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Chrungka posted:I'd just like to point out that I really like your framing. again, an extremely bad faith read given that i have posted pretty explicitly that they are murdering civilians. CommieGIR posted:Then what exactly are you arguing about? i said that war crimes aren't surprising and that we had not yet seen anything like bucha elsewhere *to my knowledge,* and i also said i was not surprised by the pow murder stuff either. that's literally it, the rest is posters selectively cutting up posts to imply i'm denying war crimes. Concerned Citizen fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Apr 4, 2022 |
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Apr 4, 2022 23:11
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Concerned Citizen posted:again, an extremely bad faith read given that i have posted pretty explicitly that they are murdering civilians. Then what exactly are you arguing about?
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Apr 4, 2022 23:12
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Concerned Citizen posted:pretty obviously bad faith read of my post. i definitely did not say bucha was because the russians are inept. bucha happened because the people who did it wanted to murder people. i am saying war crimes happen in wars, they are literally inevitable and every single military commits them. sometimes people die because you are a us convoy running 100mph down a highway shooting everything that gets too close to you, as in it's complete indifference to the lives of others such that you are fine with sacrificing them if it means you are less likely to get harmed, and sometimes the crimes are like bucha or my lai where it is people who have a lot of power & guns deciding they want to kill people. Coming back from a weeklong break of this thread and I have to say it is a reasonable stance to take your post that way- the last I saw of this conversation you were advocating for Ukrainian surrender because you could see no reason why Russians would systemically execute civilians.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:16
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Concerned Citizen posted:killing & crippling pows is an atrocity, but it is not a surprise it is happening. nor is it a surprise that russians might murder civilians, because we see it all the time. we do not see rounding up every civilian you can find and killing them very often. what i was talking about in the previous post was "we have not seen other bucha-style massacres but we have seen a lot of war crimes" which as far as i know is correct! but obviously it may end up not being true and we could find more massacres! hopefully that is not the case. As a friend of Russians, but an enemy of Putin's KGB leadership, I beg you to take a good look at what Russia has done in Chechnya, Syria, Donbas and in Ukraine overall. Russian Federation is not committing war crimes like others do, they do it systematically everywhere they go, and blatantly lie about it. They don't massacre everyone all the time, of course, but they don't care what western homonazis think of it so they might as well because Russian public will never know what actually happened. Do you know any other government that has sent a SAM unit to an insurgent area that it created in its neighbour, shot down a civilian liner with 298 people, and then just lied never having anything to do with the case? Because that's what we're dealing with. Do you really want to give Putin the benefit of doubt? If you answer 'yes' then I don't want to give you benefit of doubt.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:17
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Someone alert C-SPAM! I'll take the probe. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 4, 2022 23:18
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I agree the examples given vs. situation presented aren't directly comparable but "Have your moral army explain its virtue to the dead" isn't an invalid point either. I read the post more as "watch any virtue that remains disappear".
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Apr 4, 2022 23:18
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Concerned Citizen posted:again, an extremely bad faith read given that i have posted pretty explicitly that they are murdering civilians. I'm not saying you are denying the war crimes. My contention is that these war crimes are not coincidental to the this particular war, but they are in fact premeditated.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:22
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Despera posted:A great many of these arguments could have been avoided with only a precursory knowledge of russian history in the past 20 years. That's the kicker, everyone thought that Russia was too smart to be this dumb. Coercive economic tactics? Sure. Paramilitary and covert operations to destabilize the country? Absolutely. Aggressive military posturing and political rhetoric to make acceptance of Ukraine into the Western Sphere an unpalatable suggestion? Guaranteed. But to actually launch a full-scale invasion with the intent of regime change...that was a madness very few people predicted ahead of time and only in the week prior to the start date when Russian units moved into advanced positions did we people really start to take the spectre of a wholesale invasion seriously since no one thought Putin was this dumb or deluded. Even if all went as he would have hoped - a complete collapse in 3 days with Zelensky turning tail and running - you had to figure your army would then be bogged down long term in Ukraine doing garrison duty and the West would isolate you economically and you lose your energy meal ticket in the long run.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:22
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MikeC posted:That's the kicker, everyone thought that Russia was too smart to be this dumb. No, some of us had no illusions about Russia being too smart, we just hoped they wouldn't actually do the thing.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:26
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Okan170 posted:Coming back from a weeklong break of this thread and I have to say it is a reasonable stance to take your post that way- the last I saw of this conversation you were advocating for Ukrainian surrender because you could see no reason why Russians would systemically execute civilians. I have literally never said this, ever. You are confusing me with someone else. The closest thing to that was me suggesting that a hypothetical Ukrainian peace deal where they trade NATO, donbas, and Crimea for peace and nothing else was a good deal and in fact that is now not too far away from Ukraine's actual proposals. But I have pretty consistently said surrender is not an option and posters concluding that will end well for Ukraine were mistaken. Chrungka posted:I'm not saying you are denying the war crimes. My contention is that these war crimes are not coincidental to the this particular war, but they are in fact premeditated. If you're asking if I think Putin said "ok go and invade but also kill as many Ukrainians as you can" - no, I don't believe that. If the goal was to do war crimes, they could, quite frankly, do far more. If you want me to say that Russia is guilty because it instigated this war and such crimes were an inevitable part of it, that they are responsible for everything their army does and deserve to be in front of the Hague, and that their army is irredeemably corrupt and more likely to commit war crimes than other armies - absolutely I am on board with that. Concerned Citizen fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Apr 4, 2022 |
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Apr 4, 2022 23:28
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:No, some of us had no illusions about Russia being too smart, we just hoped they wouldn't actually do the thing. US intelligence had been warning the world about Russia's war preparations for months, much to the ridicule of many posters here.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:28
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:No no this is just Georgian prank no war crimes here Read the room. FishBulbia posted:It's a real video you can find, I can't say if whats in it is what it claims to be. its smut either way tho so Im not posting it Charlotte Hornets posted:Yeah the video is bad. Don’t discuss videos you won’t post, that is neither interesting nor helpful to anyone. Tag appropriately, consider putting the link into code blocks so it doesn’t embed in the mobile app, and get on with it - asking people to look up sensational poo poo on their own with the amount of propaganda going about is bad enough that I’ll genuinely start probating for posts like that going forward.* *warning doesn’t apply to stuff like “Twitter is full of dead bodies from Bucha, scroll carefully”.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:34
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Deteriorata posted:US intelligence had been warning the world about Russia's war preparations for months, much to the ridicule of many posters here. Yeah like this is an immensely complicated situation and I don’t blame people for calling some things wrong, but the people who were confidently scoffing that invasion was impossible right up until it happened can eat poo poo forever.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:35
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I dunno. I say anyone who argues that Russia couldn’t have done a thing because they are not cartoonishly evil, then is repeatedly proven wrong and ignores this when it is rightfully shoved back in their face is an evil cartoon themselves and should be ignored. QED: Someone who doesn’t remember what they said yesterday either spouts a lot of bullshit or is out to cause trouble.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:35
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MikeC posted:That's the kicker, everyone thought that Russia was too smart to be this dumb. On behalf of the entire body politic of the Baltics and the Warsaw Pact, I beg to differ.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:41
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 the video. dude was dead no matter what, but not exactly a mercy killRussian chud telegram account warning as well. https://t.me/azmilitary11/1169
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Apr 4, 2022 23:45
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Concerned Citizen posted:If you're asking if I think Putin said "ok go and invade but also kill as many Ukrainians as you can" - no, I don't believe that. If the goal was to do war crimes, they could, quite frankly, do far more. If you want me to say that Russia is guilty because it instigated this war and such crimes were an inevitable part of it, that they are responsible for everything their army does and deserve to be in front of the Hague, and that their army is irredeemably corrupt and more likely to commit war crimes than other armies - absolutely I am on board with that. Man you consistently goes beyond willfully ignorant to downplay Russian war-crimes and their intended Ukrainian genocide. The Russians went in with lists of undesirables, 45000 bodybags and updated manuals for mass graves. They have in all other modern conflicts committed ethnic cleansings. Mass murder, rapes and torture of Ukrainian civilians have been reported from all liberated areas. How much more proof do you need?
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Apr 4, 2022 23:45
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Maybe I fully had the wrong read but I did have the impression that popular support actually existed in some amounts among the Russian incursions pre-invasion of Ukraine, making this invasion different; completely disregarding the support Russia claims it has, because that's obvious bullshit. That makes clairvoyance difficult.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:49
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Deteriorata posted:US intelligence had been warning the world about Russia's war preparations for months, much to the ridicule of many posters here. Making it look like you are going to invade is a prerequisite to applying pressure diplomatically. US intelligence repeatedly warned about the possibility of an invasion and that the disposition of Russian Forces was not in line with an exercise. It was only the week prior to the invasion (when they detected Russian medical equipment being forward deployed) that it became conclusive to them. Crosswell posted:I dunno. I say anyone who argues that Russia couldn’t have done a thing because they are not cartoonishly evil, then is repeatedly proven wrong and ignores this when it is rightfully shoved back in their face is an evil cartoon themselves and should be ignored. Not saying bad things haven't happened but everyone should keep in mind that you should also not take Ukrainian claims at face value either. It will take some time for third parties to investigate all claims thoroughly.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:52
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The new Study of War update for the day is up https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1511108136551297030?s=20&t=WGtlo98L8LiOKYZNTdjm4g Linky: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-4 Interesting bits quote:Russian forces continue to make little to no progress in frontal assaults to capture Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, their current main effort of the war. Russian units in Donbas face growing morale and supply issues. Additionally, the Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol have outperformed ISW’s previous estimates and continue to hold the city. Russian efforts to generate replacements from reservists and feed damaged units from northeastern Ukraine into frontal assaults in eastern Ukraine are unlikely to increase their chances of success. Just the overall picture map  edit: to timg jesus those pictures are huge
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Apr 4, 2022 23:53
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:No, some of us had no illusions about Russia being too smart, we just hoped they wouldn't actually do the thing. Yes. I recall discussing this topic with an old friend who also follows international news (we're Belgians, if it matters), and while we agreed that Putin's stated goal of "not letting Ukraine become a NATO member" had already been achieved by the frozen Donbas conflicts and the Crimean annexation, neither of us were sure that Russia's leadership was still rational enough to not actually go one step beyond and simply invade. On a more personal note: my best friend's husband is Russian, and he has Russian, Ukrainian as well as Tatar ancestry, with friends and family members living both in Russia and Ukraine. The war hasn't only torn his family apart, he's getting messages from friends who are desperate to escape Russia but can't, some friends of friends who are committing suicide because they see everything as hopeless, and some others who are afraid Russia could descend into a civil war. The reasoning behind the latter is as follows: "If it becomes just as big a crime to speak the truth as to bomb a police office, I'm going to bomb a police office." Take this with a grain of salt, this is just hearsay from my friend's Russian husband. Still, the poor guy is going through a massive identity crisis right now. He feels ashamed to go out in public and fears he may never see his mother again, who lives in Kazan. He's still a Russian citizen and of fighting age (he's ~35) so obviously as long as Putin is in power, he won't set another foot on Russian soil.
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Apr 4, 2022 23:59
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KitConstantine posted:The new Study of War update for the day is up The thing that caught my eye is the report that they may be deploying officers in training and training instructors to plug the losses in C2. Thats really eating your planting seeds and if a material amount of those get killed, they wont be able to training officers in the quantity and quality they need.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:01
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Unless you were crushing and snorting RT 2014 was an invasion that putin got of consequence free.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:04
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ummel posted:
Thanks, and yeah looks like a summary execution, regardless of if the victim was on the way out, or that at least some people in the background implored shooter to gently caress off.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:07
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Someone posted earlier about how no one in Russia would believe about war crimes. In this Putin era, yes, sure, but from my memory in the '90s poo poo like that showed up on the news there. It was a very different time. Despite all the awfulness of the '90s the press was much better.Pope Hilarius II posted:Take this with a grain of salt, this is just hearsay from my friend's Russian husband. Still, the poor guy is going through a massive identity crisis right now. He feels ashamed to go out in public and fears he may never see his mother again, who lives in Kazan. He's still a Russian citizen and of fighting age (he's ~35) so obviously as long as Putin is in power, he won't set another foot on Russian soil. This varies wildly. I am Russian living in the US, and my main source in the old country is also ~35 but very pro-Putin and believes the state propaganda. His understanding is that he shares the dominant view of the public. It's not so much "pro-war" but explicitly "pro-Putin." We can't agree on ground facts about the conflict at all re: nazis, biolabs etc. He is a middle class, well educated computer toucher. In a way the whole country has been held hostage by Putin for decades, and I just don't see a way out for them. I don't mean to minimize the horrors of Ukraine of course, but Russia is mega-hosed.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:18
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FishBulbia posted:https://twitter.com/ELINTNews/status/1511059265905172485
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Apr 5, 2022 00:22
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Having trouble corroborating but I'm seeing people saying this is reused footage from 2014, those are regimental patches of a unit based out of Kerch who surrendered when the Russians rolled into Crimea. unfortunately, with Russian war news, it could be a legitimate headline where they subbed in some snappy archival footage because the real footage was bad. Because lol.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:23
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:unfortunately, with Russian war news, it could be a legitimate headline where they subbed in some snappy archival footage because the real footage was bad. Because lol. It's just as likely that it's Russian psyops, trying to convince the remaining units that others are surrendering so they may as well, too. I don't see any confirmation of this so I'll stick with bullshit until I do.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:25
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Thanks, and yeah looks like a summary execution, regardless of if the victim was on the way out, or that at least some people in the background implored shooter to gently caress off. One of the guys clearly has his hands bound too SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Having trouble corroborating but I'm seeing people saying this is reused footage from 2014, those are regimental patches of a unit based out of Kerch who surrendered when the Russians rolled into Crimea. Definitely not that. UA kit looked way less digital in 2014. Nor were Kadyrovtsi on the ground in 2014.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:28
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The formative experience of many, many Russians from either childhood or early adulthood, is the chaos and poverty of the 90s. Putin is, however fairly, associated with the end of that and the return of relative stability. You really can't understand his appeal without understanding that.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:30
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pokie posted:This varies wildly. I am Russian living in the US, and my main source in the old country is also ~35 but very pro-Putin and believes the state propaganda. His understanding is that he shares the dominant view of the public. It's not so much "pro-war" but explicitly "pro-Putin." We can't agree on ground facts about the conflict at all re: nazis, biolabs etc. He is a middle class, well educated computer toucher. In a way the whole country has been held hostage by Putin for decades, and I just don't see a way out for them. I don't mean to minimize the horrors of Ukraine of course, but Russia is mega-hosed. That... is a massive problem. If the people of Russia are unable to see Putin as the cause of their problems they will continue to point their rage at everyone else. Which gets extra bad when their lives get worse and worse as nearly every amenity disappears over the next year and jobs dry up. Even if their army is gutted they will remain extremely dangerous, and will get more dangerous if we just let them brood for years after this. Putin needs to go, and I was very much hoping his own people would make that happen. Cause if they don't, we're going to be left with either the consequences of taking him out ourselves, or let Russia copy-pasta Germany circa 1918-1938. Both of those options are very, very bad. Orthanc6 fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Apr 5, 2022 |
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Apr 5, 2022 00:32
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FishBulbia posted:Definitely not that. UA kit looked way less digital in 2014. Nor were Kadyrovtsi on the ground in 2014.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:35
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^^ IIRC 2014 camo was non-pixel and dark green. A lot of the patches got changed since then, sometimes more than once. Dunno about the marines, though. Wagner recently got deployed to Donbass, let's see what they have been up to right before: https://twitter.com/ElianPeltier/status/1511114254925111306 Oh. Edit #2: the Ukrainian naval infantry badge wiki has looks like one of the recent ones, though may be some of the subunits are using older ones for specific battalion or whatever: 
OddObserver fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Apr 5, 2022 |
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Apr 5, 2022 00:36
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Deteriorata posted:It's just as likely that it's Russian psyops, trying to convince the remaining units that others are surrendering so they may as well, too. There’s supposed speech video, with the same group of people (poo poo account, I know): https://twitter.com/spriter99880/status/1511083491626303489 What I’m cautious about is that we have no geolocation for either of this, and uniforms have no markings on them - coat of arms, insignias, name/rank/unit patches, and likewise these supposed prisoners have neither Ukrainian IFF armbands, nor anything else to distinguish them from generic LDNR chums wearing ragtag poo poo from half the world. I could stage something like this in Latvia, and you would only need to send me a Chechen demagogue.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:37
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MikeC posted:That's the kicker, everyone thought that Russia was too smart to be this dumb. Coercive economic tactics? Sure. Paramilitary and covert operations to destabilize the country? Absolutely. Aggressive military posturing and political rhetoric to make acceptance of Ukraine into the Western Sphere an unpalatable suggestion? Guaranteed. But to actually launch a full-scale invasion with the intent of regime change...that was a madness very few people predicted ahead of time and only in the week prior to the start date when Russian units moved into advanced positions did we people really start to take the spectre of a wholesale invasion seriously since no one thought Putin was this dumb or deluded. Even if all went as he would have hoped - a complete collapse in 3 days with Zelensky turning tail and running - you had to figure your army would then be bogged down long term in Ukraine doing garrison duty and the West would isolate you economically and you lose your energy meal ticket in the long run. It was pretty apparent as far back as December to those who understood the signals that Russia was seriously intending to go to war. Putin started publicly issuing ultimatums that was obviously unacceptable to everyone else, and you don't do that if you have any serious intent to negotiate. See for example this thread for some pretty good analysis from back then: https://twitter.com/dalperovitch/status/1473362460673515527?s=21&t=xDXm4z-JynE_-ZTbf32ewQ
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Apr 5, 2022 00:48
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Orthanc6 posted:That... is a massive problem. If the people of Russia are unable to see Putin as the cause of their problems they will continue to point their rage at everyone else. Which gets extra bad when their lives get worse and worse as nearly every amenity disappears over the next year and jobs up. Even if their army is gutted they will remain extremely dangerous, and will get more dangerous if we just let them brood for years after this. Yeah, the stuff people have been posting about how public sentiment is completely buying in to the "war is going great" propaganda definitely seems like it would lead to all the same problems as post-WWI Germany. That said, I'm also not really sure to what extent Russia could really pivot into that scale of war posture given the degree to which they have failed to maintain their military to this point - unless Hungary, China, and the rest of the uncommitted countries decide they want to throw in with them, I'm not sure how they can reasonably build up a conventional military from where they are at. Not that it makes them any less dangerous, of course, because it'll just accelerate the existing game of nuclear chicken if they don't have anything else to lash out with. No real solution to that, because I don't see any future version of Russia agreeing to give up the nukes when they are so clearly the only reason they haven't already had their nose broken for all this poo poo.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:49
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Yes russian demands were so absurd youd have to be nuts to think putin was serious about negotiation Also anyone going "nobody would be that stupid" to future events seems to be missing most of human history Despera fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Apr 5, 2022 |
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Apr 5, 2022 00:53
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6WxGN3fTSU Some documentary/interview with a Ukrainian soldier of the battle/skirmish in Gostomel (town) on 03.03 with English subs (a bit sloppy). Might have seen the images of the aftermath already of a smashed up Russian unit.
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Apr 5, 2022 00:55
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Barrel Cactaur posted:
According to my Indian friends, Modi is following Putin's footsteps by allowing the wealthy to destroy India's economy with favouritism and corruption. The Indian economy on paper is already smaller than the EU, how much capacity does India really have?
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Apr 5, 2022 01:04
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While pro-Putin support is high right now, I can't help but wonder what will happen when the veterans from the front lines start coming back home with stories of chaos, loss, and retreat. Or not at all. That seems hard to entirely suppress. I'm not claiming that this would necessarily end in Putin's overthrow, though, because those stories might go in multiple ways. Will the soldiers have developed a scapegoat, like "It's all that bastard Shoigu's fault, Russia can't live in peace as long as the traitor lives"? Could they have doubled down on the "Ukrainians are monsters, they poison us and hunt us like animals, even the children" rhetoric? Will they become committed pacifists, or demand a march on Moscow? There's probably a lot going on in the heads of the lower level soldiers and officers of the Russian Army now. I wonder what they're thinking and will continue to think when they go home to meet a narrative far different from what they've seen?
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Apr 5, 2022 01:08
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