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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
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SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Don't remember if this has been posted in the thread.
Why would the Dictatorship ban the anti-war candidate if there really was a majority support for the Russian Dictator?...
www.theguardian.com
Why would the Dictatorship ban the anti-war candidate if there really was a majority support for the Russian Dictator?...
Russian anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin banned from election
Kremlin claims to have followed all the rules after announcement of widely-touted decision to ban veteran politician
www.theguardian.com
I did explain what I meant. Putin removing his troops might end the fighting but unless Russia returns POWs and the civilians they stole, the war will not be over. Ukraine might stop at the border (and I would hope they would), but Russia will have to return POWs, stolen children and turn over war criminals before the war is really over. I guess in theory some kind of DMZ truce could be put in place (like on the Korean peninsula) but unlikely. I am also inclined to believe what others have said on this forum - that giving Russia a chance to rebuild its military would not be a good thing, and that the Russians need to oust Putin to end the war because he has proven a few too many times that his word doesn’t matter.
Tiger
Active Member
On that note, Tucker didn't even blink from the personal jabs Putin took on him. Quite telling.
I heard a blurb from near the end of the interview (I don't have the stomach to watch two hours of Carlson, I hold those who do it for a living in high regard) when Tucker was trying to get Putin to throw some red meat to his audience and Putin went a different direction. I think Tucker was just sort of out of his depth throughout the interview. He's used to interviewing people who play the American conservative communication game and there is a certain script they follow. Putin is a different animal.
My partner was thinking Sasha Baron Cohen should interview Putin in character.
Ukraine is trying to pivot to more modern ways of fighting the way which is a good thing...
Setting up a new command structure for drones trying to mass produce good quality drones and trying to develop and additional ability to perform long range strikes in Russia is a good thing...
Long range targets can be:-
- Airfields
- Railway lines
- Electricity instrastructure
- Oil storage / refining...
I didn't watch the Carson interview, but I have seen that Putin claims Russia is invincible and I am sure he thinks that they are winning. Nothing will change his mind,, but he isn't the only mind in Russia.
The general state of the Russian economy, Russian casualties, failures of local infrastructure, generally declining living standards and fewer freedoms are also things that might contribute to Russians becoming "war weary".
Russian public opinion and bravery is a large ship to turn especially considering the personal risks involved, but if it starts to turn it may develop momentum that is hard to stop.
Ukraine just needs to keep hanging on and fighting until something changes in Russia., or they somehow develop enough momentum to retake all of their territory. That kind of "breakthrough" success for Ukraine is going to require more western backing, some innovation and a very well executed plan. They need to learn and innovate faster than the Russians, and they need to gain a resources advantage.
Until Ukraine can gain a resources advantage, focus mainly on defence and long range strategic strikes. I think they were smart enough to not burn through too many resources during the counter-offensive.
Tiger
Active Member
Tiger
Active Member
This could actually be a great showcase for Twitter CommunityNotes to shine, as well as they can, set an example for social media platforms worldwide.
navguy12
Active Member
An informative human interest story in today’s Guardian, interviews with imprisoned collaborators:
www.theguardian.com
Jailed as collaborators: the stories of Ukrainians who ended up in prison
There is little sympathy for them in their society, but rare prison interviews with those convicted of helping the Russians reveal a complex picture of war
www.theguardian.com
navguy12
Active Member
navguy12
Active Member
From today’s Toronto Star (free link):
Tiger
Active Member
I thought Ukraine didn't exist?
Getting inside Putin's head, the Carlson interview is quite revealing.
This explains why Putin thoroughly detests someone like Carlson:
This explains why Putin thoroughly detests someone like Carlson:
Putin deeply despises traitors. Of course, those who betray him, he hates infinitely more than anyone else, but nevertheless even for foreign traitors and even when they help him he has nothing but contempt. They remind him of that that there are people in this world who would do anything for the right price, even and especially against him.
Putin does not believe in integrity, common values or convictions, but only in greed, power and corruption. He looks for people in the world and finds fertile ground in certain circles. Tucker Carlson is just another one in this long list. However, in Putin's eyes he is but a traitor, a vehicle which can be used to bolster his interests. But Vladimir hates him, deeply, for this very reason. Him making fun of Tucker's failed attempt to join CIA was the closest thing of being honest. This whole episode explains vividly what the old Romans meant when they said:
"People love the treason, but hate the traitor."
To follow on this, understanding how Putin views the world is vital for the West or any other entity to formulate and execute a successful strategy.
Given he “does not believe in integrity, common values or convictions, but only in greed, power and corruption”, he must be seen as the Mafia boss/thug that he is. Negotiations will therefore not work. Putin understands and respects only overwhelming power applied back towards him.
Given he “does not believe in integrity, common values or convictions, but only in greed, power and corruption”, he must be seen as the Mafia boss/thug that he is. Negotiations will therefore not work. Putin understands and respects only overwhelming power applied back towards him.
Ukraine has been targeting some industries that are critical to supplying other industries. For example they took out Russia's one factory that made optics. That affects a number of military industries that require optics. It appears to have temporarily crippled Lancet production. Lancets use optical sensors for the final run in on the target and without the optics, they can't complete the drones.
Russia is probably rebuilding the factory, so Lancet production will resume at some point, but it was a good target to hit.
Russia is also very vulnerable in the railroad department. Russia is the country most dependent on rail in the world. Before the war they moved goods by truck less than just about any other industrialized country, mostly only using trucks for last mile delivery from the rail depot. They had few long range truck rigs and there are parts of Russia that are only accessible by rail and air.
With the heavy losses in their military truck fleet they have stripped Russia of commercial trucks. When the Kerch bridge was out and people were diverted through southern Ukraine to get from Crimea to Russia, video surfaced of the southern road into Ukraine from Rostov. It was wall to wall commercial trucks headed west.
Russia knows it's rail network is vital and they have military units just dedicated to maintaining the rail network. But there are only so many of them. Depending on what kind of warheads Ukrainian drones can carry, there are two targets where their rail network is vulnerable. If they can carry large enough warheads and hit precisely, the Ukrainians could aim to take out bridges on the trans-Siberian railroad. Aim for the bridge supports, take those out and the railroad repair crews will have to replace the support, which will take longer than just taking out a section of rail.
The other soft target, and a good one for small warheads are railway junction boxes. The Russian rail network has boxes with electronics for communication every few miles. They also have electronics boxes at every switch to control the switch. A warhead the size of a hand grenade would take out one of these boxes. Even one box out would shut down that line because the people in the control center would not be able to monitor traffic on that stretch of line and would not know if they were diverting two trains to run into one another. If command decreed they should run trains on that section of track anyway, the odds of a collision go way up.
The Russians have spare parts for these boxes, but it's a limited resource until more can be made. A steady program of taking out these boxes would paralyze their rail network as the spares ran out.
The Russians probably have enough air defense to defend their defense plants from drones, if they strip considerable resources currently in Ukraine. But they can't possible have enough air defenses to protect their entire rail network from drone attacks. The rail network is 85,500 Km (53,000 mi) of track with 72,500 bridges (both rail and road, I can't find the number of rail bridges).
Why are there so few bridges in Russia?
Russia has 2.8 million rivers, which means long rail lines have a lot of bridges. The electronics boxes are every few miles along the rail lines. It's an impossible job to defend all of that network from air attack.
If the Ukrainians could cut the trans-Siberian railroad and keep it down for even a few weeks, manufacturing of war goods would grind to a halt. Russia is buying a lot of its raw materials from China. It has plenty of iron for steel and such, but Russia's chemical industry (beyond petrochemicals) is weak. The USSR had most of it's chemical industries in republics outside of Russia. A lot of it was in Ukraine. Russia has been making of for this lack of domestic production by buying chemicals from China.
Always important to understand your enemy.
You can't negotiate in good faith with someone like Putin, the only agreement he will stick to is one in which he loses too much if he breaks it. Any other type of agreement he will break when it's convenient for him. In this he is very much like Adolf Hitler.
An expansionist authoritarian leader like this with the ability to produce their own weapons and enough of an economy to support a war industry is the perfect storm for a repeat of Nazi Germany. Of the authoritarians who are either in power or vying for power right now, Putin is currently the most dangerous because he is in power.
Xi Jingping wants to extend China's influence, but China shows no signs of physically expanding their territory by much. They have made some noises about taking back territory China lost, but their moves in Africa and South Asia are more towards economic dominance than physical dominance. Xi also doesn't have a record of going back on agreements like Putin has done. China may try to write some weasel language into the agreement, but they tend to stick to their agreements.
North Korea has made noises about taking the South for a long time, but other than putting the band back together, they have shown little interest in expansion. Part of it is their immediate geography, all the countries nearby are much larger and much more powerful than they are. They share land borders with Russia, China, and South Korea. South Korea is the only power that is even remotely in their league. They are a tiny speck compared to Russia or China. Japan is their only other neighbor and they have no means to get to Japan. They could cause a mess with Japan if they used their nuclear weapons, which is why Japan is concerned about them, but they are no territorial threat to Japan.
Ultimately war is about controlling land. To some extent there is a sea control element, but primarily it's about controlling a space. On the water sea is controlled by surface ships and on land it's boils down to infantry controlling the territory. All other weapons of war are either there to support the infantry taking and holding ground, or they are there to deny control to someone else.
NATO has massive airpower, but aircraft can't control land. Drones are proving very effective at denying access to the battlefield, but drones can't control ground. Wipe out the enemy troops in an area with air assets or artillery, but not be able to move your own troops in to occupy that land and that land becomes controlled by nobody. It isn't yours, it just isn't the other guys.
Without the ability to move infantry into an area, it is impossible to control. So Japan is safe from North Korean invasion.
North Korea is a headache to the developed world, but they are not an expansionist threat to anybody but South Korea who has ensured that North Korea would pay a staggering price for crossing the DMZ.
Right now the only expansionist threat in the world is Russia. Putin has demonstrated he wants to expand Russia's borders by conquest and while his military industry is a shadow of the USSR's, he does have a military industry. Losses right now are badly outstripping his capacity to build more equipment, but a ceasefire type agreement would be perfect to allow him to rebuild the army. If losses go to zero for a while, they will have time to build new equipment to replace losses and get some training for their troops.
Putin would probably love a peace agreement that allowed him to keep the territory he gained in Ukraine. Anybody who did agree to such a deal would be the modern Neville Chamberlain.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Morale doesn't seem to be that great with this Russian serf/company commander... Their brigade commander has of course threatened to have them all shot if they were to pull back from their current position. Part of transcript + some 'fill in' from a video this serf/company commander filmed of himself:
...] A russian with the call sign “Doug” was appointed to the position of company commander and during this time the unit suffered huge losses:
“Of the 200 people who were under my command, a maximum of 40 remained. Of these forty, twenty were wounded, and twenty were not yet wounded.”
Doug said that the fighters are being forced to storm Ukrainian positions in the Avdiivka direction. All this is to no avail:
“On the Ukrainian side there is artillery, mortars, AGS, tanks, Bradleys, these Tigers, or as they are called, Leopards... And we just [...] attack, just with machine guns, hand grenades, grenade launchers and all that stupid stuff. That is, it’s not a good idea for us to oppose the Ukrainians at all.” [...
Original post on X might be NSFW:
twitter.com/PStyle0ne1/status/1756005448077975580
...] A russian with the call sign “Doug” was appointed to the position of company commander and during this time the unit suffered huge losses:
“Of the 200 people who were under my command, a maximum of 40 remained. Of these forty, twenty were wounded, and twenty were not yet wounded.”
Doug said that the fighters are being forced to storm Ukrainian positions in the Avdiivka direction. All this is to no avail:
“On the Ukrainian side there is artillery, mortars, AGS, tanks, Bradleys, these Tigers, or as they are called, Leopards... And we just [...] attack, just with machine guns, hand grenades, grenade launchers and all that stupid stuff. That is, it’s not a good idea for us to oppose the Ukrainians at all.” [...
Original post on X might be NSFW:
twitter.com/PStyle0ne1/status/1756005448077975580
Tiger
Active Member
navguy12
Active Member
From today’s Guardian
www.theguardian.com
Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies who pay too little
The Joe Biden White House rebuked the former president’s comments as ‘appalling and unhinged’
www.theguardian.com
From today’s Guardian
Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies who pay too little
The Joe Biden White House rebuked the former president’s comments as ‘appalling and unhinged’
I think this may cause Nato members in general to step up both direct support for Ukraine as well preparation for a conflict between a US supported Russia against nato allies.
I think it’s pretty clear to everyone that the Americans will be leaving NATO and forming some sort of alliance with Russia immediately after the election. Putin just needs to hold the line until trump and the Americans get aid and weapons to Russia. After that Ukraine will go down pretty quick and i suspect Poland will be the next target soon after. How that impacts trade between the US and the rest of the world is unclear. Companies like tesla are in for a ride.
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Tiger
Active Member
EU (Canada and Australia) would disown the US dollar quite quick and any US trade would collapse, the EU would embrace some other alliance that does not align with Donald Trump.
Unless all authoritarian countries ganged up on non-authoritarian ones, well, at least that would be a clear distinction of alliances.
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