The bluster and distraction won't detract from the fact that I've never spoken in absolutist terms. It's not an unmitigated victory for Russia (I've emphasized this over and over) but nor is it an unmitigated disaster. An 'unmitigated disaster' in this context would be Ukraine retaking all their own territory and Russia having to retreat to Russia without getting any meaningful concessions, i.e. Ukraine convincingly winning the war. This is such an obvious point, it's embarrassing to have to say it.

Don't know why you keep saying that. Maybe we just have totally irreconcilable ideas of what that word means. — Wayfarer

OK, the fact that they are holding Ukrainian territory and Ukraine has admitted they can't take back that territory by force. Apparently that is an 'unmitigated disaster' for Russia in your book. If you don't think it mitigates the disaster for Russia that they have taken and continue to control a large chunk of Ukraine and are forcing them to the negotiating table as a result, we will just have to agree to differ.

I wish the war was an 'unmitigated disaster' for Russia, but the fact that they're winning, despite their problems, mitigates the disaster somewhat for me from any reasonably objective perspective. It still puzzles me how you'd refer to the war if Russia was losing or looked like any of its major goals (Ukranian neutrality, autonomy for Donbass) were under threat. But, whatever, we'll just have to agree to differ on that.

basic media literacy. — StreetlightX

Yeah, I taught this to Chinese students as part of media literacy when they were studying at a British University. They had no major problem getting it, despite the fact, or maybe because of the fact they were bombarded with it on a daily basis at home.

It doesn't necessarily require 'disinformation' - as in, the misreporting of facts, or disseminating false information, but it absolutely includes issues of how an issue is framed - what actors are focused on, what the actual problem is consider to be, what kinds of questions are asked (and not asked), who is interviewed, who or what counts as a legitimate source, etc. — StreetlightX

Yes, e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN_controversies#Coverage_on_international_incidents

"During the Persian Gulf War in 1990–1991, CNN was criticized for excessively pushing human interest stories and avoiding depictions of violent images, the result being an alleged "propagandistic" presentation of news. A report by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) quotes an unnamed CNN reporter as describing "the 'sweet beautiful sight' of bombers taking off from Saudi Arabia"."

Suppressing the real effects of war and romanticising the killing machines that facilitate its progress is propaganda. That doesn't require direct falsities.

Of course, sometimes, shit is just made up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda

"Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. On October 10, 1990, a young Kuwaiti girl known only as "Nayirah" appeared in front of a congressional committee and testified that she witnessed the mass murdering of infants, when Iraqi soldiers had snatched them out of hospital incubators and threw them on the floor to die. Her testimony became a lead item in newspapers, radio and TV all over the US. The story was eventually exposed as a fabrication in December 1992, in a CBC-TV program called To Sell a War. Nayirah was revealed to be the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States, and had not actually seen the "atrocities" she described take place"

Wouldn't waste your time with propaganda deniers on this thread though. That type of person simply cannot think beyond what their trusted media feeds them.

Maybe 'propaganda' is too emotive a term for some. But the basic definition is simply: "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view." That covers a wide scope. In some cases, it simply is giving people what they want to hear for profit. In other cases, it's feeding the government line for reasons of patriotism or whatever. And there's no reason it can't be both at the same time.

To those who still insist the war is going 'disastrously' for Russia because they read that on CNN, ask yourself how Ukraine having the upper hand can be squared with a public admission they cannot take back their own territory and will likely have to give some of it away.

Some recognition of reality here (i.e. they are losing, not winning, the war):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/27/russia-ukraine-war-latest-zelenskiy-calls-on-west-for-planes-and-tanks-biden-says-butcher-putin-cannot-remain-in-power-live

"Ukraine willing to compromise over the status of Donbas in peace deal, Zelenskiy says

Speaking more than a month after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Zelenskiy said no peace deal would be possible without a ceasefire and troop withdrawals.

He ruled out trying to recapture all Russian-held territory by force, saying it would lead to a third world war, and said he wanted to reach a “compromise” over the eastern Donbass region, held by Russian-backed forces since 2014."

You should quote me or you risk going off on your own strawman tangent. I specifically pointed out their propaganda was more pervasive and extreme than ours; in fact, I'd say far more. I also already gave examples of our propaganda. So, which claim of mine exactly are you arguing against and what do you want that I haven't already dealt with? Do you object to the acknowledgement that we are also doing what they are doing and we make ourselves stupider by denying it, regardless of the relative level it's being practiced? As far as I'm concerned, anyone who doesn't read the news critically, especially in a time of war, is a fool. I'm not going to change my mind on that because you don't like anyone not exclusively saying bad things about Russia. As for the charge of whataboutism, utter nonsense, my first and strongest criticism on this thread was of Russian not Western propaganda.

Maybe they aren't on the same paragraph, but they're standing together on the same sanctions page, which are geared toward squashing the Russian economy flat. — frank

Yes, but to your earlier point about other countries not being so enthusiastic:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/27/russia-ukraine-war-latest-zelenskiy-calls-on-west-for-planes-and-tanks-biden-says-butcher-putin-cannot-remain-in-power-live

"India is likely to continue to import coking coal from Russia, Reuters reports.

On Sunday, the country’s steel minister appeared to shun the global trend of limiting Russian imports in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

Ramchandra Prasad Singh told a conference in New Delhi:

We are moving in the direction of importing coking coal from Russia."

This type of thing does undermine that effort.

I don't think he's on the same page as most European leaders though who are more in control of their messaging. — Baden

Right on cue:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/27/russia-ukraine-war-latest-zelenskiy-calls-on-west-for-planes-and-tanks-biden-says-butcher-putin-cannot-remain-in-power-live

"In a speech in Warsaw, Poland, last night, Biden said Putin is a “butcher” and said “this man cannot remain in power”. However, the White House later clarified that the US was not calling for regime change.

"Macron told broadcaster France 3: “I would not use those words.”

He added that “everything must be done to stop the situation from escalating” if there is to be any hope of stopping Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Macron also told France 3 he saw his task as “achieving first a ceasefire and then the total withdrawal of [Russian] troops by diplomatic means. If we want to do that, we can’t escalate either in words or actions.”

So much for the 'NATO has never been more unified' line.

I guess he was speaking on behalf of the Soviet Union. Wasn't also Ukraine a large part of it, or is just the Russian federation the only successor state of the Union? Just asking.. — ssu

No, this was in 1997. So, he was specifically referring to the post Soviet era.

I agree there have been fuckups on the Russian side. I just don't think there's been anything that would result in them not achieving their major objectives as outlined by Boethius. And their significance will be ovestated by our propaganda and understated or denied by theirs.

I personally fear that the war will just continue for far longer even if a conclusion could be made earlier. — ssu

I'm on board with this. There is a solution there imo, i.e. acquiesce to basic Russian demands with maybe a bit of face-saving negotiation around them. The alternative is try to hurt Russia, but probably not enough to make it withdraw. And while that's happening its demands are effectively being met anyway and Ukraine is being hurt even more. The biggest danger though is that Zelensky hopes that the longer he draws out the war, the more there is a chance of some kind of accident or spark that gets NATO involved on his side. He may feel it's worth the gamble if he's painted himself into a corner of not accepting any loss of Ukraine sovreignty.

Biden: Tough talk.
The Whitehouse: No, no, we didn't mean it!

If anyone thinks this is going to scare the Russians...

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/white-house-us-president-biden-unscripted-speech-not-calling-for-russian-regime-change-1541866

Meanwhile...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/eu-steps-back-impractical-russia-oil-embargo-2022-03-25/

Honestly, most of this 'support' for Ukraine appears to be for public consumption only. My guess is in the background Europe and many in the American administration just want this to stop and know Russia isn't going to back down.

But...

I think Biden is actually leading the team right now and he wants to bruise Putin. — frank

His latest speech and the fact he went unscripted suggests that he genuinely has a personal interest in trying to get the better of Putin. I don't think he's on the same page as most European leaders though who are more in control of their messaging.

:up:

Instructive:


"You may not humiliate a nation and think it will have no consequences."

I'm sure it'll show up. Meanwhile, it looks like Russia's response to Biden's fiery rhetoric in Poland has been to unleash some real fire and fury on Lviv.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60887974

"Lviv's mayor, Andriy Sadoviy, said that "with today's blows, the aggressor sends greetings to President Biden"

It's also plausible. Anyway, if you have a source on that, I'll read it, yes.

How I see it playing out is as above: Russian puppet control of Donbass and Ukraine accepting neutral status. The question is how long it takes. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner the better but that is the difficult one to judge.

There is information out there if you dig but, yes, it's not easy to know their intentions; what they say means almost nothing because they're happy to lie to misdirect. My hope is that China is putting some pressure on them to gradually deescalate and they might accept some kind of autonomy deal on the Donbass that stops short of full independence. Europe might also put some background pressure on Zelensky to concede he's more or less lost that region to Russian puppet control.

They've been pushed back from the vicinity of Kyiv, in the first successful large Ukrainian counter-offensive. — Olivier5

I've read various reports on this but nothing solid yet. Its significance depends too on Russian plans. If they are as they say they are concentrating on the South and East now, that's where Ukranian victories would be most significant.

After that, that is to say, if they and the Ukrainians can both last that long, then either they launch general conscription, use chemical weapons, or sign a peace treaty under significant military pressure. — Olivier5

OK, but the first two of these scenarios are disastrous for Ukraine and the third only a win if the Russians make significant compromises. So, your outlook appears no more optimistic than mine.

When someone points out that the 'Russia's war is going disastrously' narrative might not be entirely accurate — Baden

A bit more analysis on whether the failure to advance further on Kyiv was a disaster or intentional or something in between.

https://twitter.com/defencewithac/status/1507498359812149261

"I think it was all about Donbas from the start. The stuff In rest of country was a feint. Fact Kyiv remains mostly untouched while Mariupol is flattened speaks volumes."

Defence With A 'C' @defencewithac: Seen a number of similar suggestions that Kyiv was a mere feint, which I think are equally as implausible as the idea that Kyiv was the Russian centre of gravity, which we shall examine... err, now. /1

One of the opening gambits for the Russians was a failed air assault on an airport on the city outskirts, which suggests an attempt to capture Kyiv via coup de main. More specifically, it suggests an attempt to capture the Ukrainian government via coup de main. /2
·
19h
The persistent advances on the city from both north and east, and the attempts to encircle it, would also imply that Kyiv was more than just a mere feint, and that a reasonable effort was being made to try and capture it. /3
·
19h
That said, operationally Kyiv is far more important to the Ukrainians than it is to the Russians, which would explain why Ukr has expended so much effort in its defence, stripping other areas of units and systems in order to protect the capital. /4
·
19h
Conversely, the Rus deployed most of their units in the south and east, which suggests that while certainly Kyiv was an important target, it wasn't the central axis upon which the operation hinged. Otherwise it would have made sense to deploy vastly more forces to it. /5
·
19h
As for why Kyiv has been less bombarded (relatively speaking...) than other cities, the simple answer is that the Russians haven't gotten as close and are having more difficulty bringing artillery to bear on the main city. /6
·
19h
The Rus approach to urban conflict has long been one of "find the enemy with probes, flatten that area with artillery, then send in troops to clear the rubble." This is what we've seen in Mariupol for example. /7
·
19h
But in Kyiv they haven't really gotten close enough to do that on the core city, though residents of the suburbs and surrounding towns/cities would beg to differ that their region has somehow gotten off lightly. /8
·
19h
This incidentally seems to be half the Russian's problems in places like Chernihiv and Sumy, where small probes by single/pairs of tanks with a few IFV in support are routinely getting ambushed and overwhelmed by local Ukrainian superiority. /9
·
19h
Thus, I don't think Kyiv is really one or the other. It doesn't seem to be the central goal that everyone is obsessing over, but to call it the object of a mere feint is to give the Russians too much credit for an otherwise mediocre advance. /end

----

Vastly prefereable and more enlightening than 'It's all a disaster' or 'It's all going exactly to plan'.

Yes, they do propaganda and we do propaganda too. Theirs is often outlandish and laughable and I've pointed that out at the start of the thread. Ours is often more run-of-the-mill, like panic-denying any narrative that doesn't make the Russians look bad. E.g. When someone points out that the 'Russia's war is going disastrously' narrative might not be entirely accurate, these people open their skull, drop their brain on the floor, and start babbling about any other bad thing Russia has done as if you must support that because you're not agreeing with everything they're saying.

Except...
Bonus side:

Propagandists and cheerleaders vs The Ukraninan people: Think I'll go for the Ukraninan people rather than the armchair fanboys who think helping means emptying their heads of all critical thought and pretending everything's going to be alright because the good guys always win despite a few broken bones.

Taking sides:

NATO vs the Ukranian people: I'll go for the Ukranian people rather than the organization who helped get them attacked and is now standing on the sidelines trying to look like the good guys while they continue to suffer.
Putin vs the Ukranian people: I'll go for the Ukraninan people rather than the brutal dictator who's happy to kill them in any number to achieve his strategic objectives.
Zelensky vs the Ukranian people: Think I'll stick with the Ukranian people rather than the feckless clown who could have avoided this war and now spends his time running around the world's TV screens spouting empty propaganda while his people continue to die.

Taking sides isn't much in the way of analysis though, particularly seeing as, from my point of view, the moral side to take is pretty obvious. All I expect of anyone here is intelligent analysis. And that can come from any side.

E.g.

Durn.

So who the heck does have this info on the situation of the Russian military on the ground? — Manuel

Forgot about this guy: https://twitter.com/defencewithac Good follow for detailed info about what's going on on the ground.

I thought his ratings were in the toilet. But anyway, do you think he'll run again?

That five Russian generals have been killed in combat since the beginning of the invasion has. It's being attributed to snipers. — frank

That may very well be true. Russian organizational structure means Russian generals need to lead from the front, putting them right in the firing line, or so I've read.

Update on the Russian mutiny propaganda story. The Guardian runs with it but half-heartedly as it seems to smell the bullshit all over it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/25/russian-troops-mutiny-commander-ukraine-report-western-officials

"However, while there was some evidence to corroborate the claim that the commander had been run over, it was less clear whether, as the western officials claimed, the colonel had died. On Friday night, they partially retracted the claim in the light of conflicting evidence on social media. They said they were seeking to clarify whether he was alive or dead – and said that the key point was that he was a victim of a mutiny, not whether he had been killed or not."

Those 'western officials' and their 'key points' eh? :rofl:

In case you didn't see this interesting prediction by Oleksiy Arestovych from 2019: — petrichor

Really interesting, thanks.

Of course they're going to lie about their casualties and the civilians they killed and just about everything else. That's what the military does. That doesn't mean you should underestimate them though.

So who the heck does have this info on the situation of the Russian military on the ground? — Manuel

Tough one. Fog of war and so on. Best you can do is get your information from a wide variety of sources and try to piece together something that makes sense. Actually, I original came across the guy as a guest on a finance channel. Sometimes finance news outlets are more likley to tell you the truth because there's money involved for their customers.

Yeah, I know it's a few weeks old. He has one he did today actually, but it's much more finance orientated. He's still of the same view though that Russia is winning and that the narrative that it's a disaster for them is not not based on anything solid on the ground.

Have you asked yourself what's not reported in the Western media? Or considered the difference between a bunch of facts or half facts and how they are contextualized or interpreted? E.g. Western media says 'bogged down'. A military analyst says 'waiting'. How do you know which is true? Apparently, you just ignore the line of reasoning outlined here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/673465 because it hasn't been reported in the Western media. You are absolutely proving my point about propaganda. Again, if this was about Kant, and I told you Kant was crap because I read that in the media, you'd think I was a fool. And that's how you sound to anyone interested in analysing what's going on in this conflict. It's willful ignorance.

No, I didn't accuse you of propganda for expressing horror at what's happening. I have several times expressed horror at what's happening. I said the unsubstantiated idea that the war was going disastrously for Putin was propaganda parroted from Western media. Which is supported by the fact that A) The idea is not based on your own analysis or serious analysis you've read. You apparently haven't done any or read any. B) Actual analysis that has been done suggests it's likely very misleading to say the least.

@Wayfarer You seem to be conflating moral judgements with military analysis, which is just going to complete confuse you and everyone else who tries to interact with you. Morally. we agree the invasion was unjustified and Putin is a very bad guy, so there's no debate on that score and there's no need to keep inserting it.

As for 'backing the wrong horse' that is a comment on your repeated suggestion that Putin might succeed or win, whatever that might mean, but I'm not going to argue the case further at this point as it's obviously inflammatory. — Wayfarer

It's just a poorly chosen metaphor seeing as I'd much prefer if Putin lost. Ask me how soon. Yesterday. I'm not a fantasist though. I follow where the evidence leads.

My reasoning is that Putin's forces may succeed in finally subduing the Ukrainian army — Wayfarer

Regardless of your qualifications, that is absolutely not consistent with:

The Russian campaign is arguably already a total failure — Wayfarer

So if Russia kills or displaces most of the population and practically destroys the country, then do you call that 'success'? — Wayfarer

Success for Russia is achieving their objectives. If, hypothetically, their objective is to destroy the country then of course it's a success for them. What else would you call achieving your military objective?

But the images we've been seeing of entire regions completely gutted by long-range missiles, millions of people fleeing, bodies in the streets - this is not 'propoganda', it's actually happening. — Wayfarer

Yes, and how do you square this with Russia being the big loser of this war. When I post this kind of stuff it's to demonstrate how badly Ukraine is losing and suffering in the process. Which is right on point.

If you don't believe in relevant reasoning or evidence re making a judgement on military success or failure. For example, if you have no interest in looking at a map or military positioning or historical precedent, then while you are entitled to your opinion, it's entirely worthless. Kind of like if I was to say, "Hey, Kant was wrong, his philosophy was a disaster", and when asked to provide some kind of analysis as to why, refuse and just repeat the charge. An opinion, but a useless one.

you may see the mods as pro-Russian. but I tend to see them (or most of them) as pro-Western. — Apollodorus

Glad to be perceived as being on the opposite side of everyone here. :up: