READ OP! War in Ukraine: a distressed blender making too many margaritas at once

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Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

mobby_6kl posted:

gently caress, where's all the AA stuff? And the MIGs?

Overwhelming local AA seems to be precisely the reason why you would fire a large salvo of missiles all at once.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2022 12:36

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# ¿ Jun 3, 2024 05:35

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Thank you!

Very interesting. A bit less rosy than I inferred from the summary, but otherwise it was broadly accurate.

If I had to guess, assuming this is a genuine effort and signed soon:

Thinking about this from the EU perspective, any peace deal has to include stable enough conditions that the majority of the 2.5 million(?) refugees so far will be willing and able to return. This means massive financial aid for reconstruction, (and maybe reparations), which means the EU gets a further foot in the door regarding oversight & anti-corruption. I can definitely see a 'no to NATO, yes to EU' compromise, but Europe has way too much of a vested interest now in Ukraine not becoming a failed state or autocratic corrupt mess to be kept out.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2022 16:01

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

KitConstantine posted:

Russians decided they liked the orc nickname and should adopt their culture as their own
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1503694724657553413?t=0Hp6ony9TY5WMdd6FtWOAw&s=19

Can't have partisans hiding in the trees if there are no more trees.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2022 16:58

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

PederP posted:

It would be ironic if the final drop in Putin's bucket came from a few thousand marines going Red October on this war.

Wrong movie.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2022 21:34

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

the popes toes posted:

I'm sure if they resurrect the hour-long tv shows with tractors and threshers moving through the fields of grain with the narrator talking about the new 5-year plan the older folks will get nostalgic.

Until they realize Putin can't even fulfill a three-day-plan.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2022 20:57

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Heran Bago posted:

Why do they target like malls and civilian hospitals? Do they try to hit military targets and just keep missing?

That's terror.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2022 11:48

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

DTurtle posted:

While Germany gets most of the flak for dependency on Russian gas, its not the only country in the EU dependent on that gas. In fact other countries need that gas even more as a percentage of their energy imports and are in an even tougher spot of having infrastructure for getting it from another source or replacing it with other energy sources.

Yeah, I wouldn't trust that chart too much, unless I'm reading it wrong, somehow. To the best of my knowledge, 80% of Austria's natural gas comes from Russia.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2022 23:03

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

There are some videos circulating of Ukrainian military shooting Russian POWs in the legs. Not entirely impossible that it's a false flag, I suppose, but welp...

# ¿ Mar 27, 2022 12:10

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1508519883780284431?t=4Ln403vRG8sU5c6jv2yR_g&s=19

Took them long enough, now we'll see if they've adequately prepared Russian public opinion for this move.

Sanctions chat: Even if Putin is bluffing now, and it's certainly a move that slows the devaluation of the ruble for a few days, I'm pretty sure this Fall/Winter the EU will waver and pressure Ukraine for a settlement, because I really don't expect a lot of EU countries to be able to wean themselves off Russian gas by then.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2022 12:27

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Dapper_Swindler posted:

I suspect the US will be more then happy to sell them gas and get it in bulk along with Qatar.

The LNG terminals aren't there to cover the quantities needed, and they can't be built that quickly.*

*not an expert, but that's the aggregate impression I've got.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2022 12:38

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

https://twitter.com/DavidPuente/status/1508472943663357963?t=M3cnQj579Y8iuxoqUIwdJg&s=19

This is a thread in Italian, but the site of the POW shootings has been geolocated to East of Kharkiv, and the letter that showed up afterwards has been debunked for having used an OTS token signature, if I understand the auto-translate correctly.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2022 13:02

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

GaussianCopula posted:

Probably more like an actual economist pointing out to Putin that she managed to defeat the Western assault on the Rubel and he should not destroy her work.

https://twitter.com/jakluge/status/1508744632146006019

It'd be cruel to her, but the West should play her up as a possible successor candidate to Putin.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2022 13:51

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Tomberforce posted:

Saw an extremely confronting video (via pro Russia propaganda channel) of alleged Ukranian PoW abuses of captured Russian troops. Description below:

Basically PoWs unloaded off a bus then getting shot in the legs point blank and presumably left to bleed out.

Obviously being used incredibly misleadingly as Russian propaganda but does anyone here have any info on the authenticity or lack of on those videos? I'd like to think that kind of stuff is limited but realistically it's probably rife on both sides.

The BBC has an article on it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/60907259

There's also a video circulating that shows the same place later, with at least three partially burned bodies in that yard.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2022 10:49

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I just realized (on reading the tweet thread below) that the Russians didn't bring the mobile crematoriums for their own soldiers or expected losses

they brought them for all the Ukrainian dissidents they planned to disappear

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1510168073831165956?s=20&t=lezoMje7Mf5tiXmsNBrKAw

I've been half-joking about this before the war, but yeah, now that we know how easy they expected things to be, and also how Putin has been planning and using the war for a complete crack-down on the remainders of a free press inside Russia, and the triumphant premature victory announcements, it really isn't a joke anymore.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2022 15:09

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Grouchio posted:

Somehow I was under the assumption that the Russians in Transnistria were going to stay put so that Moldova wouldn't retake said region.

https://twitter.com/Tom_deWaal/status/1510146211268935681?s=20&t=yI5AfYsJ6ksyCAB9Y9Ovcg

Transnistria isn't going to play a military role in this war. Ukraine is just shaking the diplomacy/public opinion tree, to see if anything falls out.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2022 18:29

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

It's pretty clear now what Russian denazification orders look like.

quote:

They knew some of the people, checked the documents, and if a person participated in the ATO (as Ukraine calls the period of hostilities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions from 2014 to 2018) or was registered in the defense, they were immediately shot. They also checked tattoos, they were looking for �Natsiks�. In fact, even those who had the official coat of arms of Ukraine were shot.

ik edit:

photos of corpses
https://vot--tak-tv.translate.goog/novosti/03-04-2022-rasstrely-zhitelej-buchi/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Somebody fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Apr 4, 2022

# ¿ Apr 4, 2022 12:25

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1512050399280312325?t=Qg917UPLfdir9TrlOVWF_Q&s=19

Seems like Ukraine is preparing for Russian advances to at least come within artillery range of Dnipro.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2022 14:09

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Phlegmish posted:

Dnipro would be a pretty big prize for the Russians, it's one of the most populous cities in Ukraine. Let's hope they never even come near it.

Maybe they just expect an increase in air strikes on supplies and reinforcements moving through there.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2022 14:28

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Pablo Bluth posted:

Well there's this claim that 120,000 children have been taken...

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1512523279768113152

Welp, that's one way to address your population decline... :smith:

# ¿ Apr 8, 2022 21:49

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1512748920983724036?t=q7FGfvyC1W_uRE7PJBzdyA&s=19

You're going to need auto-translate, but this is a very good article on Germany's Russia policy.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2022 14:37

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Julia Ioffe wrote a good article a few days ago, but it's paywalled.
https://puck.news/how-putins-game-ends/

quote:

Earlier this week, I spoke to Andranik Migranyan, a star of the Russian foreign policy establishment and a close friend of the Russian foreign minister. I’ve spoken to Migranyan for years about Russian foreign policy and, though he has always been passionate in his views and extremely colorful in his expressions, I’ve never heard him so agitated and angry. He did not think there should be negotiations at all but he could see the logic for why they should be happening: If they didn’t, he said, “Russia would’ve been accused that it doesn’t want to negotiate.” That is, the negotiations were clearly for show, to tick a box.

“It is my personal hope that the negotiations don’t succeed because anything they produce will be unacceptable in Russia,” Migranyan told me. “This is an all or nothing situation.” Migranyan explained his vision of victory to me: Russia had to fight until Ukraine was reduced to a landlocked rump state in the west, nestled beside Romania and Poland. First, Migranyan went on, Russia would retake the entirety of the Donbas, as well as Mykolaiv and Odessa and the coasts of the Azov and Black Seas. “This would form Novoroissya, stretching from Odessa to Transnistria,” he said, referring to the area between Moldova and Ukraine where Putin fomented a frozen conflict. The new government of Novorossiya, Migranyan explained, would also include the cities of Kharkiv and Dnipro, known in Russian as Dnepropetrovsk. “In the central part of Ukraine, after we take Kyiv, Poltava, we will create a government entity called Kievan Rus. Then Belarus, Novorossiya, and Kievan Rus would join Russia in a union state,” he said, turning ebullient.

I think he heard me choke on the other end of the line because he added, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Strong Judge Doom energy in that last sentence.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 13:25

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

gay picnic defence posted:

I wonder how recently those statements were made. They seem very disconnected from the military reality in Ukraine. If the situation is seen that way by very senior people in Russia you have to wonder at what information is actually filtering through to them.

The article is from April 1st, and the interview happened "earlier this week", so maybe March 28th?

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 14:11

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Tomn posted:

Also - does the article mention WHY this guy is so angry and agitated? What exactly has him so pissed off and sure that Russia must achieve maximalist demands? The sanctions? Russian humiliation in war? Something something NATO provocation?

Here you go:

Full Article posted:

How Putin’s Game Ends

Contrary to Western optimism, there is emerging evidence that, after the initial shock and despair of a poorly planned invasion, Russians are now rallying around their flag and their president. Some are refusing to accept anything less than total victory.

Thursday marked five weeks since the Russian army crossed the border into Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s dreams of a lightning conquest of the cradle of Russian civilization went up in smoke. When Ukrainian soldiers ambushed columns of Russian tanks, they torched not just the military hardware, but the dress uniforms that Russian soldiers carried with them for the planned victory parade in Kyiv. And yet, victory for either side remains elusive.

These days, the question asked most frequently in Washington and in Russia and foreign policy circles is: How does this end? No one, myself included, has a good answer—or much of an answer at all. This week brought more talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations, first in Istanbul on Tuesday, then by video conference on Friday. The negotiations on Tuesday, in particular, seemed to produce something that many, especially in the West, were eager to cling to as a ray of hope: The Russian deputy defense minister announced that Russian troops would be withdrawing from the areas around Kyiv to “increase mutual trust and create conditions for further negotiations.” The Ukrainian delegation, in turn, put neutrality on the table—that is, giving up the dream of joining NATO—and suggested tabling discussing the status of Crimea for 15 years. The Russian side seemed to toy with the idea of dropping their demands that Ukraine make Russian one of the country’s official languages.

It seemed like a hopeful sign—or one that was better than no sign at all—but the Biden administration was quick to tamp down expectations. “There is what Russia says and what Russia does,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken cautioned. It was a wise warning: the Russian government has yet to keep its word. After all, Russian officials claimed all winter that they had no intention of invading Ukraine. And who can forget Putin’s declaration that thousands of Russian troops would be returning to their bases from the Ukrainian border on February 15—nine days before Russia invaded.

And indeed, by Thursday, NATO announced that it was seeing evidence that the Russian army was regrouping, rather than withdrawing, around Kyiv. As the week drew to a close, fierce battles continued to rage around Kyiv. It was hardly surprising. To those of us who watched Russia’s behavior during the Syrian peace talks, as well as the Minsk talks, we knew exactly what this was: Russia creating an elaborate simulacrum of diplomacy as cover for pressing forward militarily. “Russia has failed to commit to anything they’ve said thus far,” one U.S. government source told me. “We should recall that 37 days ago the Russians said this was a training exercise. Our expectation is that the Russians are not interested in any kind of real negotiation.”

There are other reasons to be cautious. “I would treat this very skeptically,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst with the Carnegie Center of Moscow. “It’s too early to discuss whether the two sides are getting closer.”

She’s right. So far, there’s little reason for either side to compromise. Yes, it has been a bloody and traumatic five weeks, for Ukrainians first and foremost, but also it has only been five weeks, a blink in wartime. Both sides clearly still think they can win this thing, which isn’t a great mindset for compromise. And the question of what winning would even look like is another sticky issue; it is the paramount question that is being agonized over in Washington, Kyiv, and Moscow.

On the Ukrainian side, there is a concern that Volodymyr Zelensky is simply unable to offer the Russians, say, the Donbas and Crimea in exchange for an end to the war. There is so much anger (understandably) and distrust (even more so) toward Russia that such a deal might get him run out of power. Galvanized by the war, Ukrainians now want total victory: that is, driving out all Russian forces from every square inch of Ukrainian territory, including the Donbas and Crimea. Offering the regions up as part of a deal only five weeks into a war where the Ukrainian army seems to have seized the momentum would be political suicide. Nor would it be a guarantee that Putin won’t decide that he wants more land after all, and send his troops right back in.

There is a similar dynamic occurring on the Russian side. While Russia does not have a political system where Putin faces any accountability, the Kremlin does obsess over public opinion polls and keeps zealous control over the media to make sure the public’s opinions are not formed spontaneously. But now it seems that Putin has become a prisoner of his own success. As Stanovaya and others have pointed out, the news of compromise from the Russian delegation to Istanbul triggered a massive outcry from Putin loyalists and the extreme nationalist wing in Russian society that has been encouraged to flourish in the last decade. Russian social media networks lit up with rage that Vladimir Medinsky, one of the Russian negotiators, was selling out Russia and its dreams of empire by acceding to anything in these talks. Even Ramzan Kadyrov, the theatrically cruel and deranged leader of Chechnya, who rarely disagrees with Putin in public, asked the Russian president “to let us finish what we started.” “We warriors do not consent to these negotiations and to these agreements,” he said in a video address.

The Far Right Red Line

Earlier this week, I spoke to Andranik Migranyan, a star of the Russian foreign policy establishment and a close friend of the Russian foreign minister. I’ve spoken to Migranyan for years about Russian foreign policy and, though he has always been passionate in his views and extremely colorful in his expressions, I’ve never heard him so agitated and angry. He did not think there should be negotiations at all but he could see the logic for why they should be happening: If they didn’t, he said, “Russia would’ve been accused that it doesn’t want to negotiate.” That is, the negotiations were clearly for show, to tick a box.

“It is my personal hope that the negotiations don’t succeed because anything they produce will be unacceptable in Russia,” Migranyan told me. “This is an all or nothing situation.” Migranyan explained his vision of victory to me: Russia had to fight until Ukraine was reduced to a landlocked rump state in the west, nestled beside Romania and Poland. First, Migranyan went on, Russia would retake the entirety of the Donbas, as well as Mykolaiv and Odessa and the coasts of the Azov and Black Seas. “This would form Novoroissya, stretching from Odessa to Transnistria,” he said, referring to the area between Moldova and Ukraine where Putin fomented a frozen conflict. The new government of Novorossiya, Migranyan explained, would also include the cities of Kharkiv and Dnipro, known in Russian as Dnepropetrovsk. “In the central part of Ukraine, after we take Kyiv, Poltava, we will create a government entity called Kievan Rus. Then Belarus, Novorossiya, and Kievan Rus would join Russia in a union state,” he said, turning ebullient.

I think he heard me choke on the other end of the line because he added, “Isn’t it beautiful?” When I asked him if the people living in these places get a say, or if the Kremlin would simply make these decisions for them, Migranyan scoffed and compared Ukrainians to Germans living under Nazi rule. “They’ve all been brainwashed and they need to be reeducated,” Migranyan spat. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t ask anyone.”

The stakes, in Migranyan’s view, were now enormous. “Either Russia will emerge from this war as a serious victor and will play an even more important role in the world, or it won’t and Russia will be the world’s doormat,” he explained. “It is an existential dilemma.” It is why, he says, Russia should fight to the end and win, no matter what. “This isn’t a war with Ukraine,” he added. “This is a war with the entire Western world. That’s why Russia can’t lose.”

Z Is for Victory

There is emerging evidence that, after the initial shock and despair of a poorly planned invasion, Russians are now rallying around their flag and their president. According to several Russian polls (which are inevitably hard to trust, as I’ve previously noted), Putin has become more popular since he started this war, not less. The Levada Center shows Putin’s approval rating spiking from 65 percent in December to 83 percent now. And even as Western sanctions decimate the Russian economy, more Russians than ever think things are trending in the right direction, from 48 percent in December to 69 percent now. Again, polling is hard enough in the United States, which has free (if not totally fair) political and media ecosystems, and it is harder still in an authoritarian system that has unleashed a vicious crackdown on any anti-war sentiment.

But the polls are not the only evidence. Farida Rustamova, one of the very best and well-sourced Russian journalists of our generation, who is now in exile, wrote a terrifying piece (here in English) about some of these dynamics. Many in the Russian economic and political elites, she writes, were initially horrified by the invasion and devastated by what Western sanctions would mean for their livelihoods and lifestyles. These were the people whom the West had hoped to peel away from Putin by imposing the sanctions. But now, according to Rustamova, they are turning against the West, feeling offended by the punishment and defensive of their country, and their president. “Russian society, my sources tell me, has also rallied in support of Putin’s actions under the pressure of propaganda and under the consequences of sanctions,” Rustamova wrote. “In a situation where, as it seems to them, the whole world is against Russia, its citizens “will hate the West and consolidate.”

One source who is very familiar with the thinking in the Russian government told me that, though “there is a lot of splintering of the elites and a lot of people feel misled and betrayed, they feel misled and betrayed for different reasons.” The source added that “Putin’s supporters are devastated and feel a little betrayed [by the announcement at Istanbul]. The commander in chief made a commitment to go all the way.” Despite some of the grumbling and resignations we’ve seen coming out of the Russian government and state media, the source said, “I think that for a lot of these people, as ridiculous as it seems, this was a labor of love.”

In the first days of the war, the West was buoyed by anti-war protestors all over Russia, some 15,000 of whom have been arrested since February 24. People here hoped, as they always do when Russians protest and despite all evidence, that these brave souls would sweep Putin from power. But the dynamic inside Russia is starting to look very different. “I think Putin is afraid not of anti-war protests but pro-war protests,” Stanovaya told me. “This constituency is not huge, it’s marginal, but it’s radical and it’s real. And Putin will have to deal with these people. Russian state TV has created it and there are now many people who really believe in it. Putin inspired these people. And now they see him as a potential traitor.”

As for how this ends, the U.S. government source told me that, despite Russia’s early setbacks on the battlefield, there is still a lot of manpower and materiel that the Kremlin could throw at the problem. “The Russians have a massive military machine,” the source said. “We should make no mistake, they have the combat power to press this forward.” Added Stanovaya, “I don’t see Russia reexamining its earlier position. I would leave some probability that Putin will still want to finish the job. He may explain the failure of the military operation in different ways, but he hasn’t changed his starting assumption that he is historically right. He thinks that Ukraine has to stop its existence in the form it existed before February 24.”

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 14:22

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

PT6A posted:

I've been looking into the history of the conflict in the Donbas, and I'm still coming up short on one thing: where is the support for Russia coming from in that region? Why, there, were a bunch of people like "oh yeah, Russia's pretty great, Putin is good, the EU sucks?" From what I've been able to find from ostensibly neutral sources, the de facto governments of LPR and DPR are neo-Stalinist and repressing human rights really heavily; is there any sort of real popular support for them, or is it just Russian-backed folks maintaining power through force in a region that Russia considers economically and strategically important?

I linked a German article by the Berliner Zeitung yesterday that covers this somewhat. Look at my post history to find it. Before Russia annexed Crimea, the Russian-speaking East and South held significant pro-Russian views, which led to even some Western "experts" proclaiming that Ukraine was an artificial state and half the county would prefer being part of Russia. That division of opinions completely changed since the war in Donbass, but it contributed to the success of the original occupation.

One significant statistic from that article: Due to the Donbass war, 50 000 people have fled to Russia from the region. 1.5 million have fled to the rest of Ukraine. That should tell you something about the legitimacy of DPR and LPR.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 14:53

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Saladman posted:

Like poo poo when was the last time a country other than Russia tried a completely unprovoked attempt to literally annex another independent country, not counting post-colonial independence messes like East Timor vs Indonesia or Morocco vs W Sahara.

Iraq and Kuwait.

And incidentally, this is also why I no longer think a regime change is all that likely. Saddam remained in power. Even if Russia were to be completely driven out of Ukraine, Putin can switch narratives that this was all a trap by the perfidious Nazi West to use their Ukrainian Nazi stooges in order to cripple Russia's mighty army and economy. All the hardships the people have to endure until the end of their (or at least Putin's) lives are the fault of the West.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 15:12

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Barrel Cactaur posted:

Its some sick man of Europe poo poo. Failure to achieve maximalist demands in a real sense is an existential threat to the Russian state One they made themselves.

I think we should distinguish that it's an existential threat to the Putin regime, not necessarily to the Russian state, although it would be a strong encouragement for client states to break out of its orbit, and for independence movements to flare up.

But on the flip side, and this is something not only the Russians but also Americans, Chinese, Indians, etc. tend to discount, it is also very much an existential threat to all European democracies, even those outside the EU. Despite Ukraine being neither a member of NATO nor the EU, it has proven itself very much to be a functioning, pro-European democracy, and abandoning them to Russian occupation and annexation would mean the entire post-WW2 European Project ends in a catastrophic failure.
And even less idealistic European nations are not looking forward to a partially occupied Ukraine, millions of refugees remaining in the West and millions more fleeing Russian terror for an indeterminate duration.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 16:01

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

FishBulbia posted:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/don%E2%80%99t-let-ukrainian-tb-2-drones-rehabilitate-turkeys-image-201232

I'm not big on the fetishization of military hardware, whether it's Bayraktar, Saint Javelin or Mother NLAW.

But the rehabilitation of Erdogan's image has a lot more to do with him instantly becoming the lesser evil on Feb 24th. (At the latest.)

And also with him hosting peace negotiations.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 16:09

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

FishBulbia posted:

Erdogan and Putin are the same evil. Both have revanchivist dreams enabled by incomplete security systems and weak global governance. Erdogan isn't even anti-Russia. He just turns that on occasionally to stay in good graces with the sweet NATO umbrella.

You know, in the long run, you may well be right. Putin has been further along in dismantling the checks on his personal power, and is more delusional about his capabilities, but Erdogan may still end up in a similar place.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 16:17

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

quote:

Ukrainian officials said Moscow’s aims likely go far beyond seizing these areas, and that Mr. Putin seeks to destroy the best Ukrainian units in the battle of Donbas to then try again to seize the rest of the country, including Kyiv.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-russia-send-reinforcements-for-pitched-battles-in-conflicts-next-phase-11649588496

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 17:03

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Risky Bisquick posted:

Bad timing on this article
https://mobile.twitter.com/Forbes/status/1514333307105906688

The Russian Cruiser 'Moskva' Dominates the Black Sea Floor.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2022 02:15

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Tuna-Fish posted:

To be clear, these two are not unrelated. The Russians have been doing donuts inside of Neptune's range from day one, but Ukraine had so few of them that they couldn't risk wasting them on cheeky shots, they had to save them all for the potential landing near Odessa. The second they had something in reserve, they pulled the trigger on the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. You can probably imagine the level of frustration and then the satisfaction the coastal missile troops who have had to look at the ship taking potshots at their homes for all this time, and finally getting the okay to take the shot.

That's a very good point. It may not be the main or only reason for their timing (offensive on Cherson, maybe?), but it definitely sounds plausible.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2022 12:20

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Chinese-American Proxy War (1).

# ¿ Apr 14, 2022 15:53

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/hot-peace-putins-war-as-clash-of-civilization-by-slavoj-zizek-2022-03

If you want a nuanced take by a leftist intellectual, read some Zizek instead.

Excerpt posted:

Realpolitik is no better guide. It has become a mere alibi for ideology, which often evokes some hidden dimension behind the veil of appearances in order to obscure the crime that is being committed openly. This double mystification is often announced by describing a situation as “complex.” An obvious fact – say, an instance of brutal military aggression – is relativized by evoking a “much more complex background.” The act of aggression is really an act of defense.

This is exactly what is happening today. Russia obviously attacked Ukraine, and is obviously targeting civilians and displacing millions. And yet commentators and pundits are eagerly searching for “complexity” behind it.

There is complexity, of course. But that does not change the basic fact that Russia did it. Our mistake was that we did not interpret Putin’s threats literally enough; we thought he was just playing a game of strategic manipulation and brinkmanship. One is reminded of the famous joke that Sigmund Freud quotes:

“Two Jews met in a railway carriage at a station in Galicia. ‘Where are you going?’ asked one. ‘To Cracow,’ was the answer. ‘What a liar you are!’ broke out the other. ‘If you say you’re going to Cracow, you want me to believe you’re going to Lemberg. But I know that in fact you’re going to Cracow. So why are you lying to me?’”

When Putin announced a military intervention, we didn’t take him literally when he said he wanted to pacify and “denazify” Ukraine. Instead, the reproach from disappointed “deep” strategists amounts to: “Why did you tell me you are going to occupy Lviv when you really want to occupy Lviv?”

This double mystification exposes the end of realpolitik. As a rule, realpolitik is opposed to the naivety of binding diplomacy and foreign policy to (one’s version of) moral or political principles. Yet in the current situation, it is realpolitik that is naive. It is naive to suppose that the other side, the enemy, is also aiming at a limited pragmatic deal.

Hannibal Rex fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Apr 16, 2022

# ¿ Apr 16, 2022 11:58

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

DOOMocrat posted:

I bet it was a solid boosted UK Harpoon.

Warbadger posted:

the Harpoons wouldn't be in place immediately.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Harpoon has no land-based launchers, and Ukrainians know rocketry well.

I'm interrupting your Harpoon chat to ask if the speculation about Harpoons has actually been verified. Last I heard, the official UK statement didn't specify which type of missile they're sending.

Nerds seem to jump on the Harpoon because it had video games named after it, but there are a bunch more plausible options.

This article lists Brimstone Sea Spear, Exocet, and Marte missiles.

https://esut.de/en/2022/04/meldungen/33522/grossbritannien-seezielflugkoerper-fuer-die-ukraine/

# ¿ Apr 16, 2022 21:03

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

cinci zoo sniper posted:

https://twitter.com/eastern_border/status/1515988229031448576

Apparently Latvian embassy told the podcast guy to get gently caress out of Kyiv due to him being on a hit list.

I only skimmed his tweets, but he's thanking the Latvian embassy for getting him home quickly, he isn't saying the info about being targeted came from them.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2022 11:13

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

lollontee posted:

if the Russians feel like they're not being negotiated with, they're going to start turning cities into graveyards

RUSSIANS (1985).

They will make cemetaries their cathedrals, and the cities will be your tombs.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2022 13:25

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Charlz Guybon posted:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ChuckPfarrer/status/1515387635606319106

This guy's even less credible that the youtube "expert" we've been talking about these last few posts.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2022 11:56

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Lead out in cuffs posted:

https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1516457338722471949

In Russian Chechnya, you steal tractor!

# ¿ Apr 23, 2022 05:51

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

A good primer on Le Pen's ties to Russia, but let's hope it won't suddenly become much more relevant after today.

https://www.jpost.com/christianworld/article-704835

quote:

She largely owes her rise to Russia�s highest circles to her family�s ties with the Orthodox and monarchist oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, introduced to the Le Pens by Glazunov. Malofeev�s TV channel Tsargrad regularly portrays Marine Le Pen in a glowing light.

The FN was also in need of financial support, and here again, Russia played a central role. For her 2017 presidential bid, Marine Le Pen obtained a loan of 9 million euros from a bank with close ties to Vladimir Putin. An investigation by the French investigative-news website Mediapart also revealed that in 2014 Jean-Marie Le Pen received 2 million euros from a Cyprus-based company controlled by a former KGB agent. While Marine Le Pen claimed that it was a loan, it remains repaid, and at the time it was perceived as a reward for the FN�s support of Russia�s annexation of Crimea.

Common interests
The Kremlin has long had an interest in gaining allies with the potential to act as an echo chamber for its worldview. France is of particular interest because of the country�s relative independence from Washington and its status as a nuclear power and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Major French companies are doing business in Russia and therefore inclined to lobby in Moscow�s favor, while France enjoys a rich Russian cultural scene due to the history of Russian emigration.

When foreign policy under President Fran�ois Hollande (2012-2017) failed to play out in Russia�s favor, the Kremlin pivoted toward Marine Le Pen. But Moscow is typically more fair-weather friend than loyal ally. It partly deserted her in the 2017 presidential campaign when Fran�ois Fillon (Les R�publicains, LR) emerged as the leading right-wing candidate. For a while, Russian state TV presented him as a figure capable of rallying conservative religious and economic circles before swinging back in the direction of the RN.

Since then, Marine Le Pen has become one of the darlings of Russian television. She is painted as a leading European politician, an authentic patriot, Gaullism�s natural heir, and the standard-bearer of the idea of a Europe of nations and of �traditional� values.

Hannibal Rex fucked around with this message at 11:55 on Apr 24, 2022

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 11:53

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# ¿ Jun 3, 2024 05:35

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

ZombieLenin posted:

A state cannot unilaterally give away weapons to a foreign country. The executive branch of the US government (the President) could block such a transfer.

How about, a police department?

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 16:44

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > READ OP! War in Ukraine: a distressed blender making too many margaritas at once

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