Lounge of The Russian-Ukrainian War
- Thread starter Ember
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(warning - coarse language):
Big Serge has a new piece up. Some major points on why Ukraine lost:
Inability to commit a mass of forces. Ukraine lost in large part because they failed to commit a large enough force in any single battle, instead resorting to a small trickle of forces that were never enough to overcome enemy defenses (why they never made it through even the first line of defense to the main battle line).
Russia readily targeted Ukrainian troops with its artillery and air force as they were assembling, and Ukraine's response was to spread out into smaller units no larger than a company and disperse along the line. Such forces were never able to make any significant gains.
Contrast that with Russia's recent pincer move to gain height over Avdiivka--it sent a large army to take the heights, exposing it to fire, and taking losses, but it was worth it to take the high ground which they now hold and can bombard both the main Ukrainian army and any attempts to resupply (or evacuate) it.
American strategic support was flawed (both in its plan to hurt Russia through sanctions, which only strengthened it, and through flawed tactical advice and training).
Ukraine attacked exactly where Russia expected them to. Deception is harder in the era of mass surveillance, satellites, and drones, but look at what Russia did with the Kiev "our tanks ran out of gas" fakeout at the beginning of the conflict.
Superweapons are overrated (Nazi Germany had these in almost every category but eventually lost the war when the totally of allied forces presented too great industrial and manpower for a single nation to resist).
Inadequate combat engineers: Russian minefields were a major deterrent and Ukraine had no good answer for them.
What's next?
Avdiivka will fall, but not before Zelensky sends in many more troops in a hopeless attempt to save it. Once Russia kills them, the city will fall, possibly in late winter.
Ukraine will continue to weaken its army by redeploying troops across sectors, taking snipers and medics and engineers and throwing them on the front lines as assault infantry, where they are less effective, and leaving very few of the specialty troops.
The west will be unable to supply Ukraine as well as it did this year. Europe and America are facing economic problems, and even if their leaders chose to ramp up military production at the expense of domestic, the costs of a privatized and zero-inventory capitalistic supply line system will bring huge costs (shells that the army was paying $800 for are now going for $2,300, due to both corporate greed, shortages of labor, and higher material costs). And of course the first priority is now Israhell.
Ukraine is working its way down the list. The events of the summer demonstrated that it cannot successfully attack strongly held Russian positions. Events in Avdivvka and elsewhere now test whether they can defend their position in the Donbas against rising Russian force generation. If they fail this test, it will be time to flee, surrender, or die.
I don’t think the answer will be Israel, as Israel seems to be mopping up better than I expected in Gaza and wider regional escalation would be suicidal for the world economy and perhaps the world itself, but with Ukraine becoming even more of a quagmire than before, the Biden Administration will have to create a drama somewhere else to distract from it.
I expect some kind of January 6 “MAGA extremism” fake lightning rod to be used, which doubles up nicely as a run-up to the 2024 election.
“Violent anti-abortion” group protest (media says “riot”) used as a pretext for the authorities to raid pregnancy support centers and conservative political/religious NGOs across the US etc.
Or maybe a series of “Governor Whitmer kidnapping”-style debacles, where informants outnumber the (utterly bewildered) “participants”.
The shift from “Covid will kill us all if you don’t comply” to “unlimited support for Ukraine” was rather seamless. You have to get them credit for that.
I expect some kind of January 6 “MAGA extremism” fake lightning rod to be used, which doubles up nicely as a run-up to the 2024 election.
“Violent anti-abortion” group protest (media says “riot”) used as a pretext for the authorities to raid pregnancy support centers and conservative political/religious NGOs across the US etc.
Or maybe a series of “Governor Whitmer kidnapping”-style debacles, where informants outnumber the (utterly bewildered) “participants”.
The shift from “Covid will kill us all if you don’t comply” to “unlimited support for Ukraine” was rather seamless. You have to get them credit for that.
They've tried 2 false flags on Poland already, it didn't catch. That ship has sailed, the Poles know Ukraine is getting pummeled and don't want any of that.
This video clip reeks desperation.
A Ukrainian jury has concluded that Maidan "activist" snipers fired on the... Maidan protestors. The jury "states there was no involvement of law enforcement & Russian snipers in massacring these protesters from this hotel."
So, Vicky Nuland's favorite Ukrainians fired on their own protestors, to (successfully) throw Ukraine into chaos, causing the elected President to flee for his life. 9 years later, a Ukrainian jury, mid-war, determines the fire was NOT from some almighty but elusive "Russian snipers." The shots came from Hotel Ukrainia - where the "pro-Maidan" elements were themselves headquartered.
Why does this matter so much? Maidan is very important to the anti-Russian sentiment amongst Ukrainians. In the minds of many Ukrainians, some shadowy force of snipers fired upon their younger countrymen, who were simply trying to align Ukraine with the West. This is a big moment in their "schism" with Russia, and a Ukrainian jury has just ruled that it was a lie. It was Ukrainians that killed Ukrainians, as this jury of Ukrainians sees it.
These people have been well and truly manipulated. Many were/are willing dupes, but their Russia-hatred was used against them. A caution for us all.
Putin has claimed he knows who the Maidan snipers are, and that they were not Russian. Now, a jury of Ukrainians has agreed with him.
What other intrigue is missing here?
So, Vicky Nuland's favorite Ukrainians fired on their own protestors, to (successfully) throw Ukraine into chaos, causing the elected President to flee for his life. 9 years later, a Ukrainian jury, mid-war, determines the fire was NOT from some almighty but elusive "Russian snipers." The shots came from Hotel Ukrainia - where the "pro-Maidan" elements were themselves headquartered.
Why does this matter so much? Maidan is very important to the anti-Russian sentiment amongst Ukrainians. In the minds of many Ukrainians, some shadowy force of snipers fired upon their younger countrymen, who were simply trying to align Ukraine with the West. This is a big moment in their "schism" with Russia, and a Ukrainian jury has just ruled that it was a lie. It was Ukrainians that killed Ukrainians, as this jury of Ukrainians sees it.
These people have been well and truly manipulated. Many were/are willing dupes, but their Russia-hatred was used against them. A caution for us all.
Putin has claimed he knows who the Maidan snipers are, and that they were not Russian. Now, a jury of Ukrainians has agreed with him.
What other intrigue is missing here?
This is years too late.
No matter how quickly the Covid narrative crumbled, for example, normies were either too scared or too lazy to demand answers from their elected representatives or, better yet, replace them entirely.
Even the most shocking revelations usually never lead to any changes or accountability if the narratives behind them crumble as “late” as a mere couple or several weeks after first being presented as irrefutable “truth”.
It’s almost as if the general public needs a lie to be publicly destroyed within five minutes, otherwise they simply don’t care when said lie is proven to be a vindictive falsehood further down the track.
Attention spans and mental bandwidths of average voters, not to mention their backbones, are at an all-time low.
The best we can often hope for is that the “Current Thing” is replaced by an equally stupid new “Current Thing”, which is hardly reassuring.
Afghanistan came and went with zero accountability, except for the mid-ranking officer kicked out for criticizing the idiot Milley and comatose Biden’s “withdrawal”, and soon enough we had Ukraine.
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And today, wife of Kirill Budanov, head of ukrainian military intelligence, was poisoned.
Have you not seen what has happened in Ukraine?
And no, the govt. of the USA doesn't give a damn about their people, if they did, they wouldn't be flooding the country with people who are destroying the lives and futures of their citizens.