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KillHour posted:"...and therefore they have no choice but to let Ukraine burn to the ground" is the implication of that, and Russia knows it. That card may get overplayed here. If there's one thing Europeans hate more than higher gas prices, it's refugees.
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Feb 18, 2022 21:21
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Peaceful defensive exercises in the territory of themselves and their close fraternal allies, a display of anti-imperialist unity in the face of NATO's warmongering unrelated to the Ukrainian civil war.
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Feb 20, 2022 23:30
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I am being sarcastic, Poe's Law and all that. How do you justify a massive military mobilization on your neighbors border? You don't, you blame America because you're an intellectually bankrupt leftist who hasn't updated their playbook since Glenn Greenwald left the country.
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Feb 20, 2022 23:58
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GABA ghoul posted:I would blame drugs for this shitshow of a speech but I don't know any drugs that could do this. Ivermectin? He's allegedly been paranoid about covid which is why he does the long tables.
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Feb 21, 2022 20:32
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steinrokkan posted:Millions dead due to Vladimir Lenin's invention, Nazi collusion The Ukrainian homonazis attacking Russia in a pincer movement from both sides of the ideological spectrum.
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Feb 22, 2022 19:15
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Eric Cantonese posted:What's most likely, but least violent resolution to this situation? The regions under Russian territory becoming fully independent after some bloodshed? I don't want to risk my sanity combing Twitter for pundit hot takes. Least violent resolution is always "Russian threats of escalation are a bluff and they don't do anything beyond they've already done." Currently, they've moved additional troops into the regions they already occupy and been consistently bombarding Ukrainian lines and civilian areas. It's unlikely they'll stop: the point of the bombardment is to provoke retaliation that can justify further invasion. Least violent, but still likely, is Russia attacks Ukrainian troops in the Donbass but doesn't advance further. This is still going to be very bloody, with military casualties in the thousands and civilian casualties dependent on what Mariupol looks like. Unfortunately even this least violent outcome leaves a lot of cards on the table for Russia and the most likely outcome involves a general invasion to occupy large portions of Eastern Ukraine and probably to try to topple the government completely.
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Feb 22, 2022 23:05
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Russia definitely has troops to take and hold at least a few major cities. That said, they’ve literally never show themselves to be decent at urban warfare. The Russian strategy for urban warfare has been showcased in Syria: no city, no urban warfare.
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Feb 23, 2022 16:33
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Orthanc6 posted:Would probably make things worse at this exact moment. Even if it was natural causes it's way too suspicious, no one would believe it wasn't an assassination and some Stalin-level psycho would likely take over His legal successor is the Prime Minister, who currently is a technocratic civil servant. But he likely wouldn't be able to stop the machine that's already in motion.
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Feb 24, 2022 01:22
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Russian civil society has been gutted the last few years. Everyone willing to speak out has been imprisoned or fled the country. This has been in the planning for years.
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Feb 24, 2022 03:20
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CommieGIR posted:The problem is we've been clear since 2014 we'd never go to war over Ukraine, so its a weird take. Putin is more like a paranoid lover who is seeing cheaters in every bush. Putin was lying about not invading Ukraine for months, so he fully expects the Americans to be doing the same.
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Feb 24, 2022 04:30
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Honestly if you put it to the General Assembly as an up or down vote on Russia having a seat on the security council, they'd probably get kicked off.
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Feb 24, 2022 06:10
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The Russia apologists have moved on from denying that any invasion will take place to denying that the Russian army will target civilians in the invasion that is definitely happening, ignoring decades of experience of the Russian army's behavior in places like Grozny and Aleppo.
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Feb 24, 2022 14:18
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dr_rat posted:Everything about Russia's communication has been all over the place. Particularly as it's obviously been planned for a while now it's surprising that Putin didn't just have a few talking points handed out to everyone and have everyone stick to it. Both speeches he would ignore some stuff he mentioned before bring in new stuff. Seems like he made up like five different reasons to invade and has no idea which one he actually wants to stick with. No one is left to challenge his internal narrative. It doesn't need to be consistent or thorough. He's spent the pandemic in a bunker isolated from human contact as much as possible, the world he lives in is more comparable to a game of civilization than reality.
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Feb 24, 2022 14:41
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This is also the first conventional war Europe has seen in 77 years. Hindsight being 20/20, I can't terribly fault someone skeptical that Russia would straight up invade all of Ukraine.
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Feb 24, 2022 16:35
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The oligarchs are going to metaphorically kiss the ring, profess support for the war, and be reassured by Putin he will look after their wealth. None of them are going to be dropped into a tank of angry sea bass.
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Feb 24, 2022 17:46
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JerikTelorian posted:Is there any reason to believe the Russians are really taking it in the chin here, or is it mostly just people cherry-picking Russian materiel getting toasted? It's a huge battlefront so there will be lots of individual incidents that go one way for one side or another. The strategic situation is grim for Ukraine: check back in in a week. If a cohesive, stable line has formed on the right side of Kiev then the war is going badly for Russia.
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Feb 24, 2022 17:49
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Madkal posted:Hey all. Sorry to ask for a brief break in people arguing what is and isn't a cyber war and such but being all the way in North America and seeing the hosed up poo poo happening in Ukraine got me wondering if there are any agencies or charities in Ukraine worth donating to at the moment. I am guessing Red Cross will probably be the best one to send a little bit of money to but are there any others to send a donation to, just to give the appearance of helping at least. There's another stickied thread in the forum with charities. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3994478
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Feb 24, 2022 19:52
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Saladman posted:I watched the press conference - first time I've seen Biden talk in years I think - and I was wondering: what's the point of sanctioning Putin? He's obviously not going to any Western countries any time soon, and he won't have any meaningful assets in Western countries. I guess it's symbolic? He'd still be able to travel to New York and Geneva even if sanctioned, right? I'm not quite sure how that works though. His children live in the west and he has billions stashed away in secret accounts that they draw from, so it would impact him personally.
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Feb 24, 2022 20:21
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Grape posted:Way earlier we had Russian posters (or those who had family there anyway) saying it was a bit of a running gag domestically that Putin loved spending all his time playing around with foreign policy type stuff, and couldn't give a poo poo about like important but dry domestic stuff. It's worth noting that he's shown a desire to shift more power to the Prime Minister, the post under the President, and appointed the closest Russia has to a technocrat to that post in 2020. He's been the head of the Russian government for twenty years, it may be that he's frankly bored of the administrative side of things and wants to deal with great politics.
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Feb 24, 2022 22:12
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Mooseontheloose posted:how does one read that map? Like, what's bad and what's ye gods we're doomed levels? If you click on the dots, you can see readings from the past few days. Today's reading is 25x what yesterday's was.
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Feb 24, 2022 23:57
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We're seeing good things, but it's essentially just the Ukrainians giving as good as they're getting. Russia just has a much better strategic position (THREE massive fronts) and so much more resources. The only real success has been punishing a ridiculously optimistic Russian hail mary at the airport and keeping some measure of air defense active through the initial bombardment. Fundamentally, Russia has multiple axes of advance, the best of which near Kharkiv and Donetsk are meeting serious resistance and the worst of which near Kherson appear effectively unopposed. Russia only needs to win one of those battles to completely collapse the Ukrainian strategic situation, which the offensive from Crimea seems to be achieving.
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Feb 25, 2022 05:36
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Inner Light posted:Hello thread people. What is the definition of neutral status in this context? I am seeing these words tossed around without an understanding of what it means for UKR. Some people mean neutral to mean like Finland, which despite pro-Western leanings isn't part of NATO. In practice, "neutral" means a Russian client-state, where Russian advisors and security services keep control over a pro-Western population with a collaboration government.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:38
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CommieGIR posted:How does this help him? How does this possibly gain Russia any PR? The outside chance of a military coup throwing Ukrainian government into chaos.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:05
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cinci zoo sniper posted:
Agreed. Half this thread is on my ignore list and the quality of my experience has improved exponentially. Just mute the tankies. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 25, 2022 18:12
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Forums functionality reminder - if you find someone insufferable, and don't want to seem them post, please use "ignore" function.
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coelomate posted:Their central bank has reserves of foreign currency. Ostensibly such sanctions can dramatically limit the ability for that foreign currency to be used. Sticking to my lane here, a huge chunk of their savings are probably in foreign currencies because of the expectation of a drop in the rouble. If you're expecting to lose 10-20% of the value from a invasion, you're going to move a lot of wealth to a more stable asset.
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Feb 26, 2022 18:54
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He's been twenty years building to this moment. Fifteen years of military adventures and reforms, more than two decades strengthening his hold over the security services to clamp down on dissent. Years of financial measures to build up a warchest to endure the expected sanctions. At least eight years of operations in Ukraine itself in prep. Putin's entire legacy is at stake in Ukraine. His plan was to install a puppet government and complete a trifecta (quadfecta?) of the USSR's core territory in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine as dependent client states that can be reintegrated over the next decade. He'd be the man who pulled Russia back from the brink and reclaimed its position as a great power able to go toe to toe with the west.
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Feb 26, 2022 20:47
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steinrokkan posted:Paradoxically, based on the maps of reported fighting, Donbas is one area where he's not moved ahead. Probably because he needs the Donbas republics and their claimed territory to remain pristine for propaganda purposes, I guess? It's ironically where Ukraine's heaviest and best fighting forces were deployed right before the war. They're facing significant Russian forces so they probably can't easily redeploy, but it's also where Russia would expect the hardest fight if they attack. Notice the big movements from Crimea and Kharkiv can essentially be seen as an attempt to cut off all these forces.
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Feb 26, 2022 20:50
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Zhanism posted:Who is this? It's fake, but Kadyrov is a bond villain among a nation of bond villains. He's the mini-dictator of Chechnya, a restive autonomous republic with a majority Muslim population that tried to break away from Russia in the 90s. He has his own private Islamic militia that keeps control of the region in return for big financial bribes from Putin. The day to day operations of his government are comparable to a Mexican drug cartel in brutality.
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Feb 26, 2022 21:12
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the popes toes posted:Poland is as close to a meltdown induced rage that I have ever seen in a government. Someone is finally fighting the Russians and it's not them and they're very mad about it.
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Feb 27, 2022 05:28
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There is an argument to be made that Russia has security concerns vis a vis NATO. OTOH, they're bad. There's a reason everyone in Eastern Europe hates them and is suddenly enthusiastic to send support to their enemies. Russian security concerns and Russian imperialism are indistinguishable, and they've spent centuries invading and persecuting their neighbors. The fundamental Russian position is that our neighbors don't like us and we need to make sure they never threaten us. Their neighbors' fundamental position is Russia keeps invading us. These are not equivalent and Russia has been unwilling to construct a genuine mutual security architecture that isn't just Russian occupation.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:04
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Yeah and there has been a lot of talk of the Russians trying to cut off power as well. That's really the threat here. There's been a huge and robust response from the west that no one anticipated. No Fly Zone talk is on the fringe, but the 24 hour news cycle may not be able to endure a multiweek siege of a major European city, with the residents smuggling out tiktok videos as they starve to death amid daily artillery bombardments.
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Feb 27, 2022 20:23
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TheRat posted:No, it really isn't. No Fly Zone is equivalent to full scale war between NATO and Russia. It's not a thing. That's what I mean, it's a fringe push by people with no political credibility who don't understand the implications.
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Feb 27, 2022 20:24
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a pipe smoking dog posted:Yes I was also thinking about this. The basis of Putin's legitimacy was resurrecting the economy and ending the war in Chechnya, if Kadyrov's forces get thwacked you have to wonder if he can hold things together. There's no good numbers for the Kadyrovtsy, there were maybe 5 to 7,000 when they formally disbanded and were integrated into the Chechen government when Kadyrov took over. But the casualties we are seeing are unlikely to make a significant dent outside of morale.
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Feb 27, 2022 20:57
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KitConstantine posted:Speaking of superior equipment - here's a "before and after Ukraine" of the Armata tank, aka Russia's top of the line showpiece I was always skeptical of the idea of active armor to deal with antitank weapons. It seemed like a lot of money to try to keep tanks relevant in modern warfare.
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Feb 28, 2022 02:56
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KitConstantine posted:Theory posting It's more than that. The West as a whole has been struggling with a purpose for decades, since the end of the cold war. Neoliberalism, the naked pursuit of profit, and atomization of society has produced a fundamentally unfulfilling existence. This permeates politics, too. Ukraine has given a jolt to a moribund, stagnant system. It's able to build on the remnant western mythos: democracy, freedom, the plucky underdog against tyranny. There's no entrenched interest groups to work against, just a clear good guy and a clear bad guy.
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Feb 28, 2022 03:28
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I'm still confused as to what's going on at the Donetsk line. Are the Ukrainians just not able to disengage? Have they, but their opsec is good and we haven't heard anything while they prepare a counterattack?
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Feb 28, 2022 05:51
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Hamelekim posted:I do wonder if Putin really is suffering from serious health issues at the moment. If so that could make him incredibly dangerous and unstable in his decision making in a crisis like this. It's a terminal case of botox.
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Feb 28, 2022 06:38
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It's not at WW2 levels where the Allies could decrypt German communications faster than their field commanders could, but we effectively have Marco Rubio providing real time commentary on the orders being given to Russian commanders.
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Feb 28, 2022 19:48
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Oh, Sochi I know - the highway, the dog shooting, the subsequent ghost town, etcetera. I was just under impression that military reforms were actually conducted in good enough faith, despite Shoygu being a palace intrigant first and foremost. That's really the thing: we've all known Russia is a massive kleptocracy held together by duct tape, where the only bits that resemble a first world country are the show cities in Moscow and Petrograd. But the entire world has assumed the military was different because it's the foundation of Russian national pride and great power status. That Russians toned down their institutional rot so they could credibly play Call of Duty villains.
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Feb 28, 2022 20:14
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William Bear posted:This is incredibly generous, where is Ukraine getting all this money? From what I can tell, the average annual income of a Russian is about 600,000 rubles. A private in the Russian army makes about 360,000 rubles a year. The limitless money of the West. evilweasel posted:And I think I agree that people are watching a bad strategy fail and assuming it's the entire capability of the Russian army, and not a bad strategy that is going to cost them heavy losses but that they can revise and go back to basics and recover, unfortunately. The issue is we're also seeing bad basics: battalion tactical groups not coordinating within themselves, exposed supply convoys, sub-par performance by special forces.
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Feb 28, 2022 21:11
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