This is very worrying. Notice how specific weapons have been provided, as if to see how they work, without changing anything? Anti-tank weapons. Hand - held SAMs. As I mentioned Ukraine asked for some weapons they never got. — FreeEmotion

Almost like it's exactly that.

That does not make it right. Meddling with elections and installing your glove puppet as President may not be classified as a battle, but the morality of the idea is questionable. Are lives lost the only measure or is the freedoms lost also to be counted in the list of casualties?

War brings evil intentions to light. That is what it is for. — FreeEmotion

Predicting Russian victory is not a moral justification for Russia's actions.

It's simply necessary to evaluate decisions of other parties, including Ukraine, of what to do about it. If you can't talk Putin out of the war for purely moral reasons, to give up and accept defeat, then trying to do that is just wasting time and not going to save a single life.

What matters during the crisis is what to do about the crisis; the blame game is something that is only morally justified once the crisis is resolved. Starting it before is morally abhorrent and, tacitly assumes, the crisis is actually desirable (you're not doing anything to help anyone in the crisis, so the alternative is that it's actually desirable to score political points and accomplish other objectives at the cost of the suffering and dying).

"Fighting to the last man" with insane civilian casualties and damages to people's homes and livelihood, is only morally justifiable if that last man can win or then the enemy is going to literally rape and kill everyone anyways; no one's proposing either of these possibilities.

Finland is praised as the archetype resistance to Russian imperialism ... yet Finland was literally part of the Russian empire for a century, and owned by Sweden before that. If Finns had this ethic of fighting to the last man ... no Finn would be alive to fight the Soviet partisans in WWI and the Soviet Union itself in WWII. Sometimes you need to live to fight another day, that's the first lesson to be learned from Finnish history.

And the Finns themselves are only there in the first place, because they invaded and took Salmi lands, so it's the kettle calling the pot black to begin with (and the Salmi are still alive and still have some lands because they too didn't fight to the last man).

There have been people's with a fight to the last man ethic in all circumstances, but history being full of variables, they are no longer around.

And to update on the military situation ... it's possible Russia is just incompetently blundering to victory.

... Or it's possible one of its many generals can read, maybe even Putin himself can read, and they've actually bothered to read, at least one of them one time in a decades long career in the military, the classic text of strategic warfare.

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

"In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity"

"If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."

"Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate."

"""
There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.

Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:

1 He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
2 He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
3 He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
4 He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
5 He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.
"""

"Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley."

"The greatest victory is that which requires no battle." (... maybe why Putin made a reasonable offer before the war started ... maybe would have just accepted people accepting his offer.)

"Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting." (this obviously didn't happen, but could have in those more-or-less calm first days of the war; it's literally only the social media encouraging bloodshed without understanding anything that prevented a negotiated settlement in my opinion.)

It all comes from this Chinese book this guy wrote back in the day ... but, certainly an inferior civilization we can just ignore.

You bring up some good points I'll try to respond to later.

However, with all the different threats of the conversation overlapped, I think I'll briefly structure the argument myself, certainly @Isaac, and others, are making.

The first question is who are we talking to?

This is a discussion ... Putin's not in this discussion, the war on the ground is not going to won on social media. It doesn't matter how many retired generals and colonels the West puts on TV to say Ukraine is going to win (which they base on absolutely nothing), if Ukraine simply can't win. The more-or-less official position from actual Western officials (who do have lot's of intelligence and so can base their statements on something) is that Ukraine can wage an insurgency ... but that assumes losing the conventional war. US won the conventional war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

Now, is this offer to the Ukrainians, to turn their country into an Afghanistan or Libya style failed state a good faith offer? Does it serve Ukrainian interests or does it serve the US interest to "bleed the Russians" by giving them an Afghanistan, which Western officials aren't even really coy about stating is their goal and strategy.

Furthermore, is years or decades of insurgency--which the most fanatical elements (who have no qualms about murdering anyone on "their own side" who disagrees with them; and the whole point of an insurgency is to have a murder machine, so if all you have is a murder machine every moderate looks like a nail needing murdering) will quickly take over, meaning the neo-Nazi's will run it--really a good outcome for Ukraine? Does that really serve any Ukrainian interests?

This is the policy: pump handheld missile systems into Ukraine which cannot possibly win the conventional war with Russia who will just "see your javelin and raise you thermobaric destruction of the entire area" and, critically, infantry cannot possibly assault dug-in locations, so any area the Russians want to defend they will be able to defend ... but if the handheld systems can't win the conventional war, what's their real purpose?

1. Advertise the effectiveness of these weapons for weapons sales. Conflicts are first and foremost an advertisement for different weapons systems, and this is the only reason every EU country is "sending their weapons" as they'll want not only those sweet, sweet views on facebook but also the positive association built up in social media between "Ukrainian resistance" and "peace loving". In 2 weeks, ATGM's and Manpads have become symbols of peace. But at how much Ukrainian blood pays for this advertisement?

2. The US policy, as described by Nuland before the 2014 in a leaked phone call discussing the coup and "who's their man" they'll place in power ... is "Fuck the EU". This war indeed fucks the EU in all sorts of ways. EU leaders seem to just love getting fucked by the US, more or less drop their drawers and bend over every time the US comes to town. Ok, American's can smile about that, but does it help the Ukrainians?

3. Give Russia they're "Afghanistan" (aka. their own constant arms commercial ... which also creates instability putting upwards pressure on oil prices and pretty much all commodities that then pay handsomely for said war commercial).

Now, given this purpose of US, NATO and EU policy ... is that somehow excusing Russia.

Certainly, Russian could have just lead with it's own economic sanctions of it's own (that could have actually prevented war, see how long EU could last without gas).

The difference is that bad mouthing Putin in some online group think is mostly false (as a truly evil person in charge of thousands of nuclear weapons would use them all tomorrow) and is not constructive anyways ... it's not going to change Putin's mind.

If you can't talk Putin out of the war effort for just "moral reasons" and no concessions from anyone, then it's basically like just talking to a big rock that's blocking your road.

You go to other people who could help you move the giant boulder and, if Western media is to believed as a sane basis of decision making, then people just join in your frustrated expletives about rock ... but aren't going to help you move it, but for sure the rock is fucking obstacle, is somehow a righteous movement.

So you go back to the rock and yell at it directly as that seems to be what everyone wants, but the rock isn't persuaded to move.

So you go back to the group of people that can help move the rock and they're just like "holy crap, fucking bitch ass rock fucking with your jive train, you totally have a right to move that rock, I'm posting this to social media right now,"

No amount of social media posting is going to move that rock. When you realize this you go back are like "ok cool, appreciated making me the greatest hero social media has ever seen for defending my right to move the rock from the path out of my house, but the rock is still there." Ok, feeling that they may indeed be hypocrites, they start supplying you with the tools to move the rock yourself (and posting that on social media while doing nothing to change the rocks actual location), and it's not really a question about tools but of man power and team work. You have now a bunch of stuff, and the rock is still there.

So you finally start complaining about no one actually helping you. What do they say?

"Woe, woe, woe, hold your horses," (which if you had you could maybe have moved the rock, but you don't have and you can't get because anyone seen giving you horses may start World War III), "We didn't cause this problem, you have a right to move the rock, and we totally respect that and totally want you to move it to get your truck out to go do your work and live a normal life, but we have nothing to do with the rock, rock did that to you. Did our policies lead to the rock falling off the cliff and landing in your driveway to begin with, sure maybe, but we're in the here and now and ontologically speaking we're not rock, rock is over there and we're over here; totally different things and not connected in anyway."

"Go talk to the fucking rock."

interspersed with snippets of unrelated tourist information. — Isaac

They're just such peace loving people they're already plugging the Ukrainian tourist industry to help the rebuilding effort. It's thoughtful.

But yes, all this criticism of Russian logistics ... sort of requires knowledge of Ukrainian logistics also to come to any conclusions.

There are actually 4 ways Russia can encircle all Ukrainian forces east of the River.

whether Ukraine has sufficient supplies of fuel — Isaac

1. It can join the North-West and South-West pincers in more-or-less a straight line through farmland.
2. It can breakout the Salient East of Kiev in a move south to the river, and breakout it's South-West salient in a move North-East of the river (and just blow up all the bridges in between if any remain).
4. It can break out one of it's salients in the East to the river to accomplish the point above in a different way.
5. It can just blowup all the bridges.

There's certainly no question Russia has sufficient fuel supplies to do any of the maneuvers above.

And the core problem of infantry vs. armor is that armor can just flank tens of kilometres around you.

One possibility is that what we have seen in Ukraine so far is largely what Russian generals largely want us to see, or then fine with it. I have a hard time believing Russian generals will evaluate success and failure apart from military victory.

So when Russian MOD claims that American biolabs in Ukraine have been developing bioweapons capable of selectively targeting Slavic ethnic groups, — SophistiCat

It's Nuland claiming Ukraine has bio research labs that shouldn't fall into Russian hands and that they (i.e. CIA) is working hard to prevent that happening.

Without Nuland saying it, then it would just be internet rumor and conjecture.

But it's extremely hard to interpret Nuland's statement other than Ukraine has bio-weapons.

The argument has been put forward it was defensive bio-weapons research ... but those are still bio-weapons.

And the argument has been put forward that "lab" doesn't mean anything ... but then why would a top US official just "scat" meaningless scat cat derribidoos da da's in a senatorial hearing in the context of potential nuclear escalation?

I hear there's a bit of an influx of foreigners, going to fight Russia, in Ukraine. That's a different situation altogether. — Metaphysician Undercover

They will of course take strategically important cities, like Kherson.

Obviously, taking Kiev is also important, would be symbolic "victory" to take the capital and capture the leadership.

They maybe setting up to do so ... or they maybe pretending to setup to do so but plan only to siege Kiev and then encircle Ukrainian forces in the East (which can be done both East or West of the Dnieper river, or then both).

It's also not unusual that a strategically good position has several possible next moves, all of equal probability.

Russia has limited resources, certainly, but so too Ukraine.

Maybe Russian forces are about to collapse ... or then maybe Ukraine.

This statement is the worst kind of stupid. The issues which matter to me are not the same as the issues which matter to you. So what are you saying, if you do not agree with the importance of an issue which someone takes up, that person is stupid? — Metaphysician Undercover

The context is the world's greatest intellectual, so it makes no sense to argue the world's greatest intellectual is working on something totally irrelevant.

You can't be the world's greatest footballer ... but choose not to play football, play golf instead or stay in some local pickup league.

Of course, what is relevant and a worthy task for the world's greatest intellectual would be part of the debate.

However, the difference with lessor intellectuals, and just non-intellectuals at all, would be that it's not reasonable to say the world's greatest intellectual is doing something irrelevant or counter-productive to just make ends meat.

It would follow from being the world's greatest intellectual: both a pretty clear idea of what's important (confusion about this would be negative points I think we would agree) and also succeeding in a strategy to at least work on what's important according to the first part.

By greatest I mean both intellectual skill and knowledge as such but also the greatest contributions to world society as a whole. Of course, up for debate what contributes or not to world society as a whole.

"Greatest intellectual", that's a stretch. — Metaphysician Undercover

Who else is there?

But it would be good to make a separate thread about it. I'd be happy to learn there is someone as relevant, as productive, as insightful, and as accurate.

Sure there's plenty clever people around, but if they don't work on issues that matter: they're the worst kind of stupid.

:roll: Ok, then use the word salients. There are a lot of salients for the Russians. — ssu

I mean the main salients, local commanders will also try to encircle their local opponents as well, but what seems clear to me is there are 3 strategically important salients the Russians focus their resources on: East and West of Kiev, and South-West. Everything else, as far as I can tell, moves forward if there is little resistance (the whole purpose of a 1300km front is to stretch the enemies forces) and simply stops and defends, or even pulls back, if there is significant enemy resistance.

However, the 3 strategically important pincers seem to me just to move forward relentlessly.

That the convoy just sat on the road for over a week is pretty good indication significant resources were committed to defend that salient.

And for example encircling a huge city isn't so easy. Here the example of Grozny is telling. For Russians, it took then months. And it was a smaller city with fewer defenders. Without any outside help flowing in. — ssu

There is still no indication that the Russians plan to take any cities with significant urban combat. Most Ukrainians aren't fanatics and will want to surrender once they run out of food (most Ukrainians are not fanatical jihadists actually willing to fight to the death). And towns surrendering one-by-one after encirclement is what we see. Mariupole, home of Azov brigade, is an exception but easily explained as both the home of actual fanatical fighters actually willing to fight to the death, as well as collective punishment for supporting / tolerating a neo-nazi "brigade".

No, it can't.

There basically is an unannounced blockade done by the Russians. Note that an Estonian (EU member) ship has already been sunk in the Black Sea. — ssu

I explained that's why diplomacy is required, to convince the Russians to allow ships through the blockade to collect civilians. I talked about EU doing diplomacy, not just randomly sending ships unannounced to discover there's a blockade.

Now, if EU put this sort of diplomatic pressure, publicly criticizing Russia for refusing the EU or some neutral country to evacuate the civilians, then, certainly, you can blame the Russian blockade.

But you cannot, in any serious negotiation, not try and then claim the counter-party wouldn't allow it.

"Wouldn't allow it" clearly requires asking in the first place.

Besides, the EU isn't neutral in this conflict. It's arming one side in large quantities. And Russians have already declared about those "humanitarian corridors" leading to Russia.

Something to think about: — ssu

Even enemies negotiate to evacuate civilians ... indeed that's what the ceasefires between Russian and Ukraine exactly are; that the EU therefore can't negotiate evacuating civilians, makes no sense.

EU wants civilians to die to justify it's counter-productive and warmongering policies.

You can call it arms-profit-cynicism or you can call it murder, but you can't call it some credible effort to evacuate civilians from Mariupole.

EU leaders haven't all-of-a-sudden gotten anarcho-peacenik pay masters: there masters are exactly the same as before ... and surprisingly the only thing they agree on is the policy to increase arms sales, indeed more political effort has been on the long term "rearming" than on the war in Ukraine .... they literally can't even wait a month to start spending on the new cold war.

You misunderstood the intent. There is no expectation of a direct cause to effect mechanism to anywhere here, and certainly no hope from my side or theirs that Putin will simply listen to them and stop his killing spree. They are just speaking truth to power. That's all, it's not much I agree, but it's not nothing either. It matters. Everything matters. — Olivier5

Then we agree.

Says who? Your cristal ball? — Olivier5

I literally conclude this list of indisputable facts with:

Point is, no reason to believe toothless academic criticism and peaceful protests have any better chance of stopping a war by Russia than a war by the USA and buddies. — boethius

No reason to assume. It would literally be the first time peaceful protests and academic criticism have stopped a war ... in history.

Maybe it will happen, but it seems a bad strategy to rely on something that has never happened before suddenly happening for the first time, without some causal mechanism under one's control that has some theoretical and practical basis to assume will actually work this time.

But sure, maybe the Kremlin will burn and sink in a sea of discontent tomorrow.

Dude. guy. bro.

Do you have any memory at all of "academic" and media opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Coordinated protests involving millions of people.

"No blood for oil" that neo-cons today giddily gloat over the fact that "of course it was about oil!" ... like they cleverly duped us this whole time?

Didn't change policy of a single dollar of arms purchases, and the pullout of Afghanistan was that it no longer served a strategic (aka. war profiteering) purpose as the War on terror would be ... surprise, surprise, replaced by the new, far more lucrative, cold war literally months later.

Point is, no reason to believe toothless academic criticism and peaceful protests have any better chance of stopping a war by Russia than a war by the USA and buddies.

The world's greatest intellectual, by a pretty big margin, Noam Chomsky, has been criticizing American wars ... for a while now, pretty thoroughly, accurately, potent reasoning and exhaustive facts ... haven't seen the US end it's war policies.

And just an example of the EU's bloodlust.

Mariupole is now under intense siege, and running out of food and supplies.

It's a fucking port city, EU could easily negotiate evacuating civilians by boat. And, the "non-boat" way would mean traversing 1000 km of disrupted logistics and potential battle zone.

Fact of the matter is EU and NATO want civilians to die in Mariupole for social-media gainz and views, to justify their own policies to make the economic harms in the EU "worth it" because Russia bombed civilians the EU basically wants there to be bombed.

Of course, if the EU tried negotiating evacuation by boat ... in a coastal port city, and Russia refused, maintained the blockade, ok, then you can say it's Russia that actually wants those civilians dead.

But you can't have it both ways: you can't say nothing, do nothing, apply zero diplomatic pressure to evacuate civilians from a port city in the common sense and safest way ... and then blame Russia for civilian casualties ... to whom small arms were distributed and insurgency (aka. "civilian" ambush) urban combat declared as the Ukrainian official strategy.

Yesterday's headline in The Guardian, BBC, CNN, pretty much every big Western media organization I checked in on, was basically "Ukraine is winning and going to win" in one form or another and / or Russians will use chemical warfare, despite already deploying thermobaric weapons that achieve the same purpose, US uses as well and the absolutely zero reason to risk poisoning your own troops, denying to yourself land you want to capture etc.

Today, The Guardian headline is:

Russia-Ukraine war latest news: attacks intensify around Kyiv as Russian forces close in on the capital — The Guartian

So, from a military perspective, "closing in" on the capital is a pretty big strategic objective, and it's difficult to see how the Russian military is incompetent for so doing.

Commanders in a war will have an "eye on the prize" attitude with regards to failures elsewhere in the war "theater".

I'm certainly not saying it was all planned in advance, but Russian commanders certainly had a "well, we'll just do it the hard way" if the hypothesis of easy victory turned out to be true, and if they didn't they certainly changed to such a plan.

But based on recent Russian military history, it seems to me Russian generals know things can go easy or they can go hard; defenders can collapse or they can fiercely resist; and if the story is true that a top Russian general "warmed" Putin that Ukrainians may put up a significant fight ... then that implies that top general elaborated a plan B.

Maybe this was the plan to make a martyr of out Ukraine. If getting people killed is OK with you, then I guess the sky is the limit. — FreeEmotion

I have been advocating here a diplomatic resolution, in particular for the EU to use it's leverage to find a diplomatic resolution rather than just "punish" Russia for invading Ukraine in a way that, so far, hasn't stopped the fighting and may actually encourage more bloodshed.

A lot of the sanctions could be viewed as a good thing by Putin for all we know. We've hurt oligarchs ... but, just as we saw in China, at some point Oligarchs are a liability once power is consolidated in the center. West could be doing Putin a favour in that regard. Likewise, maybe the Kremlin wants a complete break with the West to create an alternative economic system with China (as they've both been laying the ground work for, starting with alternatives to SWIFT that appeared for the first time in 2014).

However, EU does have considerable influence, certainly easily enough soft power to have prevented the war in the first place, but it decided Ukrainians dying was not a diplomatic priority.

If we want to talk about delusional miscalculations, we should start with Boris Johnson's statement that the days of tanks rolling around in Europe are over. This was clearly the attitude of European political elites, that a conventional war by Russia in Ukraine was not possible because "those days are over" and the EU could just call Putin's bluff without even attempting any diplomacy, then, when the war starts, just drive policy by what plays well on TikTok until the brink of nuclear war and then suddenly slink away from the fight in a literal deluge of bureaucratic hedge-speak bullshit.

I have no issue accepting and praising the ordinary Ukrainian's courage in fighting for their country.

But if the EU are as courageous and concerned as they say? Where are their troops fighting along side the Ukrainians?

Furthermore, from "we have a right to fight" it does not logically follow "I have a right to send you to die for no reason".

I was talking about the line between the Ukrainian and the Russian lines. You do have the "front" stretched quite long now in Ukraine. — ssu

Yes, but if you're trying to encircle the enemy, the priority is the salients and the rest of the front doesn't really matter (especially in this situation where Ukrainians can't really advance to any strategic objective; such as Moscow).

So, commanders would be focused on the salients and send their best officers and troops to do that, and the rest of the front would be less experienced officers and troops with the orders to skirmish and just pull back and regroup their positions come under pressure.

Let's see how it develops then. And let's be honest here: the Western intelligence has been very good. — ssu

Definitely US has a ton of intelligence and satellites and so on, but Russians would take that into account. Since, as we agree, there's a huge fog of war and deception element, it's difficult to evaluate a lot of things.

First example of this is organizing the war in a week. Yes, US knew the invasion would happen as soon as orders started flowing, but Russia knowing the US would know of any detailed invasion plan may have done everything in a week so Ukraine couldn't mobilize in advance.

Or, it could very well be as the Western media reports that it was an act of hubris ... but, even if it was an act of hubris on Putin's part, Russian generals may have made sure their plan B would work anyways.

Second example, just leaving a disorganized convoy on the high-way to Kiev could be incompetence or it could be a tactic to make a significant force look nonthreatening. Now, had the Ukrainians been able to destroy the whole convoy, then obviously it would have been a mistake, but since they didn't it's possible Russian commanders were confident the convoy was at no risk and leaving it like that for days created this "incompetence" narrative by the West that, if your actually

It's very difficult to evaluate things during the war, other than critical strategic objectives that are clearly better not to lose. But everything unimportant strategically you can never tell if forces were.

Of course, I don't think we have any actual disagreements, we both agree that we'll see what will happen. Russians could very well break under the sanctions pressure, or oligarchs "take out Putin", or things unravel militarily. My fundamental point is that all these criticisms and risks facing Russia also apply to Ukraine. Russia hasn't achieved air superiority ... but neither has Ukraine for instance.

However, opposing the different scenarios I think is useful for us to understand things, but especially for people who maybe reading a long and less familiar with Russians.

And on that point, people accuse me of supporting Russia .... yet I've been trained to kill Russians, and I would if it came to that. However, I much, much, much, much, much prefer the countries leaders to avoid a war with Russia in the first place, and I also don't want to fight Russians if there is no longer a military objective to achieve. I don't view Russians as literally the Mongol hoards of the 12th century who will rape and then murder every last person if they choose to resist; in that scenario, ok, fight to the death regardless of the odds of winning.

But, certainly, Ukrainian commanders may have some sort of plan to achieve a great victory. The Russians themselves organized a massive counter offensive against the Nazi's in secret despite literally no one outside that planning believing it was possible for the Russians to do.

So, I am for sure not saying war is predictable, just that we don't know what Putin, the Kremlin Russian commanders are seeing, view as important and unimportant, acceptable losses or not. Certainly, just rolling into Kiev would have been preferred, but since that didn't happen the calculus for (totally agreed, naked imperialism) is what justifies the losses: more losses, more land must be shown for it.

The initiative is still with the Russians. But if the continue inflicting similar damage to Russia as they have done now, that's really good for them — ssu

Certainly Russia has major losses that they'd prefer not to have (fighter aircraft, tanks, obviously men too), no dispute on that.

However, we don't know the losses of Ukraine. Ukraine must keep gaining relative power in order to reach a stalemate. I don't think it's remotely possible for Ukraine to take back all the land Russia has taken, but a stalemate would be a better negotiating position than continued Russian advances.

Normally, the risk of this kind of costly war with a smaller but fiercely defending country, for an Empire, is not that the small country is any strategic threat (Ukraine isn't going to take Moscow in any scenario so far discussed), but rather that the other Empires see opportunity and invade and now you're also fighting the Persians all of a sudden who can inflict strategic defeats.

But, as we all now know extremely clearly, if the other Empire on the block, US / NATO, "seize the day" ... we all get to die in a nuclear holocaust. Hence, the only real risk to Russia strategically is internal disorder and international relations, hence the sanctions.

When have you seen footage of American troops pillaging a supermarket to get food? When have you heard about British troops going from door to door asking for food from the people because their army is totally incapable of giving them rations? — ssu

This is an expected consequence of making a 1300 Km front. Experienced officers and unit leaders are a limited supply, so if hundreds of kilometres of front are in the hands of inexperienced lot's of confusion and mistakes and losses are going to happen.

Compare this to the Russians in Syria where holding fronts was left to Syrians with Russian air support, but what the Russian ground forces would actually go and take were very specific locations; so there's only really one fight commanded by the best people Russia has. A good commander can work with what he has in terms of number of troops and experience level, but bad decisions at a command level can lead to disorderly retreat pretty quickly.

For sure, down side of having a 1300 km front is lot's of it is going to be under inexperienced commanders who make bad decisions and suffer losses and their troops retreat in a disorderly fashion ... but if there's no strategic importance in play, the Ukrainians have no where to followup those disorderly retreats to, then the high command is just going to send yelling down the chain of command to not be stupid, while they focus on what's important in the war, such as main pincers to encircle Ukrainian troops in the East.

And the main pincers just advance pretty steadily and stably so far. If there was a process where the tip of the pincers kept getting cutoff and captured / destroyed or then large resources poured into rescue them, then that's clearly strategic setbacks; you'd never actually want your salients to be cut through in pretty much any strategic situation; whereas back and forth skirmishing can be for tactical reasons (lay down suppressive fire as a defensive line in being built).

Sorry, but this is really the typical Russian clusterfuck, just like the first Chechen war was. All that authoritarianism and corruption leads to stupidities like this. There simply is no hiding of it. Or to put it another way around, the Ukrainian/NATO propaganda isn't so omnipotent to theatrically portray these difficulties. This was a far too large military operation to perform for the Russian army, that it could succeed with flying colors as it did with the annexation of Crimea. — ssu

Oh, definitely I agree; I'm not denying that we see losses and mistakes and logistical issues that the Russians commanders don't want. No professional commander "wants" a vehicle to just get a flat tire and be abandoned, outside some 5D chess moves. No professional commander wants to see troops looting.

However, these situations can be viewed as an acceptable downside for the overall strategy of encircling the large part of Ukrainian forces in the East.

Every plan has pros and cons, and to evaluate things we'd need to know the calculus used to track progress as well as the political and military objectives, which we frankly don't know in any detail.

Yeah, despite it all, the Russian army can lay punches and isn't down for the count. But that this has been a really military "bordello", as we Finns put it, is the truth. No way to hide that — ssu

True, but Russia is also de facto fighting the CIA and NATO's best hand-held missile platforms.

There's this idea that Ukraine is a small country "taking it to the Russians" all by itself. Russia is fighting a proxy war with NATO (potentially at Ukraine's expense and total disregard for Ukrainian lives and even sovereignty) and winning a proxy war with all of NATO is a massive geo-political victory for Russia, almost regardless of losses.

Russia has also, at this stage we can clearly say, called NATO's bluff of "going all the way" with no-fly zone, sanctions escalations much less boots on the ground and tactical nuclear weapons.

Only about a third of Russia's banks (not sure on what metric, but point is not all) are actually cut off from SWIFT ... and I'm pretty sure I can feel Russian gas keeping me warm and supplied with reliable electricity as I type this. Certainly no one's going to escalate to the brink of nuclear war any time soon after this fiasco.

When potential client states come to Russia to discuss a deal, regardless of what we think of them, they want to know if Russia can deliver on it's promise to protect them from NATO. If Russia wins in Ukraine in a military sense, it's a big advertisement for what Russia is selling.

Keep in mind that right now we only see Ukrainian and US "information" about the war, but as soon as it ends Russia will start publishing video of it's victories with it's systems ... which certainly exist or it wouldn't be advancing.

Here comes very apparent the problem that Russia has now: that "front line" drawn to the map is what? 1300 kilometers or so? I — ssu

Which line? The current one all around the East of Ukraine?

However, to cut Ukraine in half North-South is still 700 Kilometres.

But the entire line doesn't have to be one giant trench, just overlapping artillery cover defended by infantry and armor. Any sort of assault on the line can also be countered with air power and armor reinforcements.

An assault from the East would be by encircled units without supply lines, potentially no communication, and the river to deal with.

From what I can tell, the South-West front has simply been moving at it's logistical pace, while the North-West front has been slowly getting through the Urban areas around Kiev, which is the hard part.

Of course, it's always possible the Ukraine finds some way to stop these pincers joining in the middle. They do have a lot of ATGM's and intelligence from the US.

However, Russia also has drones for spotting troop movements and can drop bombs on them.

And, do to the flat open country side, Armor can just drive around any dug in infantry positions. I simply don't see a counter tactic available to Ukraine, but, of course maybe they have one.

So we'll find out in the coming days.

The US deployed nearly 700 000 troops into the war and the Alliance had a strength of over 900 000 of which ground forces were over 600 000 troops, hence three times the size of Putin "Special Military Operation". — ssu

True, but NATO wants to wage war with super minimal losses, which is only possible with overwhelming force. If Russia is simply willing to accept losses then it's a different calculus. How many troops are required to easily win, is a different question than how many troops are required to easily win as well as sustain super minimal losses.

And in terms of man power, Russia can rotate troops in and out of the battle space and commit more when it needs. It's not the case that it has put a hard cap on troops, committed them to Ukraine and they will win or lose with what they had to start.

In fact, the Russian way of fighting, using massive firepower of the artillery, depends a lot on the supply: — ssu

This is definitely true, and the possibility that Russia can close the pincers rests on setting up the logistics to do so. Russian army has certainly reflected on the question of supply without rail.

And this is why some Ukrainian cities that the Russian forces are attempting to secure will have lulls in the fighting. Russia simply has to stock the ammo and equipment for some days, perhaps talk about cease-fires and humanitarian corridors, before they make the next attack. — ssu

"Tactical ceasefire" is a pretty standard thing in most conflicts, and definitely the ammo supply problem is a big problem.

However, all these questions about the Russians also apply to the Ukrainians, and the Russians are more just laying siege to cities if there's no strategic reason to take them.

All the above just how absolute disaster this plan was and how it's not all so evident that one or the other side will prevail. — ssu

I agree. Closing the pincers entirely depends on sorting out all the supply issues you mention, it would be a large display of operational competence. Maybe they've been bogged down and just incompetent and disorganized as the Western Media keeps saying, or maybe they've been tying up Ukrainian forces with chaotic skirmishing all over the East of Ukraine, while establishing the forward operating bases and logistical plan to close the North and South pincers.

From what I can see, the South salient simply keeps advancing every day, and the North salient has now passed Kiev.

You must be joking. — RogueAI

Is this guy supporting Russia too? Basically the exact same arguments.

↪boethius Would you still support Russia if they use chemical/biological weapons? — RogueAI

I'm not supporting Russia.

I'm not cheering on Ukrainians to die for no achievable military objective, that is not the same as supporting Russia; it is political realism and, for me, common sense ethics about the responsibilities of civilian and military leadership.

However, as I've explained a few times, only Ukrainian military leaders know if they have chances of achieving military objectives; maybe they have some huge surprise counter offensive about to launch; we don't know.

I have also presented alternative potential narratives to the Western media narrative, but I've made clear many times that perhaps the Western media narrative is totally true, but, since it seems to be based on nothing tangible, seems useful to present alternative explanations for things for the purposes of critical analysis.

But I do feel the future-crime accusation Russia will use chemical weapons are not based on anything remotely real, Russia has zero military reason to use chemical weapons, it would escalate to a tactical nuclear weapon if it wanted to escalate.

Russia has thermobaric weapons it's already deployed and are effective at clearing large areas (weapons the US also has and uses), and without any risk of poisoning your own troops, super large political consequences, and chemical weapons are notoriously ineffective for tactical purposes (why we stopped using them after WWI).

This is so faulty on so many levels of fallacies that it becomes utter nonsense. It's like one of the most bullshit sentences of an argument I've ever seen. :rofl: — Christoffer

She's asked about bio-weapons, she answer that Ukraine does have biological laboratories (that are secret otherwise we could lookup their websites) with things the Russians shouldn't find and they're working hard to prevent the Russians finding those things.

Yes, there is only one common sense interpretation of what she's saying. And this isn't some low-level person that maybe confused, or poorly selecting words, or wouldn't have good insight into the issue and is just surmising from a limited vantage point.

This is a high ranking official, running US policy in Ukraine since even before 2014, answering the question about whether Ukraine has bio-weapons with something that clearly means Yes, and not No.

If the truth was "No, Ukraine doesn't have bio-weapons, why would it" then she would have just stated that "No, Ukraine does not have bio-weapons".

No, you conclude it as facts, — Christoffer

It's a fact that there's only one common sense interpretation of what Nuland is literally saying.

Now, it's possible she's lying or she's just misinformed herself, but as @Isaac has already explained pretty clearly, there's no way to interpret what she actually says as referring to non-bio-weapons.

Of course, that doesn't make it a fact, just Nuland talking about bio-weapons; she could be lying or misinformed.

But the what she says, and has been recorded as saying, is a fact that she said those words.

If that's inconvenient to your world view and creates questions which have no good answers in your world view (the common sense followup questions of Tucker Carlson are simply good questions, and the explanations offered so far, like it was to destroy soviet bio-weapons, just make no sense as Tucker Carlson accurately conveys) ... not my problem.

Now, seems we will learn more about this when the Russians present their case at the UN, leak intel all over the place.

Likewise, that the Western Media now has their nickers in a knot that they've been blanket denying this and using the fact the Russians are talking about it as evidence that Russia is going to use chemical weapons (when it can simply bomb things to rubble and use thermobaric weapons in addition to that) ... but then Nuland just admits to it on live television and the Western media isn't even united in blanket denial but pundits like Tucker Carlson willing to just say the common sense interpretation of things ... again, that a Western media problem, not mine.

We're literally at the level of grammatical analysis that if the police ask a suspect if they've been killing people, and they answer "yeah, sure, some killings have been happening, by me so we're clear who we're talking about," that you're willing to argue that if, not as an immediate followup to clarify the statement, nor even stated by the suspect later but somebody else unfamiliar with the whole case, that the suspect saying "killing" doesn't really have any meaning here, and they could be talking about killing online in World of War craft (which millions of people kill things on everyday, totally normal) ... that, based on such an analysis, the police should just let the suspect go, nothing suspicious at all, totally explainable as just perfectly legal, run-of-the-mill video game killing online.

Why do you make a conjecture in the form of a factual conclusion? — Christoffer

These are literally questions. It would would be up to you to propose a conjecture to answer said questions.

You've already conjectured that "labs" could mean anything and therefore Nuland's statements have no content whatsoever. And I've responded to that conjecture with agreeing that, true, she could be talking about Quizno's in Ukraine.

Just because a question is difficult to answer in a way that makes sense in your narrative based on "leaked-intel" in "previous phases", doesn't make that a question in the form of a conjecture.

How did this threat go into pure conspiracy theory territory? — Christoffer

If it was just rumor on the internet; sure, conspiracy theory stuff, maybe based on some real cloak and dagger happenings, maybe totally fake, maybe just self-generated internet conspiracy theory.

Likewise, if it was just Russia saying with zero corroboratory evidence anywhere; again, can't just go ahead and trust "intel leaks" from Russia can we?

But we're not talking about rumors on 4-chan or 8-chan or reddit or wherever or just Russian intelligence leaks.

We're talking about a high ranking US official who seems to just come and say that Ukraine does have bio weapons labs: labs working on pathogens with bio-weapons potential that would "be bad" for the Russian military to find.

And, labs that work on defense against bio-weapons, and have relevant pathogens for that, are still working on bio-weapons, just for defensive purposes.

When countries perform nuclear tests to see how to defend against nuclear weapons ... they still obviously have nuclear weapons too.

Still not a bioweapon lab. You know, there are labs in every nation working to prevent stuff like the pandemic we just went through. There are high-level pathogens everywhere in these labs. — Christoffer

Then why would Nuland talk about non-bio-weapons-related labs in response to a question about bio-weapons?

Are you just saying she's a total moron?

So, maybe they know something that the public aren't being told about .... — Apollodorus

This whole development about bio weapons labs, is truly and utterly bizarre.

Already what's admitted to by Nuland is massive bombshell level, and Russia says it's taken these labs, now WHO is casually suggesting it's advisable to destroy any pathogens that may pose a risk to the entire world population.

Very difficult to imagine this can turn out to be a nothing burger at this point.

It's been trying to force crossings on the Southern Bug to move west, not driving towards Kyiv. — Count Timothy von Icarus

To setup the breakout maneuver to push North, you'd definitely want to first push West to push out to protect forward operating bases, and to just fortify your flank generally speaking, while also tying up troops to your West which is not your priority. Of course, Russians will also want to go encircle Odessa as well, so these plans aren't exclusive.

From Kherson to Zhytomyr (town West of Kiev) is 8 and half hour drive according to g-maps.

If Russians simply poor in armor (tanks APC's and armored artillery) to rapidly close the pincers going through flat open terrain, it could be done in a day or two (facing light opposition). Of course, the logistics need to be setup to resupply the pincers, and once established it's only a couple of days to poor in more infantry to dig in on the entire pincer formation. Since there's the river to the east, which can be difficult to cross if key bridges are bombed, the pincer formation may only be realistically assaulted from the West, where there are few Ukrainian battalions, certainly very few professional soldiers.

The "pincer" from the south is two battalions; it's not going to cross hundreds of miles without a significantly larger force/logistic elements moving up to supply it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's why I mention the naval base in Crimea which can easily bring in supply, heavy armor and additional troops.

They have been holding the territory North of Crimea and the crossings at Kherson since early in the war, so even if they only have two battalions there now, what actually matters for a push north is setting up the logistics chain and forward operating bases to be able to resupply and refuel a breakout maneuver. Russians can also then bomb every bridge along the Dnieper they don't control, and mess up critical junctions and roads, to further slow any retreat West as the pincers close, which may explain why we are now seeing air strikes in Dnipro.

The Russians have also been sorting out logistics and digging in on their salient West of Kiev, once it is out of urban areas it too can do a breakout maneuver towards the south.

The local National Defense University publishes a map with assumed units. Unfortunately in Finnish. This picture of the situation in 10.3.2022 in the evening: — ssu

This map is way more informative, thanks for posting.

If the Russians have been basically just keeping the Ukraine forces in the East to setup this moment ... seems to me there's no a race in time against the pincers closing for all those brigades to the East of the pincers to retreat West.

Militarily speaking, Ukraine has been in a double bind: If they retreat to the West, then Russian forces advance unopposed to the Dnieper river and have a big strategic victory and "map momentum", the narrative that their losing somehow completely falls apart. If they don't retreat, then 14 out of 16 brigades of the map you posted risk being cutoff from external resupply and nearly the entire professional army cutoff and then both the East and West may fall militarily.

That Russia is starting to disengage the most Eastern fronts, for me anyways, indicates that trying up those forces no longer has any strategic need as they have no where productive to go.

"Best solution" considering the current situation on the ground. — Apollodorus

At the moment, at least nominally, Russia is still offering to end the war if Crimea annexation is recognized, the Eastern breakaway regions independence is recognized and Ukraine commits to remaining neutral.

This offer seems more fair to Ukrainians than losing half the country.

Yes. IMO the best solution would be for Ukraine to be divided fairly between the two sister nations. — Apollodorus

I wouldn't agree that's the best solution, considering that it seems it was possible to not have a war at all.

But it does seem to me Russia can militarily achieve this result.

However, the EU could certainly negotiate a better result for Ukrainians, but so far has chosen not to.

Russia should take everything east of the Dnieper, and maybe half of Kiev, and Zelensky (or Kolomoisky) can keep the rest. — Apollodorus

Governments come and go.

To continue my military analysis of what's going on.

So far the Aljezera map seems to be most accurate and useful (with distinctions of zones and operations).



So, if this map is accurate, Russian Southern forces have broken into basically open country side that is the center of Ukraine. This is the archetypal and infamous flat plane through which armies can easily invade.

Equipment, supplies and soldiers can easily be brought into their naval base in Crimea, and there's no further built urban environments that are difficult to fight through (such as is seen on the North-West front).

If Ukrainian forces dig in to the front of a salient, Russian forces can just flank and pincer around it, and in flat open territory like this I do not see how Ukrainians could build and defend a line hundred or two hundred kilometres against armor maneuvers.

If the logistics are now in place to simply roll North, then retreats from Eastern positions are not losses, but simply represent the Ukrainian forces there having no where to go and are stuck there anyways now and so Russians can just withdraw; Russia has no strategically important positions in East Ukraine.

In understanding these maps and what they represent, it's important to keep in mind that you don't go and dig in as close to the enemy as possible, you generally go and contest an area with suppressive fire and dig in behind that and once the defensive line is formed the skirmishing forces withdraw. There's a big difference between a tactical withdrawal to a defensive line and losing a skirmish, and breaking through a defensive line, and these maps don't tell us the state of defenses on either the Russian or Ukrainian side. Likewise, a maneuver through an areas does not mean there is any intention to hold it ... could be just a maneuver through an area to get somewhere else or to get the enemy to commit forces to an area that is unimportant. However, since the strategically important pincers on each side of Kiev and the pincer coming up from the South seem pretty stable they maybe well defended.

The indication a pincer movement fails is usually the counter tactic of cutting through the pincer and isolating the advanced forces succeeds, which we have yet to see against any of the main pincers and salients of Russian forces. For me, it's difficult to imagine the basis of statements in the media such as literally "Ukraine: Demoralised & incompetent, Putin’s army is doomed | Taras Kuzio interview" from the telegraph, without seeing any Russian salients actually getting cutoff, isolated and dispatched with.

Zelensky has dug himself into a hole (or grave). My guess is that he was prompted by his oligarch masters (Kolomoisky & Co) to stand up to Russia in the hope that the US and UK, who have been arming and training his people, and maybe Israel, would come to his rescue. Obviously, he has miscalculated badly. Now he is likely to lose half of his country to Russia and he will have the death of thousands of Ukrainian civilians on his conscience. — Apollodorus

I'm pretty confident Israel wouldn't show up and fight for Ukraine.

However, I completely agree that the play was to hold out as long as possible, focus on social media without any military plan, and try to corner NATO on social media into intervening.

It's really unclear to me how Zelensky could have sat down and rationally worked out such a plan. In addition, his US supporters were pretty open about the goal to arm an insurgency ... which takes as given losing the conventional battle.

I also completely agree that as soon as the war ends (or even sooner), as @Isaac put it, the idea Ukraine has essentially been "beautified" and can face no criticism of anything and any kind whatsoever, will evaporate and there will be some pretty hard questions for both Ukrainians and the EU on how and why this happened and wasn't stopped sooner (of course, maybe Putin's bad faith and accepting Russia's offer would be "appeasement" but you need to accept a reasonable offer first to credibly accuse someone of bad faith).

Because you still retain that I view the intel as true and therefore... — Christoffer

... This is literally what you say:

There's also an inductive argument to be made. What's more likely based on what we know so far about this war? A) Russia continues to use propaganda and desinformation to try and control the narrative. B) The US has leaked intel continuously in order undermine that desinformation and has proven to be correct information based on Russia actually acting accordingly. — Christoffer

That US "leaked intel" has been correct so far, nothing clandestine about it at all, and therefore trustworthy going forward.

So trustworthy that we can be certain that what Nuland, a top US official, is saying publicly in can be dismissed offhand, that we literally don't even know what "lab" means in the context.

Sure, trust to the "leaked info", maybe it's true. Maybe Nuland has literally been replaced with a Russian robot that US intel is dismantling as we speak to show the world that Russian treachery knows no bounds.

No one here seems to be saying they know the real truth of the critical things under discussion (except for you maybe).

For example, I explain at some length that the military situation on the ground we can't really evaluate with much confidence about the real state of things. It's possible Russian troops are at super low moral, logistics in chaos, and their lines are about to collapse. I'm not denying that maybe the Western media narrative is 100% true, even the strange spinning of Nuland's statements could be "true" that by "lab" she literally meant a Quiznos, as lab could mean anything, and the "bio labs" are just their kitchens "Boldly Building a Better Sandwich" and if the Russians get their hands on these better sandwiches: oh boy, moral problems solved, boldness achieved, victory at hand, strategic disaster.

For you see, a sandwich is made of biological material and building a better sandwich implies some sort of biological laboratory to conduct this important research. And what can sandwiches do in the hands of the enemy? Fuel the Russian war machine.

Nuland's just saying a completely banal description of a situation you'll find among any freedom loving population that appreciates a good sandwich. How can we prove otherwise?

So you don't understand what I wrote, even with that nice breakdown. — Christoffer

What's there not to understand?

What strawman?

Interpreting these events has nothing to do with trusting any government — Christoffer

Your narrative is based on "leaked intel": aka. trusting the government in question's intel is accurate to begin with and leaked for the purpose of "just being open" ... aka. trusting the government is telling the truth when they say they are just being open and honest with everyone and that they actually have the truth to be open about in the first place.

Leaked intel could be fabricated but it could also simply false anyways.

Comparing that intellectual process to a top US official just answering a question in public and admitting in public to certain things ... can just be dismissed because "government's can't be trusted" and "lab can mean anything"?

And it could get even bigger ... it's possible that the Russians discover the exact lab where SARS-COV-V2 originated, and manage to prove it ... maybe still unlikely, but honestly anything seems possible after watching this answer by Nuland.

Even so, already easily rivals the spies in the Manhattan projects as:

A. US needed a lot of scientists to make the bomb, and scientists can have sophisticated ethical and political analysis and decide it's not acceptable that only the US has these weapons, especially considering they are willing to use them, and are really smart so it's by definition a challenge to keep tabs on them. So, certainly a Soviet intelligence success, but it's not like the US intelligence community mishandled and just "failed' miserably in securing the Manhattan project.

B. Soviets may have developed the bomb anyways in roughly the same amount of time, so the Manhattan project spies may not have changed world history much.

Likewise, the Soviet movement of missiles to Cuba ... difficult to keep a secret, and the political point would be the US knows about it anyways (just as Russia knows about missiles in Poland).

As well as breaking enigma; it's not like the German cryptographers had a dumb system easy to break.

Whereas in the present situation, in the middle of a real possibility of nuclear war, it's honestly a truly dumbfounded level of incompetence to not only have these labs ... but then not get rid of them ... by yesterday?

And, rationally, the only justification to have these secret labs in Ukraine (in a sort of "closer we are to danger, farther we are from harm" sort of plan) ... would be to do something truly nefarious. It's certainly not for Ukraine's "protection".

I can assure you that nearly every world leader and diplomat and intelligence officer and military officer on the entire planet is thinking the same as us: what the fuck just happened?

Oh for fuck sake, are you illiterate, can you please READ what I wrote here AGAIN and see if you can understand it before continuing? — Christoffer

I respond to exactly what you say ... what are you missing.

You say you're "interpreting" government actions ... like "leaked intel" which are still government statements, just nominally supposed to be kept secret as it's intelligence during a war and potential nuclear escalation.

We're "interpreting" Nuland's statements.

What's the "information has played out in earlier phases" that are relevant for interpreting Nuland's public statements? Sure, information "pays out", I'm not denying that, but how do we know we're not seeing right now information playing out in the way it seems to be playing out: the US government admitting in public that Ukraine has bio-weapons that the US surely knew about if not helped create?

These handful of phrases by Nuland seem to have no other "interpretation", as you call it, other than representing the greatest intelligence and clandestine failure in all of history. By a wide margin.

And, just so everyone's aware, one good explanation for everything:

1. Snap surprise invasion planned in a week
2. Conventional warfare not starting for 2 weeks, small units rushing everywhere not super clear strategy wise.
3. Russia not caring at all about world opinion or sanctions.
4. Far larger invasion than anyone expected.

Is perfectly explained if Russia knew about these bio-weapons labs (because Russia has had intel ops in Ukraine for ... basically ever ... and it's a pretty corrupt "intel space" where people are super likely to sell info to the Russians as "be a patriot").

And the "irrational" chaos of the first phases of the war was to ensure securing these labs with special forces: take over the lab, get the researcher in charge to message back "the shower is cleaned; the pubes have been itched; the hair is in the drain", and then wait for a salient to secure the position, which are so random and chaotic that it's impossible to deduce what the Russians are doing until it's too late.

It is truly a "game changer", and you can't really fake secret research if you find it. Other NATO countries can easily verify the info checks out as something only the CIA could have helped create, both contextual evidence and human testimony (of double agent / captured researchers) overwhelming.

So, if Russia knew about it ... which is honestly the only way it could credibly "fall into enemy hands", then it explains a lot about the Kremlin's decision making.

If it was just speculation on the internet, it would just be speculation on the internet, but these few statements by Nuland are quite possibly the most shocking statements in the history of international relations, all in a tiny handful of phrases.

It's truly a completely bizarre and almost unimaginable (any point in time before) turn of events.

Do you understand what I'm saying here? — Christoffer

So, you "interpret" leaked intel as being 100% credible.

But our interpreting Nuland's clear answers to direct questions to just mean what she clearly means ... is invalid "interpretation"? Because it doesn't cohere to previous phases where the US government was denying any bio weapons labs in Ukraine...

That because they've kept it a secret for a long while--hasn't "played out" as information in an earlier phase--and a top US official, most closely associated with the original Ukraine coup and managing things since, is only disclosing this secret now ... it, therefore, cannot possibly be true?

Because the strategy has been in the open over the course of this entire war. — Christoffer

And you base this "strategy" of objective truth telling openness ... on what?

On leaked intel?