mila kunis posted:

how does this keep happening

sexpig by night posted:

it's funny you're doing this handwringing 'well we'll just see' thing because the pentagon spokesman is literally right now doing a presser where he's agreeing that there's no signs of Russia further pushing in. It feels like if they were going to push deeper they'd not do a weird stop-start method, considering the entire reason we were supposed to be so scared to begin with was that Russia's military can absolutely steamroll Ukraine's.

Torpor posted:

wait what did modi do? I know the US wanted some neoliberal trade treaty that got upset a lot of nepalis.

Torpor posted:

wait what did modi do? I know the US wanted some neoliberal trade treaty that got upset a lot of nepalis.

Atrocious Joe posted:

https://twitter.com/ForeignPolicy/status/1496583226739077131?s=20&t=jlkZYEHYWjAfGLSz7mWg4g

Cpt_Obvious posted:

Dolphin just Google azov battalion, check a wiki on it.

Frosted Flake posted:

Not just can - must (?)

The easiest summary of The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver: Spearhead of the Offensive would be that Russian offensives - historically and contemporarily in Chechnya, Georgia, and during exercises do not start and stop. They go until they reach their objectives or are fought out.

There’s a lot of doctrinal reasons, some of which are geographical, like Russia’s strategic situation facing west being defined by the 8 large rivers in East-Central Europe, some of which are defined by logistical bottlenecks NATO analysts gloat about, but the gist of it is, the Russian Army traditionally builds up, smashes the enemy line, conducts a deep battle, hits a river or major urban centre, consolidates, builds up logistics for the next operation. Every major “backhand blow” dealt by the Wehrmacht happened when they overextended themselves, and institutions are shaped by that kind of “trauma”.

In Georgia they very clearly hit their halt line - the Georgian Army did not stop them. In the First Chechen War they were fought out in Grozny. Bagration went until the Vistula, Vistula-Oder went until Berlin, Jassy-Kishinev went to the Danube and Carpathians, the Budapest Offensive went until hitting the suburbs of Budapest etc etc.

Here, they halted at the political borders of the DNR - the Ukrainian Army, did not, and could not, stop them before either Kiev or the Dnieper.

I’m not saying they couldn’t just move up their engineering echelons and bridging equipment and break out towards the Dnieper, other the early March being perhaps literally the worst time to do so, but it would be very strange for them to halt now unless this was their objective and they achieved it.

Dolphin posted:

I know what it is. It's a nazi regiment of the Ukraine military, I get it. It's literally irrelevant.

fits my needs posted:

lol at this thread being lazily trolled by sinkshitter

quote:

US announces Nord Stream 2 sanctions

US President Joe Biden has allowed sanctions to move forward against the company that built the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and against the company’s CEO.

“I have directed my administration to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officers. These steps are another piece of our initial tranche of sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” Biden said in a statement.

Sinteres posted:

That's only if you consider the invasion to have already started in the first place, which I don't think any of us do.

Dolphin posted:

lol China is literally committing a genocide against Muslims and we won't do poo poo because money.

also because we share similar views

Dolphin posted:

my goal is mainly to not look back on this forum in ten-twenty years and see a haven for genocide deniers, that's pretty much it. poo poo like "drat right I deny the uighur genocide!" and other posts irk me and remind me of a lot of other kinds of denial that are really lovely

like it's easy to just go "we don't know" rather than "gently caress you the state department is lying there is no ethnic cleansing, no genocide, i deny it"

Dolphin posted:

On further reflection I don't know if you could really call it genocide denial to say that you don't believe a genocide is occurring in Xinjiang because genocide denial is a tactic used by the state to hide that the genocide has occurred, as a final act of erasing a people. Behind most instances of denial you can usually find undertones or overt prejudice against the victims. Neo-nazis deny the holocaust not only because they subscribe to Nazism, but because their motivation is to actively participate in the erasure of Jews. If you don't actually believe that the Uyghur people should be erased, or have prejudice against them, or if you believe that there is profound mistreatment of them that doesn't yet meet the definition of genocide, I don't really think that can be called genocide denial.

Genocide denial has a specific motivation behind it that so far I haven't seen on this board. I think there's a lot of "but I like the Chinese" and "America is really bad" to justify denying specific allegations against the CCP, but I don't think those things can be reasonably construed as genocide denial. If someone were to say "the Uyghur's are violent extremists who need to be assimilated into mainstream Chinese culture by any means necessary" I would see a problem but no one has said anything like that.

Frosted Flake posted:

I’m not saying they couldn’t just move up their engineering echelons and bridging equipment and break out towards the Dnieper, other the early March being perhaps literally the worst time to do so, but it would be very strange for them to halt now unless this was their objective and they achieved it.

mila kunis posted:

how does this keep happening

Dolphin posted:

I know what it is. It's a nazi regiment of the Ukraine military, I get it. It's literally irrelevant.

Tankbuster posted:

When the Nepal earthquake happened Modi tried doing photoshoots of it with his big statesman diplomatic push. The modi supporting mainstream media being a bunch of slavish toadies took it up to 11 and it soured Nepali thoughts on india. Modi responded by shutting off their gas and China found their big diplomatic in with Nepal. It doesn't help that Nepal is highly dependent on Indian trade for goods and no one likes an overbearing neighbor.

Homeless Friend posted:

my goal is mainly to look back on this forum in ten-twenty years and see a haven for genocide deniers

Lostconfused posted:

I know this thread has been mostly stuffed with Ukraine nonsense, so just to bring back some of the original topic back in.

Dolphin posted:

Explain.

R. Guyovich posted:

ughhhh posted:

If you have any info on why India isnt exporting isotopes for PET scans to Nepal i would love to know. My family had to give up treating my grandmother because no hospitals in Nepal currently have the isotope to do PET scans. All i could find out was doctors and medical suppliers saying India is being a dick about it.

Frosted Flake posted:

There must be a reason the US selects proxies on the edge of and at odds with their larger societies.

The reason those monks set themselves on fire in Vietnam was because Diem and his guys were militantly Catholic in a largely Buddhist society and used the protection afforded by US support to antagonize the Buddhists, including passing all sorts of restrictive laws. The population breakdown here is different, but these campaigns against the Russian citizens of THEE Ukraine would not be possible without US support either.

It’s not as explicit as the British and French picking a race or caste or linguistic group to be Their Guys, but it feels as if in a vacuum the furthest right wing ethnic nationalists wouldn’t be the people holding the reins, in the same way that in a vacuum Catholics would not be running Vietnam.

So, how much of this is Divide-and-Rule, and how much is just a byproduct of Maidan?

The prominence of these groups, at least going from what I’ve read, is not organic or related to their popularity or the natural sentiment of the Ukrainian people, so creating or elevating them must serve some function post-2014.

Sinteres posted:

That's only if you consider the invasion to have already started in the first place, which I don't think any of us do. I do think the point about March is a solid indicator that it's very soon or never though, at least for this round of tensions.

Encyclopedia of Ukraine posted:

In winter the Dnipro freezes over, usually after a 20-day spell of subzero temperature. The average freezing and thawing dates for Kyiv are 17 December and 24 March; for Cherkasy, 23 December and 22 March; for Zaporizhia, 5 January and 9 March; for Kherson, 3 January and 3 March. The ice regime is not stable: sometimes the Dnipro freezes for short intervals, and sometimes it does not freeze at all. Ice jams and floods resulting from them are rare because the freezing moves southward and the thawing northward.

Below Kyiv, the left bank of the river is low, sandy, and often covered by pine forest. It rises towards the east in broad terraces. The river valley is wide—6–10 km, and at Pereiaslav and Cherkasy, 15–18 km—while the river is 200–1,200 m wide. Below Cherkasy the Dnipro splits into sidestreams and creates islands. Its depth varies frequently, from 1.5 to 12 m.

The Soviet Army: Specialized Warfare and Rear Area Support, 1984 posted:

River Crossings
Soviet military theorists place great emphasis on high advance rates by armor-heavy columns in the offense. The Soviets stress that this high advance rate would be important in the European theater with its "relatively small" operational depth. Such an offensive would be impossible without overcoming Europe's many north-south water obstacles. A 1965 Soviet study revealed that in the European theater, forces would encounter water obstacles up to 100 meters wide every 35 to 60 kilometers, between 100 and 300 meters wide every 100 to 150 kilometers,and greater than 300 meters wide, every 250 to 300 kilometers.
In response to these challenges, Soviet planners have devoted tremendous resources to improving the river crossing capabilities of their combat equipment. They have provided their ground forces with large stocks of specialized bridging and assault crossing equipment. River crossing figures prominently in most Soviet exercises.

The Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of the Russian Ground Forces, 2019 posted:

Hydrology
Large rivers and lakes dominate Eurasia and have served as major arteries of industry and commerce, defensive barriers, lines of communication and avenues of advance. Armies are more accustomed to solving
the problem of crossing rivers rather than
controlling stretches or the entirety of the
river or lake. Yet control of the river or lake
is often more decisive to a campaign than
a crossing. In Russia, the Volga, Vistula,
Danube, Dnieper, Oder and Amur Rivers form operational/strategic barriers. The Danube,
Dnieper, Oka, Koma, Neman, Don and Amur
Rivers form avenues of approach. Lakes Ladoga, Onezh, Beloye, Il’men, and Chyda may serve as barriers or avenues of approach.
During conflict, control of the rivers and lakes is often vital to controlling a country. A brigade may engage in riverine combat and operations to deal with significant bodies of water.

In Eastern and Central Europe, an advancing or retreating army can expect to meet a six- meter wide water obstacle every 20 kilometers, up to a 100 meter-wide water obstacle
every 35-60 kilometers, a 100 to 300 meter wide obstacle every 100-150 kilometers and a water obstacle over 300 meters wide every 250-300 kilometers. River crossing capabilities depend, of course, on the width, current, banks, river bottom and surrounding terrain of the river crossing site. The optimum way to cross a river is over an established heavy-duty bridge or in the dead of winter when the river is frozen over solid.

really queer Christmas posted:

Dolphin posted:

I'm actually very proud of [Dolphin for] that series of quotes.

Dolphin posted:

I'm actually very proud of that series of quotes. I modified my opinion based on research.

Homeless Friend posted:

im just here shitposting in the moment and dolphin is hitting that post button looking decades, perhaps centuries, into the future