Zudgemud posted:

Russia has invaded modern day Sweden multiple times, most famously during the great northern war where they burnt and pillaged all of the Swedish east coast because Sweden, as usual, lost their armies and fleets. The latest invasion was in 1809 in the same war that had Sweden lose all eastern territory up to a few hours boat trip from the capital.

It's also somewhat of a false dichotomy considering the vast amount of Russian attacks were on the Eastern half of Sweden that bordered Russia. Which is to say modern day Finland, which was an integral part of the swedish kingdom for like 600-800 years depending on how you define the swedish kingdom. It's like saying the Sasanian empire never invaded the Roman empire/s because they didn't invade the Italian peninsula.

Some Guy TT posted:

https://twitter.com/ajwsmall/status/1639293399328063488

i for one am comforted to learn that france and germany are only playing along with chinas morally offensive peacemongering plan because theyre engaging in fifth dimensional chess

mila kunis posted:

I think in the following years Bakhmut is going to be seen as this war's Stalingrad moment. This is where the tide irrevocably turned

euphronius posted:

ukriane are the Nazis in this analogy right

mila kunis posted:

The ukrainian nazis trope has been debunked for over a year and half now

mila kunis posted:

The ukrainian nazis trope has been debunked for over a year and half now

dk2m posted:

I’m so tired of europes poo poo. these motherfuckers spent hundreds of years colonizing the world, and to this day france still colonizes vast swaths of west Africa. the amount of racism and sheer stupidity the elites possess is mind boggling. they literally cannot fathom an Asian power being much more capable and having a vastly bigger GDP - they still treat China as if it’s a chess piece

I can’t wait for France to collapse into irrelevancy, they’re nearly there to be honest.

genericnick posted:

I honestly am a bit surprised at all the positive noise about the Xi visit we get out of the Euros. Might be a sign that while they are forced by their own support structure to talk like deranged psychos a lot of them might actually be desperate to find some way out.

mila kunis posted:

The ukrainian nazis trope has been debunked for over a year and half now

quote:

The strategic significance of Bakhmut may be questioned but Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky's visit to the front line there on Wednesday showed how much the Donetsk city matters.

Zelensky's appearance followed his insistence that Kyiv would continue the fight there against Moscow's forces spearheaded by the Wagner mercenaries of Yevgeny Prigozhin. It was thought to only be a matter of time before Bakhmut would fall as Prigozhin claimed his troops had surrounded it on three sides but Kyiv's forces continue to hold.

On the same day Zelensky pinned medals on his troops near the front and held a moment of silence to honor the fallen, U.K. defense officials said that Russia's campaign in Bakhmut is probably losing momentum. It means after starting a much-anticipated offensive in late January, Russian forces are leaving the winter months with minimal gains and huge losses of men and equipment.

"The so-called Russian offensive was really just more of the same—pushing unlucky conscripts into the meat grinder and continuing to launch missiles against civilian targets," said Ben Hodges, former commanding general of the United States Army Europe.

"They did none of the things you would have expected from a major offensive," he told Newsweek. "There were no deep strikes by the Russian Air Force against the line of communication that brings equipment and ammunition from Poland into Ukraine."

"The Navy did nothing except to sail out and launch missiles against apartment buildings. I think that the Russians really just don't have anything left right now with which they could launch any kind of an offensive," added Hodges, a senior advisor for Human Rights First. "They are probably now in the phase of solidifying what they have and hope that it gets to a negotiated settlement. I don't get the sense there is much else they can do."

While he said that Wagner units had added depth to Russian forces and did have capable units at the start of the war, Hodges did not think they have helped Moscow's war effort, describing them as "divisive and disruptive."

Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to Vladimir Putin, has repeatedly criticized the Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu and war commander Valery Gerasimov, lamenting that he was not being given enough ammunition.

"Prigozhin's constant criticism of Shoigu and Gerasimov has demonstrated the really significant lack of cohesion inside the Russian General Staff and the joint command structure," said Hodges.

Ukraine's daily assessment of Russian losses in the war has indicated a trend of increasing casualties, even if the figures are far higher than Western estimates and have not been independently verified.

The bloody battle for Bakhmut looks to be driving that spike, with British diplomat Ian Stubbs saying on March 15 that up to 30,000 Wagner and regular Russian troops have been killed or injured—around 800 casualties for every kilometer gained during the offensive.

"On the Russian side of the equation, it's also a bit puzzling why so much has been poured into this fight," said Andrew Weiss, vice president on the Russia and Eurasia program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"I'm persuaded by indications that Yevgeny Prigozhin saw Bakhmut as a potential easy win that would allow him to feather his nest with senior leaders in Moscow who are eager to show that Russia is making progress," he told Newsweek.

"While the Russian military leadership are no fans of Prigozhin or Wagner, they are smart enough to recognize that using this unconventional force to grind down the Ukrainian side plays to Russia's overall advantage."

However, Ukraine's forces have also suffered high losses, even if Kyiv says for every one of its soldiers killed, Russia loses seven.

"Russia doesn't have the skills to do a big ugly offensive," said Glen Grant, a military analyst from the Baltic Security Foundation. "What they are going to do is push hard somewhere and force Ukraine to move its reserves."

"So they are going to use mass to move around the battlefield and it may not always be somewhere where we want it to be," he told Newsweek, noting that Russian forces have "killed a lot of Ukrainians."

Ukrainian infantrymen told the Kyiv Independent this week that poorly trained battalions are being thrown into the front line with little support from armored vehicles, mortars, artillery, drones and tactical information.

"Who is now in the stronger position depends on how severely the Russian attacks have eroded Ukraine's ability to launch a counteroffensive later this year," said Paul D'Anieri, author of Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War. "We do not know exactly what Ukraine's losses have been or how that will impact Ukraine's ability to go on the offensive."

"If the result of these attacks is that Ukraine cannot sustain a major offensive, and if Russia is satisfied with holding the territory it has, rather than seizing more, these battles might be seen as a strategic victory for Russia," added D'Anieri, political science professor at the University of California, Riverside.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that instead of continuing to attack the Bakhmut area where it had achieved such little success in previous months, and where Ukrainians were strongest, "the Russians might have aimed at a point that was weaker."

"It is still hard to believe that Bakhmut will hold out since it is nearly surrounded," he told Newsweek. "Tactically, the fall of the city will produce only a minor victory for Russia. The Ukrainians will fall back a few miles and build a new defensive line.

"Psychologically, however, occupying the city would give Russia propaganda points as the first tangible success of its post-mobilization offensive."

A sunk cost fallacy and a reluctance not to give the other side a PR edge could be driving the continued fight for the city. But heading into spring, both sides are waiting for factors to change—Russia with more mobilized troops and Ukraine with Western arms.

Zelensky says his troops will continue to fight for Bakhmut because if it fell, Russian forces could head to Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and other towns in the Donetsk oblast.

In any case, the spoils of a Russian victory in Bakhmut are likely to be minimal.

"The city does not have the infrastructure to support an occupying force because the Russians have reduced it to rubble," said Mark Temnycky, a Ukrainian-American who is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.

"Russia has lost a lot of manpower and military equipment in an area where they have failed to make significant advances in over six months," he told Newsweek. "It will take time for Russia to rebuild from these losses, and they do not have time."

Regarde Aduck posted:

i'm really interested in how many tanks Russia has truly lost, defined as non-reparable, or captured

i think they lost way too much early on when they were using them unscreened but i'd really hope for their sake those losses slowed right down once they dug in for the long war. I wonder how many 'lost' tanks were just towed away and repaired, some of them with minor damage.

It's gonna be a long time before this info is available and even then you're gonna have to be real careful with sources

AnimeIsTrash posted:

dont worry theyre going to make 1500 more

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:

C-SPAM inform yourselves.

Russia Blew It
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-war-troops-losses-1789795

Russia blew it, guys. They did all of the bad war things, none of the good war things, but also Ukraine is incapable of launching any kind of counteroffensive due to massive losses that they suffered somehow.

quote:

"The city does not have the infrastructure to support an occupying force because the Russians have reduced it to rubble," said Mark Temnycky, a Ukrainian-American who is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:

C-SPAM inform yourselves.

Russia Blew It
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-war-troops-losses-1789795

Russia blew it, guys. They did all of the bad war things, none of the good war things, but also Ukraine is incapable of launching any kind of counteroffensive due to massive losses that they suffered somehow.

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:

C-SPAM inform yourselves.

Russia Blew It
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-war-troops-losses-1789795

Russia blew it, guys. They did all of the bad war things, none of the good war things, but also Ukraine is incapable of launching any kind of counteroffensive due to massive losses that they suffered somehow.

Frosted Flake posted:

lol I kind of love this style of reporting ngl. My journal submissions are all on boring stuff, but I'd enjoy penning articles like "Ukraine's innovative use of M777s as expendable decoys depletes Russia's valuable stock of lancet drones".

The RUSI article on why propaganda is actually good because Ukraine's situation is hopeless or the ASW one saying Ukraine can't do anything about Russian submarines, but wouldn't it be nice if they could, has me thinking I could probably get away with it.

genericnick posted:

I honestly am a bit surprised at all the positive noise about the Xi visit we get out of the Euros. Might be a sign that while they are forced by their own support structure to talk like deranged psychos a lot of them might actually be desperate to find some way out.

quote:

A Million Lies’

One of the best-known Americans on the battlefield is James Vasquez. Days after the invasion, Mr. Vasquez, a Connecticut home-improvement contractor, announced he was leaving for Ukraine. His local newspaper told the tale of a former U.S. Army staff sergeant who left behind his job and family and picked up a rifle and a rucksack on the front line.

Since then, he has posted battlefield videos online, at least once broadcasting his unit’s precise location to everyone, including the enemy. He used his story to solicit donations. “I was in Kuwait during Desert Storm, and I was in Iraq after 9/11,” Mr. Vasquez said in a fund-raising video. He added, “This is a whole different animal.”

Mr. Vasquez, in fact, was never deployed to Kuwait, Iraq or anywhere else, a Pentagon spokeswoman said. He specialized in fuel and electrical repairs. And he left the Army Reserve not as a sergeant as he claimed, but as a private first class, one of the Army’s lowest ranks.

Still, Mr. Vasquez had easy access to weapons, including American rifles. Where did they come from? “I’m not exactly sure,” Mr. Vasquez said in a text message. The rifles, he added, were “brand-new, out of the box and we have plenty.” He also tweeted that he should not have to worry about international rules of war while in Ukraine.

He fought alongside Da Vinci’s Wolves, a Ukrainian far-right battalion, until this week, when The Times asked about his false military service claims. He immediately deactivated his Twitter account and said he might leave Ukraine because authorities discovered he was fighting without a required military contract.

Mr. Vasquez said he had been misrepresenting his military record for decades. He acknowledged being kicked out of the Army but would not talk publicly about why. “I had to tell a million lies to get ahead,” Mr. Vasquez said in an interview. “I didn’t realize it was going to come to this.”

quote:

Malcolm Nance, a former Navy cryptologist and MSNBC commentator, arrived in Ukraine last year and made a plan to bring order and discipline to the Legion. Instead, he became enmeshed in the chaos.

Malcolm Nance in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv last year. He is a counterterrorism expert and former MSNBC analyst who joined Ukraine’s legion of foreign fighters.

Mr. Nance, whose TV appearances have made him one of the most visible Americans supporting Ukraine, was an experienced military operator. He drafted a code of honor for the organization and, by all accounts, donated equipment.

Today, Mr. Nance is involved in a messy, distracting power struggle. Often, that plays out on Twitter, where Mr. Nance taunted one former ally as “fat” and an associate of “a verified con artist.”

He accused a pro-Ukraine fund-raising group of fraud, providing no evidence. After arguing with two Legion administrators, Mr. Nance wrote a “counterintelligence” report trying to get them fired. Central to that report is an accusation that one Legion official, Emese Abigail Fayk, fraudulently tried to buy a house on an Australian reality TV show with money she didn’t have. He labeled her “a potential Russian spy,” offering no evidence. Ms. Fayk denied the accusations and remains with the Legion.

Mr. Nance said that as a member of the Legion with an intelligence background, when he developed concerns, he “felt an obligation to report this to Ukrainian counterintelligence.”

The dispute goes to the heart of who can be trusted to speak for and raise money for the Legion.

Mr. Nance has left Ukraine but continues fund-raising with a new group of allies.

Frosted Flake posted:

Thank you for putting me on to Human Rights First, it's like an Onion parody of a nat-sec linked NGO.

The veteran coordinator who is not a veteran

Tankbuster posted:

there are tigers on the korean peninsula?

ЛюЛи posted:

Tankbuster posted:

there are tigers on the korean peninsula?

Lostconfused posted:

_{(from t.me/lubok_RU/72, via tgsa)}

Zvahl posted:

azov is allies, bub

dk2m posted:

from an economic standpoint, europe was effectively killed by the Americans the moment we made the cost structure of doing business irrevocably high via sanctioning Russia. energy prices, commodity prices and transfer prices from the interest rate hikes are now so high that European industry can’t compete against American and Asian markets. any sane euro leader would have a come to Jesus moment where they kick us out and become closer to China, who doesn’t exploit their Allies like we do. europes neoliberals like Macron are some of the dumbest and shittiest leaders so we’ll see - they are much more likely to drive their peoples living standards into the dirt so they can send their kids to Harvard.

ironically, putin and Russia will strengthen their own country by being forced to create their own national industries and become self-sufficient since they’ve been kicked out of Europe. the new euphemism to downplay this is to call them a “junior partner” to China. tbh, I guess that is still a step up from the rest of Europe, which is effectively a client state to the US

Cuttlefush posted:

there were

Lostconfused posted:

_{(from t.me/lubok_RU/72, via tgsa)}

NYT posted:

They rushed to Ukraine by the thousands, many of them Americans who promised to bring military experience, money or supplies to the battleground of a righteous war. Hometown newspapers hailed their commitment, and donors backed them with millions of dollars.

Now, after a year of combat, many of these homespun groups of volunteers are fighting with themselves and undermining the war effort. Some have wasted money or stolen valor. Others have cloaked themselves in charity while also trying to profit off the war, records show.

One retired Marine lieutenant colonel from Virginia is the focus of a U.S. federal investigation into the potentially illegal export of military technology. A former Army soldier arrived in Ukraine only to turn traitor and defect to Russia. A Connecticut man who lied about his military service has posted live updates from the battlefield — including his exact location — and boasted about his easy access to American weapons. A former construction worker is hatching a plan to use fake passports to smuggle in fighters from Pakistan and Iran.

And in one of the more curious entanglements, one of the largest volunteer groups is embroiled in a power struggle involving an Ohio man who falsely claimed to have been both a U.S. Marine and a LongHorn Steakhouse assistant manager. The dispute also involves a years-old incident on Australian reality TV.