are polar class 5 vessels which means they can tolerate being in "medium" ice, and won't be ripped apart like basically any of the RCN ships would be (the halfax class is not ice rated at all). The coast guard has gotten 3 newish light icebreakers that were purchased from Viking Supply Ships and retrofitted. The heavy duty icebreaker is the planned CCGS John G Diefenbaker which will be quite the big boi. Supposed to enter service in 2030 but who da fuq knows.. And who knows for how long a heavy icebreaker will be required with the way climate change is going bananas! Speaking of: Canada faces steel trouble for new polar icebreakers Also, cost problems quote:The polar-class icebreaker project was originally supposed to cost $1.3 billion for the construction of one vessel. Two icebreakers will now be built, but the cost has skyrocketed to an estimated $7.25 billion.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:24
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Can Putin pull out even if he wants to? Imagine being the guy who attacked the Nazis and lost.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:24
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Vorenus posted:Can Putin pull out even if he wants to? Imagine being the guy who attacked the Nazis and lost. Yeah, I don't think he can, unfortunately
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Mar 24, 2022 17:27
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This article is useful for the 15% of town being controlled by the Russians still and the casualty figures, but oh boy does it spend a lot of time saying "despite what the Ukranians say, this is still a front line, it is not a safe place for civilians" which is arguing against something I don't think the Ukranians ever said.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:29
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evilweasel posted:suing the russian government for wrongful termination when you merely got fired for refusing orders rather than a different definition of fired sounds...unwise It's counter-intuitive, but Russian courts often rule in workers' favour even in seemingly political cases. For example, during the Navalny protests, many Moscow Metro workers got fired for signing petitions and other activism, but were later hired back or compensated by court order. Of course, they might get problems further down the line, but for whatever reason labour courts are probably the least poo poo show courts in Russia.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:29
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PederP posted:There is something like 1 FSB per 300 Russians. They're not all locked up. They don't need to all be locked up though to stop them from attempting a coup. Just the main guys at the top (who probably actually would be the ring leaders and know what to do) and maybe some of their men. Yeah Russia turning into a bigger and uglier version of NK would be bad for everyone but just because it'd be bad doesn't mean it can't happen.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:30
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:Weren't the FSB heads locked up recently and the lower ranks being investigated or locked up? only two FSB higher-ups were arrested, and they were in charge of ukraine operations so it seems more scapegoating than eliminating potential coupists.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:32
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Deteriorata posted:Via UALivemap: The Telegram message doesn’t exist. Rinkles posted:Nice Kuznetsov cosplay Kuznetsov has actually airdropped Hostomel to avenge VDV. https://t.me/irpininteresting/4431 
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Mar 24, 2022 17:32
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:This article is useful for the 15% of town being controlled by the Russians still and the casualty figures, but oh boy does it spend a lot of time saying "despite what the Ukranians say, this is still a front line, it is not a safe place for civilians" which is arguing against something I don't think the Ukranians ever said. well, this part is pretty important: quote:Tokar, the mayor, said the reality on the ground was different. As of Wednesday, he said, Russian forces were still in control of roughly 15 percent of the town, an area they have held for nearly three weeks with little shifting of the front lines. There were no signs Wednesday that any of the roughly 15,000 residents who have fled since the Russian invasion began last month were returning to the town. like, so this has been contested for 3 weeks and nothing has changed at all in makariv? because that dramatically changes the picture of what is happening on that highway. there has been the impression from the ukrainian army that they are working to open the highway again, this would imply they are not really near that goal.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:33
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Germany does what everyone pretty much expected and tells Russia that the contract says dollars/euros not rubles, so stuff it. Commentator is the energy and commodities columnist at Bloomberg https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1507025505559605248?s=20&t=0hQWAqLeWGQtA64taGmgcQ
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Mar 24, 2022 17:38
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evilweasel posted:only two FSB higher-ups were arrested, and they were in charge of ukraine operations so it seems more scapegoating than eliminating potential coupists. 2 that we know of so far. https://news.yahoo.com/putin-ordered-hunt-western-spies-102206717.html Looks like they are investigating the FSB though. Under the auspices of "possible western spies" but I doubt either way they'd just come out and say "we're rooting out a potential coup" or even "we need scapegoats for this poo poo in Ukraine".
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Mar 24, 2022 17:39
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Seems a little strange to say that Russian ability to shell the town, or people being killed there, has much bearing on who controls it--if ability to shell it was relevant you could say Russia already has control over Kharkiv. Granted, the 15% is a little more interesting, though--perhaps better to say Ukraine has control of "almost all" of it, the way they referred to Irpin.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:40
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Paladinus posted:It's counter-intuitive, but Russian courts often rule in workers' favour even in seemingly political cases. For example, during the Navalny protests, many Moscow Metro workers got fired for signing petitions and other activism, but were later hired back or compensated by court order. Of course, they might get problems further down the line, but for whatever reason labour courts are probably the least poo poo show courts in Russia. Yeah one of the nuances of how Putin's Russia lets steam off discontent is that as long as your complaint doesn't present some kind of systemic threat to the regime and only embarasses unimportant mid-low level officials then the system recognises that it is much better to do what it takes to make you go away happy rather than risk turning you into the guy who sets fire to himself in public because his permit to sell fruit was taken away.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:40
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Randarkman posted:Does Russia have an NCO corps in the same way Western militaries do? IIRC this was one of the pecularities that never went away with the Soviet military, NCOs were not professional and not trained or expected to assume leadership positions, they were mostly technical specialists. Instead junior officers often performed tasks that would have been assigned to NCOs in Western miliaries, though I'm pretty sure there weren't as many junior officers (proportionally) in the Soviet military as you had professional NCOs in for instance the US. No. And compounding this, their planning staffs seem to be smaller. So you have a smaller officer corps burdened with more tasks than their Western, or at least US, counterparts.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:43
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Have been following this map and have been waiting for them to make a pocket, but didn't expect that big. Looks like there's one coming up in the east of Kyiv also. Dont know wtf russians are doing, cause Chernihiv used to be totally surrounded and they just pushed trought and took the Nizhyn back. 
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Mar 24, 2022 17:44
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KitConstantine posted:Germany does what everyone pretty much expected and tells Russia that the contract says dollars/euros not rubles, so stuff it. Poland saying the same https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1507033950224805889?s=20&t=OMNcSbR36hnDIjOhQDVShg
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Mar 24, 2022 17:46
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Ynglaur posted:No. And compounding this, their planning staffs seem to be smaller. So you have a smaller officer corps burdened with more tasks than their Western, or at least US, counterparts. Well, when the typical Russian concept of tactics is 'throw enough bodies at the enemy and we will eventually win', you don't exactly need a lot of planning staff. Not giving two shits about casualties does make planning a bit easier.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:47
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Captain Kosmos posted:Have been following this map and have been waiting for them to make a pocket, but didn't expect that big. Looks like there's one coming up in the east of Kyiv also. Dont know wtf russians are doing, cause Chernihiv used to be totally surrounded and they just pushed trought and took the Nizhyn back. Bypassing cities to blitzkrieg Kyiv is only a good strategy if you do, in fact, take Kyiv.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:47
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What exactly is the point of demanding the gas be paid for in rubles especially when lack of hard currency is one of the biggest problems Russia is facing right now vs rubles which they can just print more of.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:48
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Lots of talk of Russian corruption and how it's seemingly gutted their armed forces. Anything similar on Ukraine? It is also famously corrupt, with it's own collection of oligarchs. It just doesn't have a strongman keeping the different oligarchs together. Do we know anything about how this may have affected Ukraine's armed forces?
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Mar 24, 2022 17:50
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Count Roland posted:Lots of talk of Russian corruption and how it's seemingly gutted their armed forces. It did in 2014 when Russia took crimea without firing a shot. After that Ukraine got serious about its military very quickly. I expect Russia will too once the war is over.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:52
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Count Roland posted:Lots of talk of Russian corruption and how it's seemingly gutted their armed forces. historically, yes, ukraine's armed forces were deeply corrupt. after the annexation of crimea, nato spent quite a bit of time professionalizing and re-arming its military. it is substantially more formidable than it used to be.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:52
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:What exactly is the point of demanding the gas be paid for in rubles especially when lack of hard currency is one of the biggest problems Russia is facing right now vs rubles which they can just print more of. The governments would have to buy the rubles from the Russian banking system directly to get enough to cover the payments, which means the Russian bank could set the exchange rate that they have to be purchased at. Additionally the government would get a cut from the currency exchange as well as their cut from the payment to the gas company. It doesn't actually make the most sense in the world even if other countries were to accept it as an option, which they clearly are not willing to do.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:53
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:What exactly is the point of demanding the gas be paid for in rubles especially when lack of hard currency is one of the biggest problems Russia is facing right now vs rubles which they can just print more of. I believe it should help to keep down inflation for the ruble.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:53
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Captain Kosmos posted:Looks like there's one coming up in the east of Kyiv also. Dont know wtf russians are doing, cause Chernihiv used to be totally surrounded and they just pushed trought and took the Nizhyn back. Chernihiv is the big mystery to me. I've been assuming they've been effectively cut off since day 2-3 but here we are a month on and while the city has been bombarded lots there is no sign of that pocket being squeezed. I can see them taking Nizhyn back purely on an opportunistic basis of marching in after the Russian pull out, but that doesn't explain how they still have ammunition.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:53
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Not too unprecedented. Maybe he would make the connection if the Ukrainians had some kind of distinctive headgear, like a pakol or conical hat?
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Mar 24, 2022 17:53
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Deteriorata posted:Bypassing cities to blitzkrieg Kyiv is only a good strategy if you do, in fact, take Kyiv. Yeah, thought that they at least surround the cities or something. Would be interesting to know what areas Russia really control. edit: Alchenar posted:Chernihiv is the big mystery to me. I've been assuming they've been effectively cut off since day 2-3 but here we are a month on and while the city has been bombarded lots there is no sign of that pocket being squeezed. I can see them taking Nizhyn back purely on an opportunistic basis of marching in after the Russian pull out, but that doesn't explain how they still have ammunition. Same with Mariupol, Ukraine still has operational tanks there. Guess Russians provide them everything they need.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:54
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Alchenar posted:Yeah one of the nuances of how Putin's Russia lets steam off discontent is that as long as your complaint doesn't present some kind of systemic threat to the regime and only embarasses unimportant mid-low level officials then the system recognises that it is much better to do what it takes to make you go away happy rather than risk turning you into the guy who sets fire to himself in public because his permit to sell fruit was taken away. They learned from history, given that the rise of the Soviet Union and the Russian Revolution piggy backed off of popular discontent over kitchen table issues. Putin's only real threat at this point would be another women's march as the mothers and sisters of all the dead troops decide they've had enough. That's why they're taking enormous lengths to conceal any information about battlefield casualties. BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:What exactly is the point of demanding the gas be paid for in rubles especially when lack of hard currency is one of the biggest problems Russia is facing right now vs rubles which they can just print more of. To pay in Rubles, you must first buy those rubles, and to buy rubles eventually you are paying the Russian government USD, EUR or Zloty or whatever to get your product. It's a way to stabilize the currency.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:55
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:What exactly is the point of demanding the gas be paid for in rubles especially when lack of hard currency is one of the biggest problems Russia is facing right now vs rubles which they can just print more of.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:55
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Captain Kosmos posted:Have been following this map and have been waiting for them to make a pocket, but didn't expect that big. Looks like there's one coming up in the east of Kyiv also. Dont know wtf russians are doing, cause Chernihiv used to be totally surrounded and they just pushed trought and took the Nizhyn back. the control maps are a bit misleading because by all accounts chernihiv isn't actually totally cut off, but it's not really easy to see why that's the case given where we have seen fighting. the most obvious answer is likely that the russians don't have enough troops to simultaneously keep chernihiv from receiving reinforcements/resupply and still attack toward kyiv.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:56
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:It did in 2014 when Russia took crimea without firing a shot. After that Ukraine got serious about its military very quickly. I expect Russia will too once the war is over. With what money? And also most of their highest tech gear uses imported western microchips and electronics. You can bet even after sanctions are lifted theres going to be even more regular restrictions on selling that kind of stuff to Russia in the future.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:56
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