Russia/Ukraine conflict

[stopcrazypp]

For now the optimistic sign is, Russia is doubling down on more conventional forces, pulling troops out of many areas to redeploy them in Ukraine.

If the war drags on a bit longer, things might cool down, the US and others should try to cool things down, what I mean by that is don't change the actions, but tone down the political rhetoric, and offer Russia a way out. e.g. Sanctions can quickly be reversed if Russia and Ukraine can reach a suitable deal.

There is enough petrol on the fire already.

China is interested in calming the situation down:-

The US should demonstrate that it can do diplomacy, by talking to China.

I'm reading that differently. China is simply repeating their long held rhetoric about solving things with dialog (which they say about practically any conflict).
Their foreign minister said that to Russia already at the start of the war:
In phone call, China plays a balancing act over Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Their UN rep repeated the same thing:
China's UN rep calls on parties to exercise restraint in Ukraine crisis
Same thing their President's summit with France and Germany:
President Xi Jinping Holds a Virtual Summit with Leaders of France and Germany
However, this offers nothing concrete, and Putin is pretty much past dialog (certainly didn't work to prevent the war from starting, he just flat out lied to western leaders). The most concrete things came from the summit, with a pledge to humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but also a clear position that they are opposed to sanctions.

Not sure what China can bring to the table with this position that can give Russia an out.

As for toning things down in terms of rhetoric, it's pretty hard to do without staying silent about the atrocities Russia is committing, such as the recent hospital bombing. Russia is also continuing their disinformation campaign, including saying the US has biological/chemical weapons labs in Ukraine.

 

[MC3OZ]

Not sure what China can bring to the table with this position that can give Russia an out.

Anything is worth a try.

The US can simply ask if China wants to have a discussion.

The role China can play is to help calm down and reassure Russia.

This is mostly about land/money and partially about Ukrainian independence and self-rule.

From a Ukrainian point of view, independence is non-negotiable.

The only possible out for Putin is, a deal he can live with, and spin as a win at home.

Some sanctions coming off fast should be part of the deal..

 

[EVNow]

The US can simply ask if China wants to have a discussion.

China is not a trusted neutral party. You need that to mediate.

Anyway, Ukraine and Russia are already talking. There must be some other behind the scene activity going on ….

 

[stopcrazypp]

Anything is worth a try.

The US can simply ask if China wants to have a discussion.

The role China can play is to help calm down and reassure Russia.

This is mostly about land/money and partially about Ukrainian independence and self-rule.

From a Ukrainian point of view, independence is non-negotiable.

The only possible out for Putin is, a deal he can live with, and spin as a win at home.

Some sanctions coming off fast should be part of the deal..

All the stuff you talk about is between Russia and Ukraine, there is nothing much the outside can do that is concrete to affect the decision making of Russia other than sanctions. And a good point was made above, China is not a trusted neutral party (they are obviously pro-Russia, and their domestic propaganda campaign have riled up their netizens into making posts that have been viewed very negatively in Ukraine) so they serve no role to the Ukrainian side. That doesn't make for a useful mediator.

 

[stopcrazypp]

It's also very hard to get a feel of how everyday Russians feel. If Russia did its disinformation war successfully, most people within may feel it is the western powers that are at fault for all of this, and thus even economic collapse may not necessarily threaten Putin's grip on power. There are antiwar protests, but we don't know if that presents majority opinion (much less vast majority).

Kind of unexpected to see this in a comedy late night talk show, but this talk with former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul gives pretty decent insight on how different Russians may be perceiving the war (and from his experience, including living in Russia even under the Soviet Union, I tend to trust his perspective more). Kind of exactly what I feared, there is a large population that believes the Russian propaganda and supports the war, the protests we see only represents a minority view (mostly in the more well educated, younger, and richer population).

Also kind of sad to see in the comments that there are those that have fallen for the Russian disinformation about US biolabs in Ukraine simply because they don't like Biden and want to believe this is "Biden's war" (that or Russian bots are still active).

There may also be the case that is common in many totalitarian governments in which people from the bottom are reluctant to report negative things, so those on the top live in a bubble where it seems everything is going a lot better than it actually is. So they may be making decisions from a different perspective.

Also from the show, there was a report I saw referenced that pointed out evidence of the exact point I mentioned above with this passage:
"Maintaining a luxurious lifestyle disincentivizes top security officials from giving expert advice that might disappoint the autocrat"

Full article here:
Russian military’s corruption quagmire

 

[Xdama]

All news and numbers coming out of Ukrain and Russia should be taken with liberal helping of salt.

Fog of war + propaganda = nothing is certain.

I wasn’t going to post again in here but saw this and thought a bit of perspective from inside Russia. This was my Russian wife’s post on FB recently ie last 2 days.

“Phew. A car full of donations just dropped at Dean Clough mills on behalf of Halifax Ukranian Club. Thank you to everyone who donated, every item will be massively appreciated
They’re still accepting donations this & next week if you feel like you can help x”

This is one of the replies (guy is English living in Moscow working as an EFL teacher)

“The People of Donbass would’ve appreciated all that stuff as well, you know over 8 years, but hey. Nobody gave it a *sugar* or gives a *sugar* because it doesn’t fit in with the narrative.”

So Putins narrative appears to be working well within Russia This is a guy who obviously has access to at least 2 languages, English spoken news & assumedly family in UK.

Her reply was pretty sharp, she was angry so put any typos down to that lol.

“@Kyle oh ffs, they got to you as well, huh?

There are a couple of things that don’t sit well with me, yeah.

1. Hypothetically, if 2 regions in Russia were to go, “ya know what, I disagree with this bullshit. We’re independent from now on” what would happen? Would Putler go,“ye, ok guys” or would he send an army in? Something tells me it’s the latter.

I have no doubts that civilians in both of those regions had a hard time over those 8 years but that only brings me to…

2. Where the hell did those two regions get enough military equipment and ammo to resist a country with almost 200k military for said 8 years? Considering no one recognised them as separate countries until very recently?

3. So far he lied to you about everything that surrounds the current situation. Just 3 weeks ago he was digging his heels in saying, “Russia ain’t gonna attack. It’s all Western propaganda, they’re *sugar*-stirring”. They were not. He also said there were only contracted soldiers in Ukraine. Even Russian media FINALLY admitted that conscripts are there. Only took em 2 weeks.

You’ve got to be pretty brainwashed not to see that military objects are not the only thing that’s being targeted right now. Where’s the coverage on that in Russian media?

4. You’re choosing to believe a person who literally torn and rewrote the Russian constitution to stay in power for this long just to feed his little fantasy and not so little ego. You’re also choosing to believe a person who’s choking any means of voicing an opinion that doesn’t somehow align with his. Just you wait till you disagree with something he does and there is absolutely nothing you can do.

So with all of the above in mind, whilst I do not doubt that people in both regions of Ukraine have died and others suffered for a long time, I doubt that that suffering wasn’t inflicted by Russia and their military support. As with the current situation, any war will bring death. Although, if he was quite the little liberator he fancies himself, all of Ukrainians would be welcoming the Russian soldiers and instead of fleeing West, they’d certainly choose to go East.

Also, please don’t forget that I did live in Russia for 25 years and I have somewhat of a first-hand experience with the sad state of public affairs in Russia. All of the money he’s now spending on this bullshit war he could spend on public health or many, MANY other things.

So, yeah, those are a few things that don’t fit in with my narrative. Just waiting for him to drop a nuke on a Russian city & say it was the UK or the States just to start a world war.”

She added this
“Kyle sorry, I just can’t resist but here’s yet another one.”

This article is Putin explaining how the maternity hospital was not in use in that function but being used by the Ukraine military (not as a hospital either)
She then added the photo below saying guess it was operational after all.

His reply (before blocking her) below

“Like “Covid” got you? Suddenly forgotten about huh.”

Her elder brother also believes the Putin narrative but in his case he doesn’t speak anything other than Russian. Consequently at least in his case it explains it, unlike the English pillock

 

[wdolson]

Latest former Ukrainian minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1501686139157192704

https://www.facebook.com/arsen.avakov.1/posts/4998174646939268

Summary: 200 thousand people were involved in the invasion. Loss of the aggressor so far on the morning of the 14th day of war:
Killed - 10 235 (regular forces) + 2400 (of the composition of the CEC active with the enemy) total about = 12,635 (according to the Russian data)
Wounded - about 35,000
About 3,000 captive
The total loss of the Russian Federation military forces involved in the aggression = about 50,635 people. out of 200k. 25%

The wounded number is probably based on standard ratios of dead to wounded in most wars, but Russian POWs have been telling the Ukrainians that the Russians are just shooting most of the wounded. Pictures have also surfaced of Russian ambulances abandoned (broken down) loaded with ammunition. Instead of moving the wounded, they are putting priority on moving ammunition instead (also against a bunch of rules like the Geneva Convention).

Avakov probably has a good number for POWs if he still has any connections with the current government.

I would estimate they have lost more like 15-20%. Still staggering losses in 2 weeks. Even if the Russian army and people can stand that level of losses, they can't retain any semblance of fighting cohesion with that level of losses. Units can also take heavier losses and survive when on the defensive than on the offensive. When on the offensive across a border soldiers are much more reluctant to attack when the chances of dying are high than if they feel they are protecting their home turf.

I haven’t been back to TMC for a long time, but decided to come back here as I scour the internet for news on Ukraine. I have to say I enjoy reading all your analysis the most, keep up the good work . Regarding Germany’s resupply mission during WW2 when fighting Russia: Hitler and his henchmen were more interested in using their trains to move Jewish prisoners than they were interested in resupplying their army.

The Germans did both. Late in the war the Germans had trouble moving supply around and when supply was interdicted (such as in Normandy) they had trouble getting supply. There were also some instances where supply ran short for other reasons (such as when Rommel got to Egypt and 80% of his fuel was burned up moving supply from Tripolli).

But in general they were fairly good about supply distribution. And they did make heavy use of the captured Russian rail network to move supply, even though there was a gauge problem at the Polish border (which still exists today). The Russian rail gauge is wider than Europe and cargo or carriaged had to be transferred at the Polish border when moving to the war.

All news and numbers coming out of Ukrain and Russia should be taken with liberal helping of salt.

Fog of war + propaganda = nothing is certain.

I try to triangulate between a lot of sources. I look at the Ukraine Weapons Tracker on Twitter to get an idea of what's going on low level. What I see there is quite consistent with the reported Russian vehicle losses.

I also pay attention to what the retired general have to say. It's in these guys' DNA at this point to analyze he big picture of a war situation. They also look for tell tale signs about Russian training (or lack thereof).

Retired General Hertling said the other day that "Amateurs study tactics and pros study logistics" and he went on to say the Russians are demonstrating they are amateurs. In getting a military into a fight, the logistical problems go up exponentially with the size of the force. They were able to muddle along with a penny packet force in Syria, and they won against some adversaries who were not really prepared to fight back in Crimea, Donbas, and Georgia.

They had a relatively larger force against Chechnya, but they were fighting near the Russian rail network. Their entire rail system is built around the Russian railroads (it's a force built for defense, not offense). They were also fighting inside Russia against a force that had very little access to help from the outside. The Chechnans also had little access to anything to counter Russian vehicles.

Now that they are up against a prepared foe with plenty of weapons to counter the Russian vehicle advantage in a war that puts them beyond their normal supply lines and requires them to move supply by truck, all the cracks in their army are coming to into sharp relief.

A number of observers have noted that the Russians have no force discipline at all. When operating in an environment where the enemy has anti-vehicle weapons, vehicles and infantry in professional armies are trained to work together. Infantry around the vehicles in a threat zone can use the vehicles for cover when necessary, but they also prevent the enemy from getting within range to knock out the vehicles. When a threat is spotted the infantry direct fire from the vehicles to take out the targets. The US and pretty much all its allies train this way.

The Russians just bumble along with vehicles scattered all over the landscape with no unmounted infantry. It makes it easy for Ukrainian hunter-killer squads to infiltrate the Russian formations and do tremendous damage.

I watched a video of a Ukrainian squad out on what looked like a recon mission. They were well armed with many anti-vehicle weapons, and their discipline was right up there with western armies. At one point they did take fire from the Russians, and since their mission was probably recon, they did an orderly withdraw with portions of the squad covering other portions in a multi-step withdrawal.

By triangulating from small scale to larger scale and looking at what seems to jive vs what seems to not jive I think I have a fairly good bead on what's going on. But it's far from perfect, and some new information may come along tomorrow that sheds new light on things.

Nightly News tonight made it sound like Kiev will fall in the next two weeks. Main stream news doesn't make it sound like Russia is doing as badly as we think here....

I've noticed this with the mainstream news too. They have this instinct to make everything seem like an existential threat for the "good guys" or an evenly matched fight, when it really isn't.

Back during the First Gulf War build up in 1991 I got disgusted with American news and started watching the CBC station from Vancouver, BC (I was in Seattle then). They had a much more factual coverage than the US news which was spinning things up as the fight to come was going to be as hard fought as the Normandy beaches. I didn't expect the war to go like breaking an egg with a 30 lb sledge like it actually went, but I did figure the fight was not going to be all that tough, maybe on par with the 1967 or 1973 Arab-Israeli wars.

I do think Russia is trying to build up supplies around Kyiv for an assault. I note that the tempo of operations in the rest of the country seem to be cooling off, which could be due to supply slowing down to those forces as more is directed towards the Kyiv force. That makes rational sense logistically, but Russian incompetence has not ceased to amaze me yet.

 

[petit_bateau]

"On the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, Russian maritime forces have returned to base in occupied Crimea. For the moment the aggressors have given up on the idea of amphibious operations against Odesa and Mariupol"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1502064198225993733

 

[petit_bateau]

So far the Ukraine has not been openly stating their military casualties. However the Ukraine Defence Minister commented last night (late 10-Mar so day 15 or so) that their civilian casualties exceed their military casualties. UNHCR "recorded 1,506 civilian casualties in the country: 549 killed and 957 injured"

From this we can get an approximation of the upper limit of the Ukraine military casualties as being approx ~550 or less (KIA).

By contrast the previous day the Russian military deaths were reported as being 12,635 KIA from a total invasion force of c.200,000.

If these approximations are to be believed the exchange ratio is 25:1 in favour of the Ukraine vs Russia, wrt KIA.

(but the Ukraine really needs to prevent those Russian columns linking up).

--- links below ---

Ukraine civilian deaths higher than military losses - Ukraine's defence minister

Russian forces invading Ukraine have killed more Ukrainian civilians than soldiers, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Friday.

www.reuters.com

Ukraine: Civilian casualties as of 24:00 10 March 2022 [EN/RU/UK] - Ukraine

News and Press Release in English on Ukraine about Protection and Human Rights; published on 10 Mar 2022 by OHCHR

reliefweb.int

My post #1223 in this thread with the 12,635 data .... (you'll need to click it to see the real post)

Russia/Ukraine conflict

The words change but the self-serving policies do not. Remember what you studied about colonies? How about trade agreements and treaties. The Silk Road initiatives combine all of those elements to a degree but direct Chinese financing of infrastructure is the key element. Your historical...

teslamotorsclub.com

https://uacrisis.org/en/russia-s-war-on-ukraine-day-15-evacuation-from-mariupol-stalled-civilian-death-toll-exceeds-military-casualties-cost-of-war-for-ukraine

 

[wdolson]

Anything is worth a try.

The US can simply ask if China wants to have a discussion.

The role China can play is to help calm down and reassure Russia.

This is mostly about land/money and partially about Ukrainian independence and self-rule.

From a Ukrainian point of view, independence is non-negotiable.

The only possible out for Putin is, a deal he can live with, and spin as a win at home.

Some sanctions coming off fast should be part of the deal..

Russia isn't the problem, it's Putin. This is why autocracies are dangerous. The one guy at the top who has complete control goes nuts and does something incredibly dangerous to both his country and the world and there is very little that can be done diplomatically.

As I posted above, Putin has only been listening to two people the last couple of years. He has shut out all his usually circle of advisors. Historically he has listened to his advisors and at least took their feedback into consideration, but now he seems to have spent too much time with a couple of guys who are into Russian Orthodox mysticism and exploring past grievances.

This tunnel vision may have infected Putin with a sort of messiah complex that he believes he will succeed at anything he tries. He is the savior of Russia from the evil west who wants to invade and destroy Russia (in his mind).

I wasn’t going to post again in here but saw this and thought a bit of perspective from inside Russia. This was my Russian wife’s post on FB recently ie last 2 days.

“Phew. A car full of donations just dropped at Dean Clough mills on behalf of Halifax Ukranian Club. Thank you to everyone who donated, every item will be massively appreciated
They’re still accepting donations this & next week if you feel like you can help x”

This is one of the replies (guy is English living in Moscow working as an EFL teacher)

“The People of Donbass would’ve appreciated all that stuff as well, you know over 8 years, but hey. Nobody gave it a *sugar* or gives a *sugar* because it doesn’t fit in with the narrative.”

So Putins narrative appears to be working well within Russia This is a guy who obviously has access to at least 2 languages, English spoken news & assumedly family in UK.

Her reply was pretty sharp, she was angry so put any typos down to that lol.

“@Kyle oh ffs, they got to you as well, huh?

There are a couple of things that don’t sit well with me, yeah.

1. Hypothetically, if 2 regions in Russia were to go, “ya know what, I disagree with this bullshit. We’re independent from now on” what would happen? Would Putler go,“ye, ok guys” or would he send an army in? Something tells me it’s the latter.

I have no doubts that civilians in both of those regions had a hard time over those 8 years but that only brings me to…

2. Where the hell did those two regions get enough military equipment and ammo to resist a country with almost 200k military for said 8 years? Considering no one recognised them as separate countries until very recently?

3. So far he lied to you about everything that surrounds the current situation. Just 3 weeks ago he was digging his heels in saying, “Russia ain’t gonna attack. It’s all Western propaganda, they’re *sugar*-stirring”. They were not. He also said there were only contracted soldiers in Ukraine. Even Russian media FINALLY admitted that conscripts are there. Only took em 2 weeks.

You’ve got to be pretty brainwashed not to see that military objects are not the only thing that’s being targeted right now. Where’s the coverage on that in Russian media?

4. You’re choosing to believe a person who literally torn and rewrote the Russian constitution to stay in power for this long just to feed his little fantasy and not so little ego. You’re also choosing to believe a person who’s choking any means of voicing an opinion that doesn’t somehow align with his. Just you wait till you disagree with something he does and there is absolutely nothing you can do.

So with all of the above in mind, whilst I do not doubt that people in both regions of Ukraine have died and others suffered for a long time, I doubt that that suffering wasn’t inflicted by Russia and their military support. As with the current situation, any war will bring death. Although, if he was quite the little liberator he fancies himself, all of Ukrainians would be welcoming the Russian soldiers and instead of fleeing West, they’d certainly choose to go East.

Also, please don’t forget that I did live in Russia for 25 years and I have somewhat of a first-hand experience with the sad state of public affairs in Russia. All of the money he’s now spending on this bullshit war he could spend on public health or many, MANY other things.

So, yeah, those are a few things that don’t fit in with my narrative. Just waiting for him to drop a nuke on a Russian city & say it was the UK or the States just to start a world war.”

She added this
“Kyle sorry, I just can’t resist but here’s yet another one.”
View attachment 779390

This article is Putin explaining how the maternity hospital was not in use in that function but being used by the Ukraine military (not as a hospital either)
She then added the photo below saying guess it was operational after all.

View attachment 779391
His reply (before blocking her) below

“Like “Covid” got you? Suddenly forgotten about huh.”

Her elder brother also believes the Putin narrative but in his case he doesn’t speak anything other than Russian. Consequently at least in his case it explains it, unlike the English pillock

A lot of people today suffer from confirmation bias. I fight it myself sometimes.

When seeking out news or information, it's tempting to only look for things that support the conclusion you've already drawn. Even when the sources change direction daily, as your wife pointed out in her post to Facebook. The Russians are changing their story more often than a weather vane in a tornado. But those with bad confirmation bias are lapping up whatever the story is today without any thought to the fact that it has no connection to what was "fact" yesterday.

News sources that are trying to be factual will tend to have some consistency fro day to day and when something changes in a major way because they learned more facts about the issue, they will tell you, "we told you X yesterday, but it looks like we got that wrong and it appears to by Y". Fake news sources change the story day to day and ignore what they said before even if it completely contradicts what they are reporting today. That's not news, it's propaganda. If they call it news, it's a bald faced lie and they know it.

Confirmation bias has always been around, but it today being able to feed any bias you may have is incredibly easy.

I fight it by catching myself when I'm reading something that appears to contradict the story I've pieced together thus far. I back up and look at the source and analyze what I can verify as the more reliable facts vs this new information. Sometimes I conclude that I was discounting something I shouldn't and adjust. Other times it turns out the "news" source is suspect and I move on to something more reliable. When you really want to know the truth whatever it may be, sometimes you need to admit to yourself you're being a pillock and move on.

My partner was playing counselor with a friend who was constantly getting into big arguments online and ending up with a lot of people ticked off. She asked him, "do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?" He hemmed and hawed, but basically he wanted people to tell him he was right rather than be happy. My motto is more along the lines of "do you want to be right, or do you want to get it right?" I'd rather get it right and find out my initial ideas were wrong than to have people tell me I'm right about anything.

What keeps my up at night these days is that these people who are indulging their confirmation bias are giving flank support to somebody who could get all 7 billion of us killed.

My partner was saying today she's concerned this is going lead to incidents against ethnic Russians in the west. Her law partner's wife is ethnically Russian from Kyrgystan. They left because it was difficult being non-Muslim there (her father got arrested for doing a sign of the cross in a restaurant when saying grace before eating). She's never been a fan of Putin, but her older brother thinks the guy walks on water. At a dinner we were at a few years ago they started doing toasts and her brother toasted Putin. I bit my lip and I noticed others were holding back too.

Even though the law partner's wife is not a Putin fan my partner is concerned. Look at what has happened to East Asians with COVID. There have been occasions where East Asians have been assaulted and a few killed. I suggested she start telling people she's Ukrainian.

So far the Ukraine has not been openly stating their military casualties. However the Ukraine Defence Minister commented last night (late 10-Mar so day 15 or so) that their civilian casualties exceed their military casualties. UNHCR noted "recorded 1,506 civilian casualties in the country: 549 killed and 957 injured"

From this we can get an approximation of the upper limit of the Ukraine military casualties as being approx ~550 or less (KIA).

By contrast the previous day the Russian military deaths were reported as being 12,635 KIA from a total invasion force of c.200,000.

If these approximations are to be believed the exchange ratio is 25:1 in favour of the Ukraine vs Russia, wrt KIA.

(but the Ukraine really needs to prevent those Russian columns linking up).

--- links below ---

Ukraine civilian deaths higher than military losses - Ukraine's defence minister

Russian forces invading Ukraine have killed more Ukrainian civilians than soldiers, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Friday.

www.reuters.com

Ukraine: Civilian casualties as of 24:00 10 March 2022 [EN/RU/UK] - Ukraine

News and Press Release in English on Ukraine about Protection and Human Rights; published on 10 Mar 2022 by OHCHR

reliefweb.int

Russia/Ukraine conflict

The words change but the self-serving policies do not. Remember what you studied about colonies? How about trade agreements and treaties. The Silk Road initiatives combine all of those elements to a degree but direct Chinese financing of infrastructure is the key element. Your historical...

teslamotorsclub.com

https://uacrisis.org/en/russia-s-war-on-ukraine-day-15-evacuation-from-mariupol-stalled-civilian-death-toll-exceeds-military-casualties-cost-of-war-for-ukraine

Kyiv gets more difficult to defend if it's surrounded. So far they have failed to get very close on the east. Only a few tendrils have gotten anywhere near the city from that direction. The Ukrainian hunter-killer teams are doing a great job disrupting the Russian advances. From what I've seen of the locations of the images of knocked out vehicles, there are lots of them in the area between Kyiv and Kharkiv.

Doing this in the middle of the Rasputitsa was a rookie mistake. The ground isn't so bad in the south, but in the north the Russians are confined to the roads or stuck in the mud. I read somewhere that one of the leaks said the original plan was to launch in late January when the ground is usually frozen solid, but this year's warm winter didn't freeze the ground like it normally does in January.

 

[henderrj]

Have to admit that they are pretty efficient when it comes to drafting new laws.

.

Totalitarian governments are always efficient - that's why ours is specifically designed to be inefficient. Fast laws are rarely good laws.

 

[Tiger]

I sort of assumed the Chinese people are seeing what we see, but do they?

Victor 🇷🇺 Z's tweet - "Nicknamed by some bloggers as “Jackie Chan’s brother,” Liu Yu Guang, a military commander of the Chinese television channel Phoenix TV, reports from the village of Sopino, Donetsk region, and states the horrors perpetrated by U

Detailed Tweet Analytics for Victor 🇷🇺 Z's tweet - russian

www.trendsmap.com

It seems they are fed the same propaganda as the Russians do?

Or do they have access to both? Anyone from china here, is this too small fish to fry in mainland?

 

[Xdama]

Even though the law partner's wife is not a Putin fan my partner is concerned. Look at what has happened to East Asians with COVID. There have been occasions where East Asians have been assaulted and a few killed. I suggested she start telling people she's Ukrainian.

My wife has those concerns too, she’s definitely not a Putin fan lol. She always says she felt out of place in Russia anyway, like she should’ve been born elsewhere. Her accent is more “Yorkshire” than mine is now so doubt it’ll be an issue though. I did say she could always claim to be Lithuanian if asked as they have a lot of Russian speaking population, just to fend off any issues.

Her take on the current war is it’s a land-grab by Putin & he’ll back off eventually …… he’ll demand Lushank & Donetsk as the price for backing off though.

 

[Drezil]

I sort of assumed the Chinese people are seeing what we see, but do they?

Victor 🇷🇺 Z's tweet - "Nicknamed by some bloggers as “Jackie Chan’s brother,” Liu Yu Guang, a military commander of the Chinese television channel Phoenix TV, reports from the village of Sopino, Donetsk region, and states the horrors perpetrated by U

Detailed Tweet Analytics for Victor 🇷🇺 Z's tweet - russian

www.trendsmap.com

It seems they are fed the same propaganda as the Russians do?

Or do they have access to both? Anyone from china here, is this too small fish to fry in mainland?

What i have read is, that the chinese propaganda is much pro-putin, because that justifies similar things with Taiwan.

But having someone confirm it, would be nice.

 

[Xdama]

Maybe it’s a case of “if they want to expose that big bears butt for the Panda to get his wicked way” they’ll play the same rhetoric

 

[bkp_duke]

First off, I feel the need to re-iterate that I'm 100% behind Ukraine (and have put my money where my mouth is, literally).

With that said, I want to point out that when I read this thread, I get a strong bias in one direction. That's not judgement on anyone, I support all of you and your opinions. It just gives me pause to believe any numbers that I hear in terms of casualties, etc. I would really love to see some 3rd-party confirmation on Russian and Ukrainian casualties, and equipment losses.

Basically, please everyone remember the "fog of war" and information bias and confirmation bias.

Prayers for those in the combat zones.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Slava Ukraini!

 

[bkp_duke]

Slava Ukraini!

I hope those Stinger missiles have "from America, with Love" tattooed on them.

 

[Xdama]

First off, I feel the need to re-iterate that I'm 100% behind Ukraine (and have put my money where my mouth is, literally).

With that said, I want to point out that when I read this thread, I get a strong bias in one direction. That's not judgement on anyone, I support all of you and your opinions. It just gives me pause to believe any numbers that I hear in terms of casualties, etc. I would really love to see some 3rd-party confirmation on Russian and Ukrainian casualties, and equipment losses.

Basically, please everyone remember the "fog of war" and information bias and confirmation bias.

Prayers for those in the combat zones.

You won’t find true figures for either side at this juncture, why give that information out for your enemy to use? (Something that’s forgotten in the modern world with open book information etc). Makes me wonder what would’ve happened in WW2 if the amount of information we just freely fling about nowadays had happened then. All those posters spring to mind such as “Loose lips sink ships” etc and yet nowadays with the media it’s like chucking a bleeding seal in the midst of a load of sharks.
Russian losses (official ones) will probably remain a secret for a long time unless Putin is ousted or dies. Ukrainian losses will not be published fully (truthfully) until after it’s over. The Russians don’t want to admit how many lives it’s cost (especially to their own population), Ukraine will (quite possibly) over inflate Russian losses, maybe even their own civilian ones too. The use of media is a weapon being used by both sides.

 

[jkirkwood001]

Uh-oh.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1502294454572826624