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fatherboxx)
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Griefor posted:I feel like if the motivation was there though, this could definitely be done and would not be that hard. It has happened in other wars in the past. It's an open secret that's denied in public with an undercurrent of "so what are you going to do about it?". The only reason there's no western little green men is that the west would rather not have them be there. Which was and still is an issue with a lot of equipment as well. The war in Ukraine is not something that you can solve by sending a few Black Hawks full of SF guys for a night raid, though. Sending even a brigade combat team or a fighter squadron or anything meaningful to Ukraine would be unprecedented and would require a lot of cooperation with Ukraine's neighbours. Remember how difficult it was to transfer a few MiG-29's across the border?
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Dec 17, 2023 17:19
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Thanks for this (and everyone else posting).
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Dec 17, 2023 17:23
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Anybody been listening to the interviews from Silicon Curtain? They’re pretty good including the one with Puck Nielson.
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Dec 17, 2023 17:32
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Griefor posted:I feel like if the motivation was there though, this could definitely be done and would not be that hard. It has happened in other wars in the past. It's an open secret that's denied in public with an undercurrent of "so what are you going to do about it?". The only reason there's no western little green men is that the west would rather not have them be there. Which was and still is an issue with a lot of equipment as well. Uh, you may want to google “Iran-Contra” for reasons why this would be extremely illegal.
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Dec 17, 2023 18:03
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The Western equivalent of Little Green Men don't exist because there's no need for them to exist: private military contractors already fulfill that role.
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Dec 17, 2023 18:10
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Kraftwerk posted:
This dichotomy doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. Yes, they have the crazy penal battalion poo poo - that's not meeting a meaningful portion of their total needs. As far as the rest of the conscripts go, they clearly come from populations that Putin sees as lesser, but that doesn't mean that the Russian economy and demographic future aren't being majorly impacted. I'm going to use US demographics in a few places as a comparison, since I'm more familiar with them. Russia is primarily sending people with less education, people from ethnic minorities, and people from rural areas. Incidentally, these all overlap. In the US, things tend to happen in a similar way - low level positions in the military are disproportionately people of color, people without college education, and people from rural areas. The specifics of why aren't exactly 1-to-1, especially since the US army is all "volunteer", but there's still a degree of economic coercion to who ends up enlisting. Now, let's imagine for a second that the US wages a major war with the current military and had losses in proportion to the losses the Russian army is having. The resulting population would definitely be whiter and contain more economic winners than the current population. However, there would be enormous economic consequences that we absolutely could not plan our way out of. Firstly, the group that left to join the war, even if they are socially undesirable, are really important economically. The majority of farm labor is done by the sorts of people that also get conscripted - it makes sense, it's very physical work that you can do without college or even high school education. How do you replace that labor? Well normally you would use immigrants, but since you are sending a bunch of THOSE off to war too you are still going to be hosed. It doesn't help that Russia shares borders with the EU, who will not be providing you with much on that front - and the countries to the south are going to end up more in China's sphere if Russia start to weaken. Secondly, the age range of soldiers is a pretty defined band, and they all must be at least up to a certain standard of physical and mental capability. You can make your standards a bit lax there, but at the very least no one who uses crutches or a wheelchair will be on the front lines. Anyone who can successfully accomplish tasks in a military operation is, on some level, employable. Conversely, NONE of the people with disabilities preventing them from doing work are going to be direct casualties of war - so that means that after you have finished amassing your war casualties, the people unable to work will make up a larger portion of the population. This is BEFORE you account for the war wounded who end up with disabilities - we are strictly talking about the proportion due to deaths. That has knock-on effects as well, since you now need more people employed as carers. If you are cruel, perhaps you can justify letting people with disability go without in the hopes that it will make your economy more efficient - however, it is impossible to do that while the war is going on without impacting your ability to recruit and retain soldiers. Your third problem is your birth rate and life expectancy. For better or worse, Russia is technologically advanced enough that people tend to stay alive pretty long. There isn't much population loss between ages 30 and 65, as a rule. What would happen, though, if you caused an event that wiped out a big chunk of the 18-35 population over the course of a couple years? Well, for starters it means that people at retirement age start making up a bigger portion of your population. It also means that you have a bunch of people at the age to have kids dying before they get the chance. This actually gets worse when you consider the demographics - the populations most likely to have kids, at least in the US, are basically an exact match to the populations that are being sent to war! In other word, by sending rural population a with lower educations to war, you are completely loving your birth rates. The birth rates are ALREADY hosed, to be clear - most countries above a certain level of wealth need immigration to supplement births, it's largely baked in to the modern system. Well, perhaps you can stimulate birth rates post-war, like the US did? Not likely - the reason for those birth rates was largely good economic conditions, in particular relative to a devastated Europe. A bunch of government programs helped pay for houses and women had largely not entered the workforce up to that point, making it much more possible for one parent to stay home and raise a child. The economy is already going to be hosed from the lack of laborers, you can't afford to pay women to leave the workforce to have kids even if that might be helpful in 20 years when the kids are working age. All of this to say that Russia has largely dug their own grave with this war - though obviously Ukraine has all of these same problems coming their way. However, Ukraine at least has the chance of getting EU support down the line, both to bolster them monetarily and to get more immigration going to help with demographic trouble. There's a reason why multi-year wars in Europe largely stopped - you absolutely gently caress yourself if you take any meaningful number of casualties. When the entire continent is embroiled in a war maybe you can make out comparatively better, but this is not that kind of outcome, and Russia is going to end up way behind everyone currently in the EU and lose a bunch of ground to China by virtue of flinging future economic growth away for the sake of current territorial gains. BougieBitch fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Dec 17, 2023 |
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Dec 17, 2023 18:11
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Kraftwerk posted:The problem here is that Moscow can win this war with its current assets and relationships. Can they? I'd see as the most likely outcome that conflict freezes into stalemate with both sides losing, like Korean War kind of situation. But I have a very hard time seeing Russians achieving their objectives for the war of regime change in Kyiv into a Russian friendly government and Ukraine being disarmed into a rump state that poses no threat to Russia. I mean stalemate would mean significant land losses for Ukraine, but they will continue having a government hostile to Russia and they will not be disarming but strengthening their currently attrited military, so they'll continue being a massive threat to Russian holdings and interest (as Putin sees them) in area.
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Dec 17, 2023 18:22
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Glah posted:Can they? I'd see as the most likely outcome that conflict freezes into stalemate with both sides losing, like Korean War kind of situation. The population and demographics figures are severely slanted against the Ukrainians. It is almost a certainty that the average soldier fighting in the Ukrainian military is over 40 and there are reports that replacements coming in are of increasingly questionable health. See: https://www.russiamatters.org/blog/average-age-ukrainian-soldiers-past-40-and-could-be-problem https://www.russiamatters.org/news/russia-analytical-report/russia-analytical-report-nov-20-27-2023 quote:Both armies are struggling to maneuver on open, mined terrain beneath skies buzzing with drones. The difference: Russia, with a population nearly four times Ukraine’s, can afford to lose untold thousands of soldiers for small gains. There is evidence that Kyiv is trying very hard to spare men in their 20s and 30s and those who have high expertise in civilian fields from front-line service, but there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence that they are having to dip into this pool of men (far smaller than their older cohorts). The draft age for those who have no prior military experience was dropped from 27 to 25 giving Kyiv access to approximately 140k in additional manpower (theoretical maximum). However, draft dodging is something that is clearly going on and the increasingly repressive measures to coerce draftees to report for service is evidence that it is hurting the AFU a lot, and now a new PR campaign and reforms aimed at the younger generation to promise them that those who report for service will be sent to units that will make proper use of their skills to try to encourage them to report for duty. see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/08/ukraine-russia-war-draft-dodgers/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-military-recruitment.html https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/zelenskiy-faces-manpower-dilemma-in-ukraine-s-stalled-offensive-1.2005246 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/27/ukraine-change-conscription-policies-russia-war quote:Danilov said the army would work with two of Ukraine’s biggest recruitment companies in order to identify people with specific skills, and to dissuade skilled Ukrainians who wanted to help the army but did not want to go to the front from trying to evade the draft. The long-term outlook for Ukraine wrt to regaining its pre-war borders is exceptionally poor at the moment unless one assumes the political and economic situation inside Russia is going much more poorly than what is currently known. Maintaining the current front line and heavily fortifying it to allow itself the ability to hold on to what it has in the most economical way possible seems to be the current best-case scenario unless NATO starts producing and funneling arms and ammunition at a much higher rate than it has now, and the AFU is somehow able to retool itself while maintaining adequate forces to hold the Russians back while doing so.
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Dec 17, 2023 19:12
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Oh I'm not saying that Ukraine could regain their territories unless something very drastic happens within Russia. Just that I don't really see Russia achieving their stated objectives either, hence the stalemate. Or how realistic it would be that Russia could pull off successfully major offensives into western Ukraine and actually achieve the toppling of Ukrainian government?
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Dec 17, 2023 19:19
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If the Ukrainians can't put enough men in uniform, potentially very quickly. Progress is not necessarily linear in war. An army can go from holding its own to rapid collapse in a very short period of time. All else being equal (and I am not saying it is), the Ukrainians need a casualty ratio of approximately 3 to 1 just to keep parity. Any thing less means that the numbers shift towards Russia's favor. It is a rate at which they are not sustaining and likely not able to sustain in the long term.
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Dec 17, 2023 19:54
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I can speak a bit to the process of aid under Presidential Drawdown Authority.Nenonen posted:
Legally speaking, 3 isn't exactly true. The President can send limited amounts of military aid to Ukraine even without Congressional approval, albeit it's under the Foreign Assistance Act and Congress could repeal or lower the monetary limit to stop the President from doing it. BougieBitch posted:
I can't speak to other forms of aid, but in the case of drawdown aid, the President is authorized to send aid in certain situations with a statutory limit on how much $ it's worth, it doesn't need to be budget neutral. There isn't a dodge around or anything, the statutory authorization was established in the 60s. What the Democrats did didn't create a new special dispensation. The Foreign Assistance Act allowed $100 million per year in assistance without Congressional approval, the Democrats just increased the cap over the past couple years, currently at about 14.5 billion. IMO describing the on-hand requirement as a sort of technical loophole is a mischaracterization. The law requires that the equipment already be in inventory, but giving away currently existing stuff under the theory that you can just order a new batch for the US military later isn't some sort of technical dodge, it was completely understood as a necessary part of responding to emergencies in the FAA. The limit there is more that (as you noted) Congress has the power of the purse so while the President can provide aid without Congressional approval, making a new contract with some defense contractor unilaterally would be a separation of powers problem. There's also no statutory requirement that the equipment be aged out. Obviously older stuff tends to be cheaper, you can provide more of it while still staying within the statutory limit. And the DoD also has to determine if giving this stuff away will affect operational readiness; if so then it needs approval from the Joint Staff. In practice those limitations mean that the equipment will likely be older, but there's no legal requirement for that. Also, giving away older stuff that "we weren't gonna use anyway, it's just gathering dust" is an easier sell politically. small butter posted:Do all military operations need Congressional approval? I imagine that the US does a lot of poo poo that Congress does not necessarily know about until inquired about after the fact. For example, I'm not sure whether Congress approved the US causing an internet blackout in North Korea at the end of 2014. It's complicated. There are emergency situations where the President can deploy soldiers into hostilities without prior Congressional approval. Although under the War Powers Resolution, the President has to report to Congress within 48 hours and without Congressional approval it's limited to 60 days. That's a little outside my wheelhouse, though.
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Dec 17, 2023 19:56
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Dopilsya posted:stuff https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/state-department-approves-tank-ammo-sale-to-israel-bypasses-congress/
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Dec 17, 2023 20:04
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Mr. Apollo posted:How did the State Department sale of tank ammo to Israel work? They were able to go around Congress by saying that it was in the national security interests of the United States. Here's the CRS doc on this process. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL31675/51
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Dec 17, 2023 20:08
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Mr. Apollo posted:How did the State Department sale of tank ammo to Israel work? They were able to go around Congress by saying that it was in the national security interests of the United States. Arms sales fall under some other statute, I don't know how those work. mlmp08 posted:Here's the CRS doc on this process. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL31675/51 Seems like a reasonable explanation.
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Dec 17, 2023 21:45
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mlmp08 posted:Here's the CRS doc on this process. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL31675/51
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Dec 17, 2023 22:06
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It's a long rear end thread/report, but a look from the Estonian Defence Ministry that isn't just doomerism. https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1735672247908454665
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Dec 17, 2023 22:14
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Is there any particular reason or background to the recent blitz of efforts to insist that Ukraine's position is untenable and it must negotiate or inevitably fail? There's been cycles, and this one's a big one
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Dec 18, 2023 04:43
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Kavros posted:Is there any particular reason or background to the recent blitz of efforts to insist that Ukraine's position is untenable and it must negotiate or inevitably fail? The EU vote
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Dec 18, 2023 04:51
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Kavros posted:Is there any particular reason or background to the recent blitz of efforts to insist that Ukraine's position is untenable and it must negotiate or inevitably fail? The funding being held up by the Republicans in Congress is a pretty big reason. That and the failure of the counteroffensive to move the lines any significant degree.
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Dec 18, 2023 04:52
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Charliegrs posted:The funding being held up by the Republicans in Congress is a pretty big reason. That and the failure of the counteroffensive to move the lines any significant degree. The former cause feels like quite a reach for re-declaring Ukraine's hopelessness, unless you used it as a shorthand for anemic world response to their wartime needs. But ... shouldn't this one have been a bit predictable? America's republicans were guaranteed to try holding it up at some point. Do a lot of pro-russia people think that it's going to represent a permanent cessation of funding from the US?
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Dec 18, 2023 06:05
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Kavros posted:The former cause feels like quite a reach for re-declaring Ukraine's hopelessness, unless you used it as a shorthand for anemic world response to their wartime needs. But ... shouldn't this one have been a bit predictable? America's republicans were guaranteed to try holding it up at some point. Do a lot of pro-russia people think that it's going to represent a permanent cessation of funding from the US? Depends on whether or not Trump wins the presidency and whether or not Dems can take back the House and hold the Senate. And they are down three votes in the house and at dead even in the Senate (VP breaks ties) and the Senate map is…not good for Dems. (33% of the senate is up for election and several of those are held by Democrats in conservative states like Montana). If just two seats flip, or one and Trump wins, Dems lose the senate. If they don’t take back the house AND lose the senate, no moneys going anywhere regardless of whether Biden wins re-election. And if Trump wins and Republicans control the house and senate… funding Ukraine will be the least of the world’s worries.
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Dec 18, 2023 06:51
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The counteroffensive failed, yes. As did the Russian push on Kyiv, Russian attempts to control the Black Sea and take Odesa, taking Kharkiv, holding Kherson and last year's Russian winter offensive. If Ukraine's backers throw in the towel any time there is a setback, a Russian victory becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And you better strap in for the rest of this already lovely decade.
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Dec 18, 2023 06:57
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Kraftwerk posted:It’s time to stop huffing the copium and face facts. Ukraine is losing this conflict. small tactical victories are not changing the fact that Russia has fought wars of attrition for its entire history and has always won them. It will win one against Ukraine too and the west has only itself to blame for it. I know people have picked apart this post already but I'd like to point out that Russia lost World War I so badly that their entire government collapsed, the centuries-old Romanov dynasty was overthrown, and the entire country plunged into a years-long civil war. Just over a decade before that, they lost a major war against Japan that included one of the most lopsided naval defeats of all time. Then before that there was the Crimean War, the wars of the 3rd and 4th coalitions... Russia is no stranger to losing, is what I'm saying. If they weren't, the Black Sea would have been a Russian lake three hundred years ago.
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Dec 18, 2023 08:49
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I feel like Kraftwerk has asserted that Russia always wins its wars of attritions and been corrected at least once before just while I've been in this thread.
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Dec 18, 2023 09:47
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I put that idiot on ignore at least 8 months ago, it's been great (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 18, 2023 13:48
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Forgetting to mention Afghanistan should have been a great indicator that any follow-up posts wouldn't be worth reading.
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Dec 18, 2023 13:59
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*Extremely Otto Voice* THAT WAS A TIE!
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Dec 18, 2023 14:05
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Tiny Timbs posted:Forgetting to mention Afghanistan should have been a great indicator that any follow-up posts wouldn't be worth reading. I am sorta shocked that Russia didnt seem to take lessons from afganistan into account. either the soviet gently caress up or the american gently caress up. like i feel like they just read all the old nazi propoganda about the red army during ww2 and post war german spin bullshit and thought that was a better version then the actual version which was lend lease and actual tactics. like yeah the human wave poo poo DID happen but i believe that was alot earlier in the war.
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Dec 18, 2023 14:21
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Dapper_Swindler posted:I am sorta shocked that Russia didnt seem to take lessons from afganistan into account. either the soviet gently caress up or the american gently caress up. like i feel like they just read all the old nazi propoganda about the red army during ww2 and post war german spin bullshit and thought that was a better version then the actual version which was lend lease and actual tactics. like yeah the human wave poo poo DID happen but i believe that was alot earlier in the war. I agree. I've always been surprised by how much Russians don't push back with the fact that they thankfully had good generals and once Stalin (for the most part) got out of their way. There was a lot of deep defensive warfare involved, but they still had to push Germany out too and that involved a lot of smart planning and maneuvering as well as big leaps in tactics. For a nation that seems resentful about the historical errors in the West's narrrative, they seem to fall into fulfilling a lot of those myths too. beer_war posted:The counteroffensive failed, yes. To paraphrase what that famous masked soldier said in the early days of the war, Ukraine has been lucky that Russia has been tremendously dysfunctional. That dysfunction has led to a lot of wasted resources and lives and given Ukraine lots of time to mount a defense. It "helps" Ukraine that they've got nowhere else to go either. But Ukraine has ultimately gotten this far because of drips of western aid and it looks like even that might be in danger. Russia might not be a healthy country, but you don't need to be healthy in order to win a war. You just need time to let the West's stupid political dysfunction play out in your favor. It doesn't help that people like Putin seem to live forever.
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Dec 18, 2023 15:21
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Eric Cantonese posted:I agree. I've always been surprised by how much Russians don't push back with the fact that they thankfully had good generals and once Stalin (for the most part) got out of their way. There was a lot of deep defensive warfare involved, but they still had to push Germany out too and that involved a lot of smart planning and maneuvering as well as big leaps in tactics. yeah Kursk was a massive victory because the soviets made a massive defense in depth iron cage type laberynth that went no where and baited the nazis into it. i believe lions led by donkeys did a good multipart on it. like yeah it was giant super massive tank battle but it was also over a GIANT area with lots of nazis just wadling into killzones and such. now russia just does the same poo poo in reverse but dumber. I suspect its because the "glorious mass death charge for the motherland" plays better for the reactionary weirdos at the top, then complicated but effective strategies and tactics written by competent comanders who might get too popular. Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Dec 18, 2023 |
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Dec 18, 2023 15:42
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Smart generals implies that it was something other than misery, suffering, and massive loss. This is the only time "and then things got worse" actually had a happy ending, don't take it from them guys!!!
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Dec 18, 2023 16:10
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Dapper_Swindler posted:yeah Kursk was a massive victory because the soviets made a massive defense in depth iron cage type laberynth that went no where and baited the nazis into it. i believe lions led by donkeys did a good multipart on it. like yeah it was giant super massive tank battle but it was also over a GIANT area with lots of nazis just wadling into killzones and such. now russia just does the same poo poo in reverse but dumber. The Soviets didn´t bait the Germans into Operation Citadel, but they knew from British Intelligence that the Germans were planning an attack there (in fact, it would become the biggest battle in World History) and prepared accordingly. With regards to losses, the Soviets lost much more than the Germans; 4 times as many soldiers, 5 times as many tanks and planes. Still, yes, the Germans lost because the Soviets were great at replacing men and material, and that is something the Russians believe they can do also. I tend to agree. Ukraine needs much more favorable loss ratios than they have currently to effect a change. Again, this is exactly the point that Zaluzhnyi made in his recent essay. I don´t disagree with the consensus that Kraftwerk has lost his mind, but there is a point to the idea that Russia has been underestimated, especially by the Biden admin, i.e. thinking that the current losses would make Putin reconsider. Anyway, have a video of Ukr. drone commander Magyar flipping the bird to doomer publications such as New York Times. Turn on subtitles. KingaSlipek fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Dec 18, 2023 |
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Dec 18, 2023 16:10
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KingaSlipek posted:I don´t disagree with the consensus that Kraftwerk has lost his mind, but there is a point to the idea that Russia has This assumes that the strategy hasn't been "Bleed Russian resources as deeply as possible for as long as possible. If Ukraine survives, even better."
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Dec 18, 2023 16:14
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KingaSlipek posted:The Soviets didn´t bait the Germans into Operation Citadel, but they knew from British Intelligence that thanks for correction. i was going off hazy memory. I also agree with your other point. I think the US has underestimated russia while also overestimating them in other areas.
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Dec 18, 2023 16:21
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Eric Cantonese posted:
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Dec 18, 2023 16:26
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My understanding was that even without the British intel, the Russians could tell that the Germans would attack Kursk because the Kursk salient was such an obvious target, especially with how the Germans liked to fight through maneuver and encirclement. British intel might have helped with the timing, but it's not like the Russians had no clue about whether the Germans would go for it at some point. Anyway, I'm sorry to derail... does anyone have a rundown on what the Biden administration can provide through Lend-Lease without Congressional approval?
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Dec 18, 2023 16:30
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Bel Shazar posted:This assumes that the strategy hasn't been "Bleed Russian resources as deeply as possible for as long as possible. If Ukraine survives, even better." Well, Biden and his advisors apparently thought they were doing the first thing. It is my understanding that the second point is also absolutely essential to NATO and the U.S., though, ever since Ukraine got a fighting back in February 2022. If Ukraine loses, which is equivalent to saying Ukraine does not survive, there are six NATO/E.U. countries in immediate danger. If you were Putin, and Trump happened to be in the White House when you defeat Ukraine, wouldn´t you take this historic chance to bring home more Russians? You wouldn´t be the youngest anymore, either and you´d have thousands of combat experienced, hardened soldiers at your disposal and several new million men to throw into the meat grinder. This is not clancy chat because you see a shift in tone among the Americans, Germans and Poles who have come to the same realization. You see Zaluzhnyi openly disagreeing with Zelensky to make the same point: If we lose, you are next. Russia would continue simply because the circumstances would be almost ideal to Putin. Eric Cantonese posted:My understanding was that even without the British intel, the Russians could tell that the Germans would attack Kursk because the Kursk salient was such an obvious target, especially with how the Germans liked to fight through maneuver and encirclement. British intel might have helped with the timing, but it's not like the Russians had no clue about whether the Germans would go for it at some point. This is all true, but there was agreement between Hitler and the generals that the operation would be a bad idea after finding out just how much the Soviets were preparing. I just have a problem with calling this bait when they knew it would gently caress them.
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Dec 18, 2023 17:19
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Dapper_Swindler posted:I am sorta shocked that Russia didnt seem to take lessons from afganistan into account. either the soviet gently caress up or the american gently caress up. Ironically the one aspect in which the Soviet Union learned from Afghanistan and genuinely improved (And thus created a legacy program for Putin's Russia to follow) was the propaganda. It was there that they learned the "Big Lie" approach doesn't work on everybody, and the "Firehose of bullshit" approach works better at convincing the divided masses
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Dec 18, 2023 17:28
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KingaSlipek posted:The Soviets didn´t bait the Germans into Operation Citadel, but they knew from British Intelligence that This is the point I’ve been trying to make. I perhaps misspoke when I said Russia never lost a war of attrition But my point still stands that western support is going to make or break Ukraine, it has been insufficient and now it’s being actively cut off due to a mixture of apathy and outright spite. Russia’s dysfunction saved Ukraine in the short term and allowed them to mount a successful defense. But the longer this goes on the more the numbers favor the Russians over the Ukrainians because the Russians have a lot more resources to use minus western involvement. We can debate the long term sustainability of the Russian system of Putin chooses to go all in on Ukraine vs how Russia will function as a country 20 years from now but in the short run Russia is going to win this war if the west doesn’t do something about it. And from what I’m seeing so far they’re doing a whole lot of nothing and vindicating Putins strategy to wait and outlast western support because he’s more comfortable inflicting death and discomfort on his own people than the west is on theirs by taking a rounding error of their military budgets to stop Russia. Ukraine needs a much deeper degree of western support than it is willing to provide right now so the casualty ratios can offset Ukraines limited pool of manpower and materiel. I fully believe in a war of attrition where the west is backstopping Ukrainian losses, the war ends in Ukraines favor. But I also don’t see the west doing that any time soon due to political infighting and malaise. That is my point and I don’t think I lost my mind in saying so. If it was any other country fighting in Russias place at Avdiivka they would have retreated and the war woudlve ended due to massive discontent at home. The fiasco would be so bad it would destroy entire careers of the military officers involved and there’d be inquiries as to who is responsible and how they might be held accountable for the gross loss of life and material. But Russia doesn’t give a flying gently caress about any of that and is happily tossing more men into the meat grinder to the point that in spite of their losses they are inflicting just enough to deplete the strength of Ukrainian defences. This is the problem and it’s a problem they can only be solved by the west providing more advanced weapons to upset the balance of power in the theatre. Kraftwerk fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Dec 18, 2023 |
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Dec 18, 2023 18:13
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Dutch news is reporting that a former Wagner soldier/mercenary wants to go to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to testify on Russian warcrimes. Igor Salikov was a soldier for 25 years, first in the Russian arny, then in Wagner. He wants to testify on crimes committed against civilians that he witnessed. Can't find an English source yet.
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Dec 18, 2023 18:15
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