War itself is criminal. The victors generally get to determine what constitutes war crimes. If the allies had lost WW2, the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden would certainly have been deemed war crimes by the axis powers. That's not to say that total war is ok, or that the Geneva Convention isn't sensible, just that the lines are inherently blurred. Ukraine's approach to the invasion of their country has been spot on thus far, imo. A tit for tat bombing of Russian civilians wouldn't help their cause.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
Tit for tat doesn’t work anyway. It’s one of the reasons Hitler lost th war. The Allies bombed Berlin and Hitler retaliated by bombing London to the exclusion of all else. (Of course there were many other reasons but this was one of the two majors that caused Operation Sea Lion to be canceled.)
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I kind of knew that allied bombings from WW2 would be brought up. Many people consider those to be war crimes, although the Allies were not prosecuted for them. There's a whole history on that in terms of what laws applied back then (aerial bombings were not yet part of the laws governing war) which was used as justification why they were not criminal back then (Germany was equivalently not prosecuted for their bombing of London). There's arguments about their military necessity (particularly the atomic bombings) and that frequently is used for the justification for them.
Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Wikipedia
The point is I haven't seen "reciprocity" be seen as a justification for them. And under modern standards, I doubt similar bombing runs would been seen as acceptable even if an aggressor did them first.
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Doggydogworld
Active Member
Putin doesn't care if his people freeze. Suffering builds character!
Yes, I intentionally left out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because it was hard to envision a scenario where the allies might have lost the war at that point. Many Japanese do consider those as war crimes today. In any case, targeting civilians is wrong, and that's reason enough not to do it.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Good book. Required reading on my Staff Officer's course in '85. Not much has changed: (especially on the Soviet Russian side)
4.4/5 · Amazon.ca 4/5 · Goodreads 5/5 · ThriftBooks
An indispensable guide to how wars are fought, James F. Dunnigan's classic text has been enormously popular with citizens, professional soldiers, and journalists alike. Now, it's been revised to include a stunning array of new subjects. ... Google Books
Originally published: 1982
How to Make War: A Comprehensive Guide to Modern Warfare
Book by Jim Dunnigan4.4/5 · Amazon.ca 4/5 · Goodreads 5/5 · ThriftBooks
An indispensable guide to how wars are fought, James F. Dunnigan's classic text has been enormously popular with citizens, professional soldiers, and journalists alike. Now, it's been revised to include a stunning array of new subjects. ... Google Books
Originally published: 1982
The red line: Biden and Xi’s secret Ukraine talks revealed
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has played a decisive – though publicly low-profile – role in strategic decision-making in both Washington and Moscow. As I report for the first time in my new book Overreach, it was a back-channel intervention approved by Beijing that...
www.spectator.co.uk
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Don't know about your Red Bull consumption... Mine has been non-existent for at least some 15 years...
And 'strange' why news coverage of this also seems non-existent...
Anyways... In case somebody missed it:
And 'strange' why news coverage of this also seems non-existent...
Anyways... In case somebody missed it:
petit_bateau
Active Member
430/day is an unsustainable loss rate and it is not lessening .....
glhs272
Unnamed plug faced villian
OK, so now we have it. I suspected there was a political reason why we were not supporting Ukraine with fighter jets and NATO spec tanks. The US and China made a secret deal to keep the war from escalating. Frankly, those Mig-29s were not worth it if it means China begins to support Russia with military items. But modern NATO fighter jets like F-16 and F-18? I don't know. I guess it depends on what the Chinese would do for Russia. What does Ukraine think, I wonder?... It's their country in the meat grinder. I would think that Nuclear deterrence could be achieved without Chinese assistance if we used our own nuclear deterance in support of Ukraine.The red line: Biden and Xi’s secret Ukraine talks revealed
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has played a decisive – though publicly low-profile – role in strategic decision-making in both Washington and Moscow. As I report for the first time in my new book Overreach, it was a back-channel intervention approved by Beijing that...
Buy anyway, we can finally dispense with the notion that Ukraine's pilots or personnel can't handle flying or maintaining these fighter jets and tanks. We know the real reason they aren't there....
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bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
What I have seen, on men, similar to Russia. But substantially lower on equipment.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
The Dictator's latest charade.
EDIT: Some video in the beginning of this CNN segment:
EDIT: Some video in the beginning of this CNN segment:
I bet none of them eat their biscuits or drank their tea either. 
wartranslated.com had something on this as well, the one mother's son has been dead since 2019
petit_bateau
Active Member
The various estimates I have seen are that Ukraine military personnel losses (KIA) are only 25%-35% of Russian. That would be most unusual but nonetheless the various individual data points seemed credible.
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This has no corroboration watsoever but would be very good news for UKR if true
The Russians continue to throw mobiks at the Ukrainians around Bakhmut for no apparent reason. Before Lyman was taken, taking Bakhmut would give the Russians a launching spot to encircle a largish Ukrainian force, but with the loss of Lyman, Bakhmut has lost all strategic value.
It does appear the Russians are trying to capture the last remnants of Donesk and Luhansk so they can claim they have captured all of a couple of oblasts. I guess they think that they would be able to keep them in peace negotiations if they can claim they captured the entire oblast.
I speculated at the time that there was some sort of diplomatic reason for the sudden change by he US.
I'm sure the US, UK, and France have all told Russia that if they use nuclear weapons, those countries might too.
There is a still a training factor in Ukrainians using more sophisticated NATO weapons. But what China might do is clearly a factor too.
Several estimates here
Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian War - Wikipedia
I think the estimates for casualties from Luhansk and Donesk are low. The Russians mobilized every man they could catch from those regions early in the war and used them much as they are using the mobiks now
Mobilization in Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics - Wikipedia
The fact they were throwing away Donbas lives earlier in the war and aren't now tells me that they got enough of those men killed the units aren't viable anymore. There have been some regular army units raised from the Donbas that existed before the war. They were raised for the 2014 war. It appears those units are still around. I think it's possible the remaining, untrained men from the region were integrated into these units to fill out losses.
The Ukrainians losses probably are much less than Russia. For one thing their battlefield medicine is much closer to what NATO countries do. They are much better at stabilizing the wounded and getting them to a field hospital than the Russians. There are stories of the Russians shooting their wounded sometimes, which the Ukrainians aren't doing.
I read stories of a lot of Russians losing limbs because nobody knew how to do a tourniquet right and a lot of wounds that would have been relatively minor injuries turned into amputations because the tourniquet cut off the blood flow too long. The Ukrainians are better trained in first aid and a lot more lightly wounded troops are returning to the war when their injuries heal. The Russians are seeing a much higher rate of wounded either turn into deaths, or permanent losses due to what the US referred to as "million dollar wounds" in WW II, ie wounds that get you sent home.
There have been time Ukrainian losses have been high such as during the grinding attritional battle in the Donbas when the Russians were firing many thousands of rounds of artillery a day and the fight for Kherson's right bank had high casualties because the terrain doesn't offer very good cover.
At other times the Ukrainian losses have been much less than the Russians. The Ukrainians are good at preserving their forces when the situation allows it. They don't throw away lives in pointless banzai charges at enemy positions like the Russians do. There is very little day to day movement in this war at the moment and the Russians are still losing about 400 men a day.
I think there may be some accuracy to that. The actual numbers might be a little higher than 35%, but I don't doubt Ukrainian losses are much lower than Russian.
I saw a study on US wounded and killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan vs previous wars. The percentage of dead and wounded for every war is fairly close, with a couple of exceptions, the US Civil War and Korea were a bit higher and the 1st Gulf War was lower, but for most wars it was pretty constant. What has changed is the killed to wounded ratio. The number killed has dropped significantly with many wounded who wouldn't have made it in previous wars surviving. In some cases surviving with severe life long disabilities that haven't been seen before.
The Russians haven't really stepped up their emergency medicine capabilities much in the last 80 years. They were bad compared to the US then and the US is leagues ahead of them now. Most other NATO countries are on par with the Americans in battlefield medicine and the Ukrainians have learned from the best.
Additionally as I pointed out above, the Ukrainians are better at force preservation. They will put lives on the line for an objective when it is necessary, but at other times they try to keep troops as safe as reasonably possible. Their troops have better body armor than even the Wagner PMC people and they do everything possible to stay in cover when on defense.
There was a video I saw a couple of months ago made by a Wagner guy who was testing Ukrainian body armor and he was turning the air blue at how good it was. His AK couldn't even dent the armor and he was amazed.
Very interesting. Unfortunately if true the Ukrainians are probably only going to get a few of them, but they can put them to use on high value targets. Putting the Kerch bridges completely out of operation would be a start.
we don’t have the exact numbers but no analysts worth anything think they are currently comparable In human losses. In the beginning they may have been close as Russia had working air power but after the second month Ukraine learned how to kill Russians And also lower their own losses. Now Ukraine is losing less than half the manpower, and with the latest forced mobilization, its even worse for Russia.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Elon didn't only suggest negotiation, he suggested actively giving up territory permanently (Crimea), and giving a path to recognizing the other annexed areas as Russian. Negotiation can instead be a ceasefire that does not involve any recognition of those territories as Russian.
The timing he suggested it was also when Russia would have welcomed it greatly (they just announced annexing those areas) and while Ukraine was advancing much more rapidly. Now things are slowing down and winter is approaching, so timing is very different.
Watching the video there is also a difference in characterization. Milley says the probability of Ukraine kicking Russia out militarily any time soon is low (it will take a long time), but a political solution may be much faster and is a possibility. That is a different than saying overall it is low (he mentioned in the start Russia taking over Ukraine completely is what is overall a low probability).
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