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WarpedLichen posted:I think you're missing the context where I'm arguing against the war being over quickly. How long did Vietnam or Afghanistan last? Both of those were two decade long conflicts. It takes a long time to exhaust a nation's will to fight. I doubt Russia can sustain a two decade conflict like the US can but it won't end after this offensive in May. I feel like even the end of this year is rosy thinking. The key point is that a long war enormously favors the defenders. Arguing that Ukraine needs to have some bold offensive to win while Russia can sit back and try to slow down the conflict is exactly backwards. Russia's goals are to end the conflict as soon as possible with a negotiated settlement that releases the hundreds of billions in frozen assets and crippling sanctions. Ukraine's are to deny them the ability to do that. This is why you see the Russians drip feeding in reinforcements and grinding down already depleted units just to push the front line a few kilometers forwards. They have to make big gains or they are eventually going to have to give up so there is no point in building up forces.
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Apr 22, 2022 19:59
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Mr. Apollo posted:Just when you think they couldn't sink any lower, Scholz asks for a shovel. The really weird thing is that even from here we can see that the German arms industry is desperate to seize this opportunity to go out and make some money and he's just cutting them off. https://twitter.com/AlexLuck9/status/1517564363598876672
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Apr 22, 2022 20:01
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Risky Bisquick posted:Nuclear weapon speculation increases Lmao, the Kommuna began construction in 1912. The leader of Russia when it was commissioned was Tsar Nicholas II. Wikipedia says it's been extensively refitted over its lifetime, but still, that's silly.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:02
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William Bear posted:Lmao, the Kommuna began construction in 1912. The leader of Russia when it was commissioned was Tsar Nicholas II.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:07
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cinci zoo sniper posted:https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1517439714533740544 Yeah, I hate the Twitter propaganda machine as well. "BREAKING: We have a context-free sentence with zero substance" Wow, great content. And as usual, for some reason they focus on a completely true statement they can use to generate engagement, but not on the actual infuriating statement Scholz made: SZ posted:You hear a lot about him in recent days, but little from him: Chancellor Olaf Scholz has come under heavy criticism in view of the German government's reluctance to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine. Now he speaks out in an interview with Der Spiegel and explains his restraint with the danger of a nuclear strike by Moscow: he is doing everything to prevent an escalation between Russia and Nato "that would lead to a third world war. There must be no nuclear war." The actual Interview is paywalled (and I'm not paying Spiegel a single cent), so the SZ digest is all I have. The last paragraph actually has me seething.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:08
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CommieGIR posted:They are literally selling NATO to Finland and Sweden. What better salesman do you need. They aren't trying to scare Finland and Sweden, they are lost cases in the opinion sphere. On the other hand that might not be the case with all 30 countries that has to consent to membership entry.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:09
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Der Kyhe posted:I edited it into my message but yes, should Ukraine been the 5-day trip abroad Putin was thinking, I have no doubt that Finland or Sweden would have been the next target. Oooooooo, helicopter pads  Do you realize that a helicopter pad is just a relatively flat, open area? Helicopters don't need pads for landing and building a helicopter pad doesn't mean it's a VDV forward base. This is insane.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:10
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sofokles posted:They aren't trying to scare Finland and Sweden, they are lost cases in the opinion sphere. On the other hand that might not be the case with all 30 countries that has to consent to membership entry. No, I disagree. They very much are trying to scare them. Whether that's working is a different story.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:11
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saratoga posted:The key point is that a long war enormously favors the defenders. Arguing that Ukraine needs to have some bold offensive to win while Russia can sit back and try to slow down the conflict is exactly backwards. Russia's goals are to end the conflict as soon as possible with a negotiated settlement that releases the hundreds of billions in frozen assets and crippling sanctions. Ukraine's are to deny them the ability to do that. This is why you see the Russians drip feeding in reinforcements and grinding down already depleted units just to push the front line a few kilometers forwards. They have to make big gains or they are eventually going to have to give up so there is no point in building up forces. I'm not saying that Ukraine has to win quick, I'm saying that big offensive gains would be the only way for the war to end quickly. The dreams of a quick Russian victory is a pipedream from the start and I agree that Ukraine would likely emerge the victor if the war becomes a quagmire with or without Western support. All I'm saying is that I don't believe the current Russian leadership would accept a ceasefire where they cede territory they took from Ukraine if their offensive stalls out. I don't think it's a controversial take to suggest that Putin would rather suffer economic sanctions than to surrender and lose face.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:12
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Antigravitas posted:Yeah, I hate the Twitter propaganda machine as well. I took the sentence as Scholz trying to misrepresent the purpose of sanctions, but your quote is quite “great” as well.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:15
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mobby_6kl posted:Oh cool, thanks! I've been trying to procure some of these so it's great to have more availability. Got a link for them?
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Apr 22, 2022 20:17
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I am not a logistics expert but it would seem to me like flying a few hundred VDV into remote mökkis to drink beer is not the masterstroke it's being sold as. More than that Russia is fighting a war literally right now in which they've shown that the necessary build up long enough to take over properties like that and they aren't really using them for that purpose (unless we're saying Ukraine doesn't have any ru oligarch private villas in it). Also, why drop people off at a resort next to an airport when you can just drop them off at the airport? You know, like they did in Ukraine. In the war they're fighting right now.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:18
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Is all of Germany's Politicians just owned by Russia? Hell Scholz got a nice letter from a group of prominent Germans asking him to stop weapon deliveries so Ukraine would surrender. https://twitter.com/fuecks/status/1517477870356123649 The article with the letter. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/offener-brief-fordert-von-scholz-stopp-der-waffenlieferungen-an-die-ukraine-li.223704 choice quote from the letter. Just surrender Ukraine. quote:Despite reports of success from the Ukrainian army in the meantime: it is far inferior to the Russian one and has little chance of winning this war. quote:We therefore call on the German government, the EU and NATO countries to stop supplying arms to the Ukrainian troops and to encourage the government in Kyiv to end military resistance against the promise of negotiations on a ceasefire and a political solution. The offers to Moscow already discussed by President Zelenskyi - possible neutrality, agreement on the recognition of Crimea and referendums on the future status of the Donbass republics - offer a real chance to do so. A couple of good, if aggressive, threads on Germany and Russia https://twitter.com/andersostlund/status/1517405802428080129 https://twitter.com/andersostlund/status/1515960086019117058
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Apr 22, 2022 20:19
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mobby_6kl posted:Speaking of artillery acronyms, I thought DANA was supposed to be just a female name but it stands for self-propelled artillery, autoreloading. And I'm pretty sure it's also a name because some variants are called Zuzana lol. If you can't make the acronym fit the word you want, you don't belong into the army  (It is absolutely both)
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Apr 22, 2022 20:20
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Nenonen posted:Oooooooo, helicopter pads Its not insane if you start the conflict by doing what was done elsewhere, you start by sending a small trickle of those famous "little green men" and use the support of the crazier parties like VKK and whatever the gently caress the neo-nazis that were too crazy to be thrown out from Persut call themselves today. Having several well-scouted, remote locations with the capability of moving stuff via road, air or boats is how you start building up for a made-up conflict. Saimaa is a large place and there are places to hide stuff, especially if you own the land and are doing "renovations", but nothing actually ever gets done. And if you have a loving landing pad that isn't in the maps, or unguarded air strip isn't exactly useless asset if your operation ever went loud. It would be stupidity to not have an eye on this type of activity since Russia isn't exactly world-renowned for not doing illegal poo poo just like this. EDIT: And even if it was completely innocent, the Russian investors just happen to buy several locations that can be used also as an insertion points, resource dumps, forward bases and host clandestine operations. Quite a lot of happy accidents to my taste, but your taste might vary. Der Kyhe fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 20:21
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Atreiden posted:Is all of Germany's Politicians just owned by Russia? Hell Scholz got a nice letter from a group of prominent Germans asking him to stop weapon deliveries so Ukraine would surrender. Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact alive and well "Old Men. Running the world. A New Age!" At least it sounds like most Germans hate these spineless fraternizers
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Apr 22, 2022 20:27
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Der Kyhe posted:Its not insane if you start the conflict by doing what was done elsewhere, you start by sending a small trickle of those famous "little green men" and use the support of the crazier parties like VKK and whatever the gently caress the neo-nazis that were too crazy to be thrown out from Persut call themselves today. If they really were preparing for an invasion, do you think they would be building marked helicopter pads? I would build a soccer field so I could land a whole wing of helicopters. It's just a really weird detail to arzy about, especially considering that it's not how Russia has started any of the recent wars.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:27
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Snowy posted:Got a link for them?  Xarn posted:If you can't make the acronym fit the word you want, you don't belong into the army WarpedLichen posted:I'm not saying that Ukraine has to win quick, I'm saying that big offensive gains would be the only way for the war to end quickly.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:27
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Nenonen posted:If they really were preparing for an invasion, do you think they would be building marked helicopter pads? I would build a soccer field so I could land a whole wing of helicopters. It's just a really weird detail to arzy about, especially considering that it's not how Russia has started any of the recent wars. Quite a few happy accidents that the Russian investors just happened to buy locations that can be converted easily into a network of places to prepare for an invasion or stage an internal conflict. In my opinion, too happy to be an accident. And all in the area that most likely would be the area the Putin would want to claim, since the borders before 1809 went there, leaving Russia with two large ports on the Baltic Sea, putting more distance between St. Petersburg and EU, and several places to go next since the Saimaa region that basically is a fuckhead of an obstacle would be now mostly inside his borders.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:32
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Nenonen posted:I think you would have to do some statistical analyses before you jump into conclusions that big. Russia is a massive country with notoriously bad infrastructure, they have far, far more fires and disasters every day than that. This is total tinfoil hat on my part but the only thing I can think of to play these up internally is that Putin can enact martial law and get around the conscripts serving outside the borders thing. My understanding being that is one of the three things he can do to get around that.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:34
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(Investigation concluded that the cause was not deliberate, but either an electrical failure or a cigarette stump.)
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Russian MoD has for the first time admitted casualties at the loss of Moskva, according to Reuters and TASS. They claim that one man died and 27 are missing. 396 sailors were evacuated. Source: https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12314941 They haven't changed their story about a fire causing the explosion, it seems. And it's likely that there are way more dead people than 28, but it's hard to ascertain that.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:34
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Nenonen posted:Russian MoD has for the first time admitted casualties at the loss of Moskva, according to Reuters and TASS. They claim that one man died and 27 are missing. 396 sailors were evacuated. Source: https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12314941 wasn't it a crew of 550, so "we evacuated 396 sailors" kind of tells you what happened to the others its not like they're gonna swim home
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Apr 22, 2022 20:39
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Der Kyhe posted:Quite a few happy accidents that the Russian investors just happened to buy locations that can be converted easily into a network of places to prepare for an invasion or stage an internal conflict. In my opinion, too happy to be an accident. Russians were buying every holiday resort on sale within a comfortable distance from St. Petersburg because that's convenient for weekend escapades, not because they are planning to invade us. I think you're a little too fixated on this theory that Putin wants to restore some particular maximal version of Russian empire's borders, and I have no idea why you have decided that he wants to return the Uusikaupunki peace borders. Might as well go for Pähkinäsaari borders if you want to stress yourself about Russians.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:42
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The 7000 missing ground troops are ominous. Some are surely dead, but I wouldn't want to be a civilian in an area where the survivors are "foraging."
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Apr 22, 2022 20:44
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CommieGIR posted:No, I disagree. They very much are trying to scare them. Whether that's working is a different story. OK, perhaps they are, but i doubt they have much faith in changing the minds of Finns and Swedes. Mikael Wigell of the Finnish institute on foreign policy commented today that one of his worries is Le Pen being elected and blocking. Germanys chancellor shows signs of - I don't know what to call it - cowardice seems harsh. Opinion in periferal southern countries not bordering Russia might be swayed. If fear can be stoked, who knows? There are many other tools than wrenches that can be thrown into the works of a bureaucratic approval process, some of which are nearly invisible or deniable in intent.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:45
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sofokles posted:OK, perhaps they are, but i doubt they have much faith in changing the minds of Finns and Swedes. But these people are not afraid of Russia, they actively colluded WITH Russia in the past. Its about alignment with people they see as allies, like Putin.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:46
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evilweasel posted:wasn't it a crew of 550, so "we evacuated 396 sailors" kind of tells you what happened to the others In theory yes, though we don't know how many were actually onboard on that mission. I don't know if the publically stated crew is really the real number of sailors required to operate the boat. It would be strange if the ship didn't have a full complement on a war time mission, but at this point nothing will surprise me. Maybe the S-300 battery crew had missed departure from port due to heavy drinking? Or maybe a number of sailors had Covid and were left at port because ships are cramped. If they're just lying it's strangely ineffective, they could have just said that 520 men were evacuated.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:50
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Nenonen posted:Russian MoD has for the first time admitted casualties at the loss of Moskva, according to Reuters and TASS. They claim that one man died and 27 are missing. 396 sailors were evacuated. Source: https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12314941 evilweasel posted:wasn't it a crew of 550, so "we evacuated 396 sailors" kind of tells you what happened to the others Nenonen posted:Russians were buying every holiday resort on sale within a comfortable distance from St. Petersburg because that's convenient for weekend escapades, not because they are planning to invade us.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:50
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Morrow posted:This seems insane, the idea that Russia was already prepping forward bases within Finland. Seemed insane Russia would invade Ukraine too, a few months ago.
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Apr 22, 2022 20:56
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It's really not to be underestimated how entrenched the image of Russia as an unstoppable juggernaut has become in the minds of many old men in Europe (and Mearsheimer). I think Scholz and his ilk aren't just risk-averse, selfish goblins who will happily sacrifice Ukraine if that is the cost of appeasing Russia and keeping the economic relations going. They are greedy and selfish - but there's also an aspect of fear. Scholz had his formative years in the socialist youth party - he travelled to DDR for rallies and events. In those days, the USSR was the overlord of the DDR. Even decades later, such formative experiences aren't easily dispelled. The same goes for many who had their formative years preparing for war with the USSR - or to avoid it. Anyone who was politically in the cold war in Europe - especially in the countries on the borders of the curtain - cannot easily banish the ghost of the Soviet juggernaut. So we hear again and again from such people: "Russia will eventually win - or withdraw behind an iron curtain and prepare for the grand confrontation". They do not believe, in their heart of hearts, that Ukraine can win or that the Russian regime could be forced to sign a peace not in their favor. They see Ukraine, surprisingly to them, did not fold - and now everything is scary. To someone shivering in the ghost-light of the Soviet Union - the only thing that matters is how quickly peace can be reached and how quickly the relations with Russia can start to be repaired. Scholz to me looks to be a man who fears the aftermath of this war. He fears a long war where Russia will require years to force a peace on Ukraine - and where Putin will be angry at Germany and the west. He fears a new cold war. He doesn't want to prolong this - and he has no faith heavy weapons for Ukraine will do anything but just that. He doesn't want Ukraine to suffer and lose - but he naively wants a quick peace so the world can go back to how it was before 2014. He knows Putin isn't quite as stable a business partner as he once thought, but he has stated before that good relations with Russia is more important than standing up to their territorial expansionism. I am not sure what will happen when these people realize Russia can lose, and lose badly. Will they not believe it until it happens? Perhaps. And how will they react? My guess is with panic. They will still be stuck in a mindset of Russia having the potential to be a great power, no matter what. I hope Scholz is replaced by a younger, less cold-war-traumatized, Russian gas money suckling, politician. I am not sure Germany can have a healthy relations with Russia (and Eastern Europe) until someone else is chancellor. Half of Europe will dislike him greatly after this. He is fast becoming a divisive figure and an embarrassment for Germany. Read these pre-war quotes from him on Russia: https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/olaf-scholz-russia
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Apr 22, 2022 20:56
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Or, you know, Putin had komprimat on most of senior German politicians, and sleazy fuckers try to not cross red line, while trying to signal they do what their constituents want. Real Anonymous win would be finding and dropping all those materials, so there would be no more weird leverage for Kremlin to use.
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Apr 22, 2022 21:04
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CommieGIR posted:But these people are not afraid of Russia, they actively colluded WITH Russia in the past. Its about alignment with people they see as allies, like Putin. Yes, but they depend on public support. If there are security doubts in the populus their collusion (in effect but not in some "on principle" appearance) might seem sensible.
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Apr 22, 2022 21:07
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mobby_6kl posted:Speaking of artillery acronyms, I thought DANA was supposed to be just a female name but it stands for self-propelled artillery, autoreloading. And I'm pretty sure it's also a name because some variants are called Zuzana lol. Suzy, the little artillery cannon who could. There's a DITA (i.e. Edith) as well - and HIMALAYA but that doesn't fit the pattern as nicely. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 21:13
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:The 7000 missing ground troops are ominous. Some are surely dead, but I wouldn't want to be a civilian in an area where the survivors are "foraging." Missing in this context is absolutely being used in the WW1 'we left the bodies behind, if there is a body that still exists' sense.
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Apr 22, 2022 21:14
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Antigravitas posted:And as usual, for some reason they focus on a completely true statement they can use to generate engagement, but not on the actual infuriating statement Scholz made: Sorry to link to the Daily Mail but I came across a few more choice quotes, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...nting-fury.html : "Asked in an extensive interview published on Friday why he thought delivering tanks could lead to nuclear war, he said there was no rule book that stated when Germany could be considered a party to the war in Ukraine" Even to me, a person who feels NATO is better off erring on the side of caution, this is such transparent garbage. Gleefully ignoring the precedent of proxy wars and the established understanding that mere material support does not make you a cobelligerent. Scholz also seems to have forgotten that whenever the discourse's brought up a scheme going beyond indirect support - like a NFZ or Ukrainian pilots using NATO airfields - the Russians have explicitly said they would consider it an act of war just as the Pentagon and NATO have thrown hot water on it immediately. To pretend that there isn't an established practive for this stuff, that there isn't a de facto playbook from the Cold War delineating the red lines is such bullshit. Happily Scholz closes on a note that seems more suggestive of his real concerns: "'Secondly, you act as if this was about money. But it's about avoiding a dramatic economic crisis and the loss of millions of jobs and factories that would never again open their doors.'" PederP posted:Scholz to me looks to be a man who fears the aftermath of this war. He fears a long war where Russia will require years to force a peace on Ukraine - and where Putin will be angry at Germany and the west. He fears a new cold war. He doesn't want to prolong this - and he has no faith heavy weapons for Ukraine will do anything but just that. He doesn't want Ukraine to suffer and lose - but he naively wants a quick peace so the world can go back to how it was before 2014. He knows Putin isn't quite as stable a business partner as he once thought, but he has stated before that good relations with Russia is more important than standing up to their territorial expansionism. PerilPastry fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 21:18
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Alchenar posted:Missing in this context is absolutely being used in the WW1 'we left the bodies behind, if there is a body that still exists' sense. "He was probably completely incinerated when the BMP he was in got smacked by a Javelin but we don't have a physical body so who knows maybe a wizard teleported him away to Narnia instead".
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Apr 22, 2022 21:19
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PederP posted:Scholz to me looks to be a man who fears the aftermath of this war. He fears a long war where Russia will require years to force a peace on Ukraine - and where Putin will be angry at Germany and the west. He fears a new cold war. He doesn't want to prolong this - and he has no faith heavy weapons for Ukraine will do anything but just that. He doesn't want Ukraine to suffer and lose - but he naively wants a quick peace so the world can go back to how it was before 2014. He knows Putin isn't quite as stable a business partner as he once thought, but he has stated before that good relations with Russia is more important than standing up to their territorial expansionism. The real reason is that he's literally Merkel (except less daring and more arrogant). And that was why people voted for his party. I, for one, would've liked a younger and more competent chancellor, but there was a sustained and loud smear campaign against her and her party in the lead up to the election for some mysterious reason.
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Apr 22, 2022 21:23
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:"He was probably completely incinerated when the BMP he was in got smacked by a Javelin but we don't have a physical body so who knows maybe a wizard teleported him away to Narnia instead". There are also probably some cases of WW2 style "everyone who knew where he was supposed to be got whacked so we don't know where to look."
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Apr 22, 2022 21:24
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Are there any specific names or parties in Germany who a pro Ukranian interventionist German could vote for?
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Apr 22, 2022 21:25
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Nenonen posted:Russians were buying every holiday resort on sale within a comfortable distance from St. Petersburg because that's convenient for weekend escapades, not because they are planning to invade us. Russia has been doing similar things on Gotland. Buying homes and a (1 I believe) resort suspected of being funded by the Russian state. While also attempting to buy a harbour. It would theoretically set up a crimea like possibility where little green men lock down the regiment and secure the airport and harbour while they bring in more.
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Apr 22, 2022 21:26
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