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What is the most powerful flying bug? This poll is closed. |
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| 🦋 |
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15 | 3.71% |
| 🦇 |
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115 | 28.47% |
| 🪰 |
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12 | 2.97% |
| 🐦 |
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67 | 16.58% |
| dragonfly |
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94 | 23.27% |
| 🦟 |
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14 | 3.47% |
| 🐝 |
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87 | 21.53% |
| Total: | 404 votes | ||
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Ramrod Hotshot posted:Looks like the brunt of Ukraine's week-before-NATO offensive is aimed at the area south of Bakhmut. I guess the reasoning is a) they can claim to be winning back Bakhmut and reverse the narrative that they lost that battle and b) the Donbas might be an easier win than the southern corridor kill zone. But strategically, it doesn't make any more sense to go east first than it ever did. This is just to keep the western gravy train chugging. Attacking the south made sense from a military strategy standpoint, because in theory Ukraine could cut the land bridge to Crimea, which would be a step in the right direction from them. Focusing on Bakhmut now by contrast seems to be going for a purely symbolic victory.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:01
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 03:12 |
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Love the morons replying that this is "treason" even though the article states that the Biden administration was aware of the talks (and thus very likely has no issue with them occuring)
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Jul 6, 2023 15:16
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Ardennes posted:Yeah, but the Western media very clearly can’t accept that. YouTubers and the NYT are still going nuts over it. All of the territory, at least in the southern front which was supposed to be the major focus of the offensive, that Ukraine has taken thus far is the security zone before Russia's first main line of defense that isn't supposed to last anyway. In other words its capture doesn't significantly degrade Russia's defenses
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Jul 6, 2023 17:45
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Alpha 1 posted:The Ukrainian dolchstoßlegende is starting to take its incredibly lame form. None of these idiots read the article, otherwise they'd have read the part where the former security officials literally met with Biden's security council afterward to discuss the talks. None of this happened without the Biden administration knowledge.
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Jul 6, 2023 19:51
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euphronius posted:I wonder what some realistic terms are ? intl recognition that Russia owns the 4 eastern provinces and crimea, cancelling sanctions, guarantees that Ukraine does not enter nato, maybe also some reparations to Russia ? Russia would likely demand Odessa and Mykloaiv oblasts as well to cut off Ukraine's access to the Black Sea which will effectively make Ukraine a useless rump state economically.
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Jul 6, 2023 20:37
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PhilippAchtel posted:https://twitter.com/hrw/status/1676937047326466048 It is remarkable how the most rabidly pro-Ukraine westerners have in practice total disregard for the people actually living in the country.
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Jul 7, 2023 14:29
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Alpha 1 posted:https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/07/politics/joe-biden-cluster-munitions-ukraine/ Oh wow lmao I didn't expect Biden to just straight up admit it.
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Jul 7, 2023 23:24
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Danann posted:https://twitter.com/witte_sergei/status/1677353261635096577 The endpoint of liberal idealism, thinking that posting can replace reality.
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Jul 8, 2023 02:03
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gradenko_2000 posted:https://twitter.com/kajakallas/status/1677659297600217091?t=j43kN8zSGtyr1F0aufEObQ&s=19 lmao
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Jul 8, 2023 16:05
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Danann posted:https://twitter.com/pevchikh/status/1678008982563061761 You would think this would be a wake up call for her and other pro-Western liberals that yeah, a lot of the people you consider your allies actively want you dead.
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Jul 10, 2023 02:02
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Lostconfused posted:Not seeing a lot speculation about what's going to go down at the NATO summit in a few days. I don't think anything interesting will come out of it, at least publicly. Privately we might get some leaks about NATO frustration with how poorly the counteroffensive had gone compared to expectations, but that's it.
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Jul 10, 2023 16:10
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:I had a very cool conversation with someone today in which I discovered that 1. Ukraine will use cluster munitions responsibly, and they gave written statements about it. 2. They never used cluster munitions on Donetsk City because Ukraine never had cluster munitions. 3. All independent organizations have said that they have never observed Ukraine using cluster munitions. 4. 2014 was a different time and different government, and Maidan happened because of the pro-Russian government using cluster munitions on Donetsk City caused Ukrainians to rise up against it. I'm not even sure how someone could come to believe that, especially the bolded part. A complete misunderstanding of Ukraine's political situation at every level.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:51
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Regarde Aduck posted:i don't get the messaging from doing this, aren't they just signalling that they believe Russia is a major threat and not a spent force? Is Russia a useless, incompetent and defeated force or not? Russia is a pathetically incompetent, corrupt nation of drunken orcs who can't even aim an artillery piece without blowing up one of their own. Also Russia is an existential threat that will completely overrun all of Europe unless they are stopped here and now in Ukraine.
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Jul 10, 2023 19:53
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:My favourite take on that was Arestovych actually, back while he was still Ukraine's golden boy. He said that if Ukraine doesn't defeat Russia, Russia will roll over all of Europe effortlessly because the Russian army will now be full of half a million Ukrainian supersoldiers. Okay that's actually a hilarious way to resolve two inherently contradictory ideas.
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Jul 10, 2023 22:35
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Deadly Ham Sandwich posted:loving hell I thought you were talking about the NAFO meeting, not actual NATO. Given how the NATO meeting has gone thus far, they might as well be the same thing
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Jul 11, 2023 17:14
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KomradeX posted:Lol remember yesterday with someone saying the Ukrianians kettled 50k Russian troops I'm not even sure how people get an idea like this into their heads and then believe it, especially if they follow the conflict on a daily basis.
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Jul 11, 2023 18:35
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bedpan posted:don't know about Russia but they sure had a lot to say about China! One thing I always find hilarious regarding China is the constant western hysteria hyping them up as an existential threat to "freedom and democracy" and then you look at the propaganda coming out of the China side and its mostly "look at this adorable Panda eating bamboo!"
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Jul 11, 2023 18:52
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SplitSoul posted:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/12/uk-defence-secretary-ben-wallace-suggests-ukraine-could-say-thank-you On one hand, I hate NATO so under no circumstance do I ever think a country should be "grateful" for their "help" That said, there shouldn't be any doubt that without NATO/US (ultimately the same thing if we're being honest) equipment and support Ukraine's military and even their entire government would have collapsed like 8 months ago.
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Jul 12, 2023 14:27
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Orange Devil posted:Yeah even in hindsight I still think being very skeptical and not believing that Ukraine was about to be invaded in February 2022 was very reasonable. I'm fully aware this might be cope on my part since i also never thought Russia would invade in Feb. 2022 (i thought it was a terrible idea and still do), but given a lot of what we've learned after the fact I've started to believe the US "prediction" of invasion was pure luck. They kept saying it was going to happen based just on the troop buildup at the border, and then it eventually actually happened. I'm not sure they had an additional insight into it beyond the troop buildup, especially since Putin himself didn't appear to make the final call until like a week prior.
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Jul 12, 2023 14:30
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:Don't forget that months later US media quoted US officials as saying that the intel was fake, they made it up lol Wait seriously? They admitted it outright? Lmao
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Jul 12, 2023 16:58
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Regarde Aduck posted:time to flip sides and conquer Europe with Russia Tbh if Ukraine actually did that and the US and Turkey decides to stay out of it I'm pretty sure the Ukraine+Russia team actually would steamroll the rest of Europe. This war has exposed how empty most of Europe's military capabilites actually are.
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Jul 12, 2023 18:30
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V. Illych L. posted:i'm placing my bets here: finnish military doctrine will quickly harmonise to the NATO standard and become much leaner and more "smart weapon"-based and thus unable to engage in anything like a peer war The US has far and away the largest military budget in the world yet struggles to sustain ammo production to the point where they apparently have no choice but to break out cluster munitions with a disturbingly high dud rate. It's hard to shake the allegations that NATO itself is first and foremost a grift to fuel the profits of weapons contractors.
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Jul 12, 2023 19:03
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DiscountDildos posted:https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1679270276846977026?s=20 The guy is on the Atlantic Council, because of course
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Jul 13, 2023 00:39
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I find the seething hatred for the USSR odd when it's largely because of various actions taken by the USSR that modern-day Ukraine has the borders that it has.
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Jul 13, 2023 13:10
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One thing I've wondered about during Ukraine's counteroffensive is why they didn't wait until they have thr F16s available to them. We've seen throughout the past 1.5 months that the lack of any air power is a huge impediment. And while the training on the F16s will take until late 2023 or into 2024, what was the reason they didn't wait? I've only been able to think of 2 reasons and neither bode well for Ukraine 1. They really were under pressure by NATO to achieve results quickly prior to the summit or some other deadline, which indicates that NATO, or at least some countries in it, are losing patience 2. The constant airstrikes deep into Ukranian territory are heavily degrading their military capabilities, to the point that the AFU believed that the longer they waited, the worse their overall position would be.
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Jul 13, 2023 14:36
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Marenghi posted:Even Bush took credit for and was proud of US the Orange and Rose Revolution in one of his out-going speeches. Liberals will deny that there's any US involvement in these color revolutions up until it's openly admitted or otherwise beyond plausible deniability. They'll then immediately pivot to "it's good the US did it, actually"
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Jul 13, 2023 15:10
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Ardennes posted:But also so what? The West has already dramatically slowed what they are sending over, and while it is going to hurt, they can't send equipment they don't have and NATO isn't going to be going in full blast even if it could. It just kicking the can down the road with the hope the Russians take some attrition. It's debatable if Russia is even taking significant attrition I keep remembering a few months ago when a US General said in a congressional hearing that Russia's military was larger than before Feb. 2022
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Jul 13, 2023 15:19
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Ardennes posted:They do take some losses, obviously, they are enough videos, but at the same time, the Russians are not only severely outtrading the Ukrainians, but they simply have much more men and material to pull from at this point. (Also, the Russians just use much more cautious but sound tactics, which is going to keep the attrition down.) It's hard to get a real sense of the casualty rates on both sides just because of the sheer amount of lying. But based on Russia's overwhelming artillery advantage, admitted by all sides and in a war largely fought with artillery, and then the fact that Ukraine has had many mobilization campaign whereas Russia just had the one last September, it does seem to me that Russia is coming out ahead in terms of casualty attrition rates. And that it's a pretty huge difference. Mearsheimer estimated it to be 2 to 1 in Russia's favor. That could be true, but it might be higher.
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Jul 13, 2023 15:52
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Regarde Aduck posted:libs literally think Russians are down to T-62's now. And they've been out of artillery since March 2022. And all their tires were bad because chinese. One of the absolute geniuses at Bellingcat claimed, with full confidence, that Russia would be completely out of artillery ammo within two weeks (so like mid-March 2022)
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Jul 13, 2023 23:07
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"Russia can just leave" I mean I guess in a purely abstract sense, yes that would be by far the easiest way for the war to end. But if NATO's priority were truly in protecting Ukraine and its people, and not in using Ukraine in a proxy war to weaken Russia, NATO would be taking actions to entice Russia to actually leave. In other words, yes they would be trying to give Putin an "off-ramp", which I realize is now considered a forbidden phrase among the west. "We will lift the sanctions and readmit you to SWIFT if you withdraw your forces" "we pledge not to bring NATO into Ukraine if you respect Ukraine's internationally recognized territory and offer alternative security guarantees to Ukraine" etc These examples I listed would not be big asks of NATO at all, at least from a material perspective. And that's the approach they should be taking if they actually took the well-being of Ukraine as a country seriously. Instead, the rhetoric and actions actually taken practically seem designed to make Russian withdrawal impossible. If you tell Russia that Ukraine will be admitted to NATO once the war ends, of course Russia will not withdrawal. You're making withdrawal as painful as humanely possible for Russia, thus ensuring it doesn't happen. All of this, of course, exposes the real goal: NATO intends to weaken Russia as much as possible, and if Ukraine is destroyed in the process so be it.
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Jul 14, 2023 14:15
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https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1679741285643452418?s=20 They're trying to get out of handing F16s over to Ukraine, it looks like
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Jul 14, 2023 15:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:https://twitter.com/berlin_bridge/status/1679934822305677337?t=1dNqFHG8cO5a8ibxK-h95g&s=19 https://twitter.com/berlin_bridge/status/1654854016898138118 This was her two months ago. No matter what anyone is saying now, it is clear that the pro-Ukrainian commentators thought they would achieve immediate, rapid success.
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Jul 15, 2023 15:51
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Regarde Aduck posted:if Ukraine did that there wouldn't need to be a negotiation? Do libs just equate 'negotiation' with 'unconditional surrender' because that would explain a lot Correct. Liberals are fully starting to adopt the neocon view that any kind of negotiation automatically equals appeasement.
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Jul 15, 2023 20:47
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Honest Thief posted:This will go great. At that scale they won't bother differentiating Russians who have lived in Crimea since before 2014. If Ukraine were to ever retake Crimea we would see probably something like half the population deported (so well over a million people)
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Jul 17, 2023 13:01
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This is pure speculation, but do you think the timing of the attack on the Kerch Bridge coincides with roughly when the AFU expected to have reached the Sea of Azov? The overall strategy was to drive straight through the land bridge, then destroy the Kerch bridge so that Crimea was "cut off". Of course, since the land phase of the operation hasn't panned out, they went through with the bridge attack anyway cause hey it's a PR win, plus it does slightly frustrate Russian logistics for a bit.
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Jul 17, 2023 13:09
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My understanding of the current situation is that Russia is the one on the attack on more fronts. And that Ukraine is only really pushing hard in the Bakhmut front at the moment.
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Jul 17, 2023 16:12
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euphronius posted:my inference is Bakhmut is “a weak point” because Russia did not have time to prepare depth defense Yeah that's probably accurate. It's Ukraine's best chance at a breakthrough.
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Jul 17, 2023 16:16
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bedpan posted:not quite sure when NATO is going to formally tire of supporting Ukraine but having watched the NATO summit, I think things are going to change sometime after the first of the year 2024 I'm not yet convinced that the US (I realize NATO as an alliance is arming Ukraine, but let's be real - the US is the only country whose opinion matters wrt to NATO) is ready to give this up. Don't get me wrong, we have seen some evidence that factions in the foreign policy establishment are looking for an exit - the recent RAND reports are a major reflection of this. But there's a couple considerations: 1. This isn't really costing the US that much, beyond destroying their ammo reserves which they weren't planning on using anyway (since their doctrine is all about air power)*. The US economy is almost completely unaffected. Sure, the EU is skewering their economy for this, but from the US perspective that's a feature, not a bug. 2. They'll never admit it, but the Biden admin is no doubt taking the 2024 election into consideration. Biden became a pariah during the Afghanistan withdrawal with the immediate (and predictable, unless you had your head in the clouds) collapse of the US puppet state. That collapse is still on their minds, and they will not want a repeat during an election year. Or worse, right in the middle of campaign season. So any exit will happen after 2025. What would it look like? Well, the US is not going to negotiate with Russia. First, because they would consider than an abject humiliation after going all-in (rhetorically, at least) for the past year and a half. And second, because not negotiating ensures that even if Russia eventually achieves its war goals, the process of achieving them will be as painful as possible (since they'll have to fight for them instead of receiving concessions). I think the sudden, announced withdrawal is also unlikely, even after the election. If we assume Biden wins, I think what you'll get instead is the slow wind down - the Nixon in Vietnam strategy. Where you keep going long after a victory is realistic, not to win but to position your proxy in such a way that they don't immediately collapse once you finally pull the plug. Then, ideally there is enough time between the end of support and the collapse of the proxy that you can wash your hands clean of it. In this case, since the US doesn't officially have boots on the ground (in reality, they've got some special forces and officers deployed), the wind down can happen over the course of years. It can be gradual enough that the start of it isn't even noticeable until years afterward. For all we know it might've already happened. Maybe it'll start in 2024 like you alleged. Maybe not until 2025.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:23
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Starsfan posted:I'm still holding out hope that Ukraine will see their way clear to surrendering at some point in the future (probably by running some sort of coup on the current pro-war faction and getting in new people who can credibly negotiate with Russia) but it's not exactly clear to me how this can happen without the blessing of the US.. so regrettably my opinion is still that most likely this will continue until American weapon manufacturers have made every last dollar of profit they can off this whole affair. Even if Zelensky wanted to surrender, and I haven't seen any evidence that he does, any territorial concession results in an immediate coup by fascist military/paramilitary forces that gets the implicit blessing of the US (and maybe a token, meaningless condemnation).
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Jul 17, 2023 23:25
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 03:12 |
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Nix Panicus posted:Again, I think the fact that Russia has decided to use building new housing as their PR stunt to assure the people in the newly annexed oblasts things will be better is telling. It's still a PR stunt, but it also demonstrates that Russia is aware that providing for basic needs is how you win the people over, and also that they are interested in winning the people over at all. Neither of those are necessarily a given. Yeah, Russia understands that they can make the annexation smoother by offering a number of services that the people in those territories might not get if they remained in Ukraine. That's not altruism, it's practicality. BTW, this is the real story of how Maidan was launched. Yanukovych was negotiating a trade deal with the EU, which would've wound up being the same old IMF dogshit deal that most countries in the global south get, laden with privatization and austerity. So Russia swooped in and offered a better deal - again, not out of altruism, but because Ukraine was a core interest that they wanted to keep in their orbit. Hence the willingness to undercut the IMF deal with one somewhat better. When Yanukovych signaled he would take the Russian deal, that's when Maidan began. It's kind of why I find the whole thing to be a farce, especially when it's called a "Revolution of Dignity"
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Jul 18, 2023 15:01
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