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https://mobile.twitter.com/azamatistan/status/1590846401675919360 Nice write from a Qazaq-American sociologist, a bit more subtle than my usual "Russians be racist against Ukrainians" line, but not really disagreeing in substance. Highlighting a small portion: https://mobile.twitter.com/azamatistan/status/1590846415932358665
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Nov 11, 2022 20:49
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| # ? May 25, 2024 00:37 |
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I love how Russians live in a visibly decaying corrupt failure of a country and then assume everyone else should be grateful to get their help.
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Nov 11, 2022 20:58
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Pook Good Mook posted:I love how Russians live in a visibly decaying corrupt failure of a country and then assume everyone else should be grateful to get their help. It very strongly reminds me of an old joke about the entertainment industry: Hedda Hopper posted:I liked this one about a man who’d been taking care of elephants in a circus 25 years. He fed, bedded them down, did everything, then the number of elephants was doubled. After a month of this he was in a state of exhaustion. His wife said to him, "Why not give it up and get another job that’s easier." He screamed, "What! And leave show business?"
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Nov 11, 2022 21:03
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HonorableTB posted:Cinci be honest, did you have that entire string of railroad station towns memorized at hand or did you have to look it up? Because that would be quite impressive Of course I didn’t, don’t be ridiculous. I just spent some time looking at railroad maps of Ukraine a few weeks ago, when we had a conversation about potential first objectives on Zaporizhzhia front. Unfortunately, the map I’ve been most particular to does not reflect the post-2014 state of the network.
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Nov 11, 2022 21:05
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In fairness every Russian over 40 has lived in a world in which Russia spent an enormous amount of money subsidizing the economies of the states around it and all they got for it was "please stop sending tanks to shoot the people protesting the brutal client government you are imposing on us". Never forget the reason the USSR fell apart wasn't primarily because the periphery wanted independence and the subsidies to stop flowing, it was because Russians decided that it didn't make any sense to keep paying for an Empire that hated them for it.
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Nov 11, 2022 21:07
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OddObserver posted:https://mobile.twitter.com/azamatistan/status/1590846401675919360 In case you don't want to read the rest of this guy's thread on the dying birdsite, a brief precis is that Russia still believes in its own special version of "The White Man's Burden".
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Nov 11, 2022 21:07
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:In case you don't want to read the rest of this guy's thread on the dying birdsite, a brief precis is that Russia still believes in its own special version of "The White Man's Burden". You can also read it in a more convenient form on the threadreader thing here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1590846401675919360.html I think he's basically correct about that, plus in the case of Ukraine they've also been pushing the nazis!! alarm for almost a decade so combined it's pretty effective. Also holy poo poo Kherson, I haven't been following closely for a bit and that's loving huge. Really good news.
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Nov 11, 2022 21:27
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TulliusCicero posted:So how much fight can Russia possibly have it with Kherson liberated? Are they just going to retreat to the breakaway regions and Crimea now? Isn't the Ukrainian military pushing on Donestk and Luhansk even harder now with the south liberated? The decision to leave was one from high command, not as a result of Russian soldiers refusing or being incapable of holding the Ukrainians back. There are no stories of masses of Russian PoWs or bodies being discovered on the ferry or pontoon sites. It appears the best units in Kherson were withdrawn intact, maybe minus some heavy equipment. Elsewhere on the front, both sides are continuing attacks with minor degrees of success. In the Donetsk region, Russian attacks continue to make very minor, but measurable progress in places like Bilohirvka and Donetsk city (the airport appears to have changed hands again). Undoubtedly, the Russians lost men and vehicles in Kherson, but it increasingly looks like they were either unable or unwilling to risk troops in order to really put the screws to the Russians and bag a whole ton of them. The 20k Russians trapped is obviously not a thing anymore. Maybe when all is said and done you will get 1k surrendered or captured in civilian clothing or something. This war isn't going anywhere anytime soon on the account of battlefield results.
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Nov 11, 2022 21:28
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It'll be interesting to see what happens to the other fronts in the coming days. Now that Kherson is liberated and the western front is pretty much secure, the HIMARS are moving on to new hunting grounds https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1591166221839663104
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Nov 11, 2022 21:37
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Chalks posted:It'll be interesting to see what happens to the other fronts in the coming days. Now that Kherson is liberated and the western front is pretty much secure, the HIMARS are moving on to new hunting grounds The nomadic HIMARS follows the herd of its preferred prey, the Russian Colonel.
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Nov 11, 2022 21:40
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:In case you don't want to read the rest of this guy's thread on the dying birdsite, a brief precis is that Russia still believes in its own special version of "The White Man's Burden". It actually reminds me a lot of Japan's attitude in the late 19th, early 20th century when they started their colonial campaign in East Asia under the guise of throwing off the yoke of Western domination. In return for liberation all the conquered Asian nations would recognize their place in the hierarchy of peoples under their benevolent betters, the Japanese Empire. Any attempt to assert independence was seen as an attempt to thwart the natural order of things and was met with violence.
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Nov 11, 2022 21:47
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Of course I didnt, dont be ridiculous. I just spent some time looking at railroad maps of Ukraine a few weeks ago, when we had a conversation about potential first objectives on Zaporizhzhia front. Unfortunately, the map Ive been most particular to does not reflect the post-2014 state of the network. It's not as ridiculous if you have ever encountered a community of hardcore train enthusiasts or people who play train sims and see what they're capable of as far as that goes https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1590458468502323200?s=20&t=LBfj9jRfcpTtHeq5xQYM-A I wonder if this would explain the chaotic retreat from Kherson. It would make sense if the decision was hinging on a large GOP majority so the execution would need to be able to start on a whim, but as it seems that nobody got around to informing the troops that they were retreating before Surovikin and Shoigu announced it, it appears that Russia's military is not capable of this level of coordination. This is an organizational catastrophe HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 21:48
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Not everything's about US politics. It seems a little farfetched to me, and there isn't any real evidence that pullbacks weren't happening before the election. In fact to be remotely successful - and it looks like so far they were successful - the Russians would have had to start drawing down weeks ago. And there was OSINT to that effect at the time.
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Nov 11, 2022 22:00
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A gop majority would not have entered office for two more months anyways though
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Nov 11, 2022 22:01
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First image I've seen of the dam bridge - Russians blew the bridge but not the whole dam https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1591157219420033024?t=UljfTDfGnxav_ho1NyaLfg&s=19
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Nov 11, 2022 22:17
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Chalks posted:It'll be interesting to see what happens to the other fronts in the coming days. Now that Kherson is liberated and the western front is pretty much secure, the HIMARS are moving on to new hunting grounds It's got to take more than a few days to consolidate such a big advance, right? The lines have to stabilize, new weak spots have to be uncovered, units have to be rebuilt and relocated, and that's all without factoring in winter. Taking Kherson feels like the last big goal of the two-pronged Summer offensive, and that needed a lot of lead-up. Even if the winter doesn't become a total stalemate, things are bound to slow down for a bit.
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Nov 11, 2022 22:25
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There's relatively little pressure to advance, if you told us months ago that the Ukrainians would liberate Kherson by the end of the year that would seem incredibly optimistic. There's some question about whether Russia can translate its mobilization into effective combat power over the winter, but either way Ukraine needs a few months to prepare the Mechanized forces for another offensive in the east. They've won the victories they need to ensure western support keeps flowing for next year.
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Nov 11, 2022 22:39
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Dolash posted:It's got to take more than a few days to consolidate such a big advance, right? The lines have to stabilize, new weak spots have to be uncovered, units have to be rebuilt and relocated, and that's all without factoring in winter. To an extent, but there wasn't much heavy fighting to take all the territory north of Kherson, they were pretty much rolling through abandoned ground unopposed. Kherson is also quite easily defensible thanks to the river so they won't need to spend as much time digging defensive lines, just a lot of cleanup: bridge building and de-mining. It's also unlikely that Russia will stage a ground offensive against Kherson in the near future. I'd imagine they'd station a defensive force there and transfer the rest to other fronts: Attacking south from Zaporizhzhia or shoring up other fronts in the Donbass. No idea what kind of numbers they have in each location or the state of them though so it's idle speculation. I'd expect them to hold Kherson as a defensive line rather than push out from it right away though.
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Nov 11, 2022 22:45
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Dolash posted:It's got to take more than a few days to consolidate such a big advance, right? The lines have to stabilize, new weak spots have to be uncovered, units have to be rebuilt and relocated, and that's all without factoring in winter. It does seem that way (referring to the summer goals) and assures the West that Ukraine is not a complete monetary black hole. There's some talk of the elections and Republican house causing issues for the future, but the reality is that the military defense lobby holds a tremendous amount of sway, especially over Republicans. I wouldn't be doom and gloom on support for the next year. For those saying the U.S. is being given too much credit and attention, I would like to point to this graph. As Anders Puck Nielson also said (my favorite analyst), the winter could result in drafted Russian soldiers receiving needed training. He says it "could" be an incentive to keep pushing.
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Nov 11, 2022 22:47
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Morrow posted:There's relatively little pressure to advance, if you told us months ago that the Ukrainians would liberate Kherson by the end of the year that would seem incredibly optimistic. There's some question about whether Russia can translate its mobilization into effective combat power over the winter, but either way Ukraine needs a few months to prepare the Mechanized forces for another offensive in the east. They've won the victories they need to ensure western support keeps flowing for next year. Hell we had optimistic people in this thread saying "Not until the end of the year at best" within the last two weeks. Also, it looks like a major corporation's CEO is in for a bad time, having been caught helping the invasion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFkq5X_yZf0 The video is about this group's investigation into the corp and that the CEO and another employee have been arrested for presumably collaboration.
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Nov 11, 2022 22:48
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Kchama posted:Hell we had optimistic people in this thread saying "Not until the end of the year at best" within the last two weeks. Note that it's not just a "major corporation", it's the one that makes military helicopter engines.
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Nov 11, 2022 22:54
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Dolash posted:It's got to take more than a few days to consolidate such a big advance, right? The lines have to stabilize, new weak spots have to be uncovered, units have to be rebuilt and relocated, and that's all without factoring in winter. Yeah, but HIMARS aren't needed for that, they were likely on the way to the eastern front as soon as the extent of Russia's retreat was clear. I'm not saying we'll see another offensive, but there's already an ongoing offensive in the north east by Ukraine and Russia continues to apply pressure further south. Another 10-15 HIMARS turning up will change the dynamics there. It's a two way street obviously since a bunch of Russian forces are free now too, but they will take much longer to be redeployed so I think we will see some more changes before things stabalize again.
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Nov 11, 2022 23:21
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Seems like The Netherlands, who are transitioning to the F-35, will give some of their old F-16's to Bulgaria, which in turn can give their MiG-29's to Ukraine. https://www.novinite.com/articles/217494/The+Netherlands+may+give+Bulgaria+old+F-16s+in+exchange+for+MiG-29s+for+Ukraine
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Nov 11, 2022 23:26
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Not everything's about US politics. It seems a little farfetched to me, and there isn't any real evidence that pullbacks weren't happening before the election. In fact to be remotely successful - and it looks like so far they were successful - the Russians would have had to start drawing down weeks ago. And there was OSINT to that effect at the time. They were already withdrawing as far back as almost 5 weeks ago when the first mobiks started rotating into Kherson. The potential significant thing wrt non-local timelines is the timing of the announcement and when they gave the final order to pull everything out at the end, which appears to have been November 6th and 9th respectively. There isn't a good answer to why Russia insisted on holding kherson for so long despite the situation wrt resupplying it having been determined months ago. The first attacks on the bridges were mid July, for reference and Russian nationalists had been complaining about political considerations superseding military considerations. Ultimately it doesn't matter and it's just something to ponder until we have a better explanation for why the Russian timeline wrt Kherson makes little sense. Notably the withdrawal, both in general and in it's final announcement and terminal stage of implementation, doesn't appear connected to any apparent change in the military situation. Much of the how why and when of Russian decision-making around Kherson resists attempts to make obvious sense of it and the Russian reaction to surrendering Kherson without any final fight reflects that. Frankly I was quite skeptical of the idea that the election would have any impact on the Russian timeline up until actually seeing the reaction to the election. In any event it is pretty immaterial at this point. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 23:28
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I haven't looked real hard but I haven't seen any footage of potential crossings being attacked. Is it safe to say that this was a pretty orderly withdrawal with minimal losses at this point?
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Nov 12, 2022 00:01
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Bashez posted:I haven't looked real hard but I haven't seen any footage of potential crossings being attacked. Is it safe to say that this was a pretty orderly withdrawal with minimal losses at this point? I think that minimal losses is not something that you can or should prove or disprove at this point, but the longer there’s a lack of evidence to the contrary, the more credible a controlled withdrawal scenario becomes indeed.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:03
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I'd assume nothing at this point, yeah. Also separate from the question of the last night or two, Ukraine has been hitting the crossings more or less at will for much of the last couple of months and there's ample video evidence of that and a bunch of prominent casualties (including some very convenient hits on RT personnel) to attest that the crossings have been risky. eg (no gore or anything, just bridge/pontoons taking very direct hits)  https://twitter.com/Seveerity/status/1585325934181494784
Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Nov 12, 2022 |
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Nov 12, 2022 00:05
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Bashez posted:I haven't looked real hard but I haven't seen any footage of potential crossings being attacked. Is it safe to say that this was a pretty orderly withdrawal with minimal losses at this point? We may be in for some interesting footage of the areas that were being hit with artillery during the retreat last night, I don't think we've seen what state the docks are in or the staging areas for the ferries and pontoon bridges. That said, footage of Russian soldiers calmly walking across the pontoon bridge this morning is the best evidence I've seen yet that it was not a rout. A good thread from DefMon here about what a successful retreat by Russia means for the wider war https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1591192952923369472
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Nov 12, 2022 00:06
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If there really were tens of thousand troops there, then they either disappeared overnight, or were never there in the first place. Some may have donned civilian clothes but surely you can't hide so many troops that way.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:07
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spankmeister posted:If there really were tens of thousand troops there, then they either disappeared overnight, or were never there in the first place. Some may have donned civilian clothes but surely you can't hide so many troops that way. Those figures came from pro Russian sources, so there may have been an element of psyops going on. It was mentioned before that it was crazy for Russia to announce a withdrawal beforehand, and the evidence now points to them having already withdrawn the bulk of their forces by the time they did that.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:10
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What's going to be next after Kherson? With winter approaching, is everyone just going to hunker down? I am suspecting that for November and December things will slow as the terrain won't be ideal, but can't we expect things to pick up once the ground freeze are units are equipped for winter? On another note, do we think we'll actually see a huge Spring push from Russia once all the new recruits are trained and equipped? I'm having a hard time seeing that with all the morale and equipment problems.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:10
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spankmeister posted:If there really were tens of thousand troops there, then they either disappeared overnight, or were never there in the first place. Some may have donned civilian clothes but surely you can't hide so many troops that way. I'd imagine the civilians could bring in some clarity about the extent of the occupation over the comming days. They don't really have an incentive to be silent about that after all.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:12
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Chalks posted:It'll be interesting to see what happens to the other fronts in the coming days. Now that Kherson is liberated and the western front is pretty much secure, the HIMARS are moving on to new hunting grounds I counted something like 10 or 11 HIMARS here. Isn't that like the majority that Ukraine has? Also it's amazing how well some people can geolocate things based on very little photo/video evidence so I feel like any Ukrainian taking videos of HIMARS is seriously risking giving up their locations.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:17
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Charliegrs posted:I counted something like 10 or 11 HIMARS here. Isn't that like the majority that Ukraine has? They're moving out from the location, and probably were there half a week ago when it was first filmed. This isn't the same as seeing live footage/BDA of HIMARS strikes or whatever as provided by Russian conscripts.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:20
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awful lot of leaves on those trees
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Nov 12, 2022 00:22
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:What's going to be next after Kherson? I think there's a possibility we see something significant in the north. Ukraine has been slowly pushing towards Svator in an attempt to cut off Kreminna. If Ukraine can break through this defensive line, there's a decent chance Russia will decide to withdraw from the majority of Luhansk Oblast. Although there are defensive lines they could form further back, there's not really anything of strategic value beyond them - it's mostly small villages, swamps and farmland to the Russian boarder - so holding this line would just stretch Russian forces for no real reason. There are reports that they've been building defences in locations that support this theory: https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1591211602652856320 https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1582861415500873729 This would be politically devastating though, so they may just defend the area on principal. Charliegrs posted:I counted something like 10 or 11 HIMARS here. Isn't that like the majority that Ukraine has? Yeah, there's no way it's a recent video - they wouldn't risk revealing the location of the assets - I just enjoyed the footage of a whole load of HIMARS rolling out. We know there are a significant number of HIMARS involved in the Kherson operation since they were being used to regularly hit the crossing points, so at least some of them are likely heading elsewhere and will make some impact. Ukraine has 26 HIMARS and 16 M270 which are effectively the same Chalks fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Nov 12, 2022 |
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Nov 12, 2022 00:23
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Charliegrs posted:I counted something like 10 or 11 HIMARS here. Isn't that like the majority that Ukraine has? It's a video of HIMARS--I'm not sure it's necessarily even Ukrainian HIMARS, much less taken recently--kind of doubt they would put that many in one place now.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:31
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for anyone unaware, Ukraine fairly regularly releases, like, representative footage that most often is from training or months earlier or sometimes is from a country or two over. Most common give away is the lack of yellow/blue operational markings
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Nov 12, 2022 00:35
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:What's going to be next after Kherson? There won't be any major offences in spring because the mud won't allow it. Attacking in spring was what doomed the Kiev offensive in the first place. Fighting may pick up in the dead of winter when the ground freezes.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:39
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It really seems to me that Putin is quickly running out of options, and this is quickly becoming one enormous sunk cost fallacy.
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