As long as it kills all the humans, that's correct. — frank

With the war slowly escalating global nuclear war is becoming more likely each day. The advantage of nuclear war over environmental destruction is that nuclear destruction is quicker to solve the environmental human infestation problem. — magritte

Nuclear war wouldn't kill us all, and at some point continued environmental destruction would, by definition, kill us all as we need an environment to live.

Of course, Nuclear war would also be highly damaging to the environment, so a double edge sword to deal with environmental issues. I don't think we're at that point yet, but if we let the environment continue to degrade, the social chaos this will lead to, in my opinion, will inevitably cause a nuclear war. We're this close already ... and there's not even a global famine (at least not disrupting the countries that have Nukes).

But this seems off topic, could make an interesting other thread though; certainly brings the high stakes of global ecological catastrophe to useful comparison.

I'm still not talking about capitalism, that's what you brought up. — Christoffer

You literally say:

Yet, Scandinavia's free market system is still capitalism. — Christoffer

So, what are you talking about?

It is as if he was shocked first and foremost by the Ukrainian resistance, or by our moral support to the Ukrainian resistance. — Olivier5

Ahh, such a tough guy adding your "moral support" to the fight.

Neither @Isaac nor my position is "surrender already", but to do diplomacy in a credible way, in particular the EU.

For example, I've already explained many times that only Ukrainian commanders know their military prospects and if further loss of life is justifiable.

However, what we can know is that Mariupole, a port city, is easily evacuated by boat and the EU could, at least try, to negotiate that ... but it doesn't. So, we can be pretty certain that diplomacy is not a priority to avoid further loss of life but that further bloodshed is desired on all sides, certainly the Russian side too, but also the EU, NATO and US actions are consistent with both desiring and doing everything possible to have more bloodshed and actively avoiding any actions that would reduce bloodshed (such as negotiate evacuation of port cities ... by fucking boat).

Well they could hardly do that if Russia wasn't making it available. They're definitely a significant contributer to climate change, so per Isaac's theory, we'll have to sacrifice them for the greater good. — frank

I'm pretty sure that's not Isaac's theory, but, sure, nuke Russia, US and China to implement your world saving policy if there's no diplomatic way to achieve those ends from your point of view.

Nuclear war, at some point, is actually preferable to continued environmental destruction. At least there's trees around Chernobyl.

Russia is worse for the climate, tho: all those hydrocarbons they export for burning. Russia is destroying the environment, so the should be nuked immediately. — frank

It's the people that buy it that burn it, and it's far cleaner Russian gas and crude than tar sands and fracking, could actually be a credible "bridge" to a renewable system there was a credible plan to have actually done that and good faith cooperation with Russia (which is what Russia wanted until 2014, alternatives to SWIFT were created after not before).

Russia didn't spent billions on Nord Stream 2 as some sort of trick.

It's completely irrational from a peace making or clean energy perspective to not use that new pipeline to displace coal. If Ukraine loses out on some transport fees (that are "free" money that go right into keeping the politics in Ukraine corrupt), it could be supported with far better development policies that put pressure on corruption.

Furthermore, not all hydrocarbons are equal. You need flexible and variable natural gas turbines that can rapidly compensate large variations in the grid due to renewable energy unpredictability, if you want more renewable energy.

Russia has what the EU needs to implement it's anti-Russian clean "independent energy" policy.

Once you actually have a significant amount of renewable energy, with variations compensated by natural gas, then you can start to invest in energy storage to displace natural gas.

There's really only one way to do this, and we need Russia help.

Global environmental catastrophe creates strange bed fellows.

Yet, Scandinavia's free market system is still capitalism. — Christoffer

You''re just playing with words, and the global "capitalism" that Scandinavia is still a part of is destroying the entire planet, so doesn't actually contribute to quality of life in Scandinavia.

Scandinavia is not a capitalist system, and the argument to keep health care private, money in politics, unequal education resources to children, destroy the environment ... all because you can still point to something in Scandinavia and call it capitalism and so take credit for quality of life here due to social institutions and money out of politics, built by socialists, is a pretty bad argument.

Using Scandinavia as some form of apologetics for capitalism generally speaking (that is killing the entire planet as Russia kills some Ukrainians, the former a far worse crime by pretty much an infinite factor) is nonsensical. An honest analysis would look at what policies are the basis of Scandinavia success (free and large investments in public education, public health care, insanely strong union protections, regulation of everything to be confident "free market" actions are not harmful, public transportation, defended by the "as socialists as you get" conscription system) and who advocated those policies: private equity and CEO's? Or socialists and anarchists of one form or another?

But it's also way off topic. The criticism of US, NATO and EU policies in the current war in Ukraine is not some vague criticism of "capitalism" it's a criticism of their actions right now.

That "someone is worse" doesn't matter. Can I kill 100 people just because someone has killed 101 people? Or let people starve even if I have the means to do something easily ... because, technically, other people created that starvation situation?

I live in the EU, I can affect EU policy, and if it's just letting Ukrainians die for politicians to masturbate each other on television and advertise the effectiveness of their arms industry, I'm going to complain about the actions and decisions of my "leaders" because there's a point to doing that.

Hating on Putin accomplishes nothing and, the whole Western media doing that for 2 decades, is what leads to a situation where Western leaders don't care about any sort of diplomatic process with Russia to avoid human suffering, because their friends in the arms industry will make bank due to "conflict" with Russia and there's zero consequences as people actually truly believe that counter productive policies that result in war and starvation are justified as long as you it comes with a little #KillPutin and social media circle jerk around that equally counter productive wishful thinking (that, if anyone did it, could easily result in some worse outcome).

Then you know what I mean. — Christoffer

Scandinavia is not an example of how "capitalism works", it's an example of how socialism works and a "free" market (heavily regulated and large limits to private capital in the democratic process) can add some value to a largely socialist state.

Finland deciding simply to not have any homeless people at all ... is not some capitalist ideal.

And yet, it can work well in a society like in Scandinavia. — Christoffer

That's why I live in Scandinavia.

Totally agree ... I wouldn't say classical authoritarianism is somehow a better democratic process.

Again, the criticism of the kind of capitalism we actually have is that it simply displaces state authoritarianism with authoritarianism within multi-national corporations, what Chomsky calls "Private Tyranny", of which states become beholden to and enforce this private tyranny, instead of responding to the needs of citizens.

People treat everything as some capitalism vs [insert alternative system here], when almost everything boils down to, in any form of government and economic system, low or high corruption. — Christoffer

The whole criticism about capitalism is that it leads to corruption of the democratic process. That's the whole point.

Let's say that the inevitable victory of Putin hasn't been declared yet. — ssu

I haven't said it's inevitable. I've made clear only Ukrainian military commanders can know their plan and chances of victory and further loss of life has some military purpose.

However, what I can see is Russia achieving relentlessly strategic objectives. It's reported now that Kiev is indeed encircled or then nearly so. If Ukraine had the means to create even a "stalemate" in conventional warfare then Kiev would not be nearly surrounded. You cannot lose critical strategic objectives and claim to be winning a war.

And, based on my own military experience, there is simply no way to win the sort of conventional warfare Russia is waging without armor and the heavy logistical supply lines armor requires.

Yes, Ukraine can harass and ambush Russian armor and make losses ... but Russia still has more of it.

There is no such concept of strategic retreat ... that's just called retreat.

I did not know that. It just shows how things can change over the years. I like the status quo, though. — FreeEmotion

Status quo inevitably changes, our actions participate in determining where it goes.

And why did Finland manage to defeat Soviet partisans (the Reds) and then (not defeat, still lost in a negotiated peace deal ... because claiming victory as part of the deal would not have made Stalin happy about and so the war would have continued and Finland would be part of Russia right now) successfully avoid full invasion?

A lot of people were "part of the team" but basically came down to one military leader.

Marshal Gustav Mannerheim.

Who was this guy? A lieutenant general in the Russian Empire up to 1917!

So trusted by the Czar that he was entrusted to:

With a small caravan, including a Cossack guide, Chinese interpreter, and Uyghur cook, Mannerheim first trekked to Khotan in search of British and Japanese spies. After returning to Kashgar, he headed north into the Tian Shan range, surveying passes and gauging the stances of the tribes towards the Han Chinese. Mannerheim arrived in the provincial capital of Urumqi, and then headed east into Gansu province. At the sacred Buddhist mountain of Mount Wutai in Shanxi province, Mannerheim met the 13th Dali Lama of Tibet. He showed the Dali Lama how to use a pistol. — Wikipedia

This is the kind of experience you need to win a war with an empire. (And again, Mannerheim didn't "win" because he knew no emperor would ever accept that.)

People have to demand that their governments rule out war as an option, forever. — FreeEmotion

Totally agree, that's my anarchist dream for sure.

But unless you can convince Putin of this anarchist philosophy today, we need to do other things if we want to avoid killing or traumatizing for life even one child through what we can do; letting that child be killed of traumatized knowing that we could have done something, but didn't because we rather blame Putin for it ... is political opportunism and not any morally justifiable action. The morally justifiable actios is: How do we actually avoid as many children being traumatized or killed as we can.

Evacuating children out of sieged port cities ... by boat, can take literally no time nor any political capital.

The reason Mariupole is reported on without ever showing visually it's a port city is that nobody asks ... why don't they just evacuate them by boat?

This is never attempted because Azov brigade is defending the city and does not want civilians to leave, and exposing this fact will call into question the West actively supporting Azov brigade for 8 years.

The West doesn't want Putin to have a "easy win" that shows he does not want to kill civilians for no military purpose with unfortunate but necessary collateral damage, and is happy to agree to let them be evacuated by the EU by boat: the safest, common sense, way to evacuate people from a coastal area ... especially when the alternative is a 1000 km Lassie style adventure through a war zone.

The escape from Dunkirk wasn't a long arduous trek to Portugal.

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.