What has to be understood that Putin truly is a dictator, and just like Saddam or Ghaddafi, he is scared about the Armed Forces being a monolithical power in Russia. — ssu

Neither me nor @Isaac or @Benkei (to the extent he's criticizing NATO / EU as well) have defended Putin's decisions morally.

We are simply being realistic that we cannot convince Putin to just give up on the war and turn Russia into an participatory devolved direct democracy somewhat loose confederation of cantons as a resolution to the problem of Ukrainians dying and children dying and being traumatized for life.

And, we are simply being realistic that, regardless of what we think of Putin or his moral character, using NATO planes in the air and troops on the ground is simply not going to happen due to nuclear weapons.

Does this mean Ukrainians don't have a right to fight? None of us have said so.

However, if you're going to fight in a war for your country, you'd probably want that fighting to actually serve your country and not be one big NATO arms demonstration.

If Ukrainians have a chance of winning (which we've been debating in good faith and I'm not saying your wrong; Russia itself orchestrated the most famous and consequential counter offensive in all of history ... so, maybe it's possible with weapons and tactics we've never seen before) that obviously affects the evaluation of the purpose of continued fighting.

"A bit more fighting" might increase leverage and get a better deal in a lost situation, or it might simply solicit a far worse deal.

It's precisely because Germany fought for 4 years instead of only to Christmas, that the allies imposed the humiliating and financially impossible Armistice, as a retaliation for not giving up sooner, which then resulted in Hitler proposing to "fix that" and then the cost of fighting to the death (including children soldiers) was the partition and essentially direct administration of Germany for many decades.

It does not go without saying that further resistance and "holding out" as long as possible is better for your country in this sort of situation--maybe, or maybe not.

On top of the military situation, there is a political situation. Even if Ukraine can't actually stop Russia relentlessly achieving it's objective, there is of course political consequences to Russia for continuing the war effort, mainly the sanctions. To evaluate this we need to know how the average Russian sees things, which we have little information on so decisions based on them "rising up" any day now is, at the least, a big risk to take.

The biggest sanction we could do is shutting off the gas ... but we're not about to do that.

Russian Ground Forces consist of only 280 000 troops. If you have 190 000 in Ukraine, that's basically it. Putin is not sending the personnel of the Air Force or the Navy or the Strategic Rocket forces to fight it out in urban combat in the streets of Kyiv. — ssu

... I've heard a lot of Russia analysts mention this 1/10th figure.



Russia could also use it's conscripts and reserves, even if it's saying it won't right now.

There's also number of tanks and equipment etc. as part of the "force".

But, from my understanding, the personnel committed to Ukraine currently include logistics and support units. Looking at Aljazera's info graphic it seems to me 1/10th is a reasonable assessment.

Keep in mind a significant amount of Russia's military hardware will be in fixed forward positions, that it could go get and move into Ukraine if it wanted too.

Except for cruise missiles, Russia is not about to just "run out" of anything else anytime soon.

But maybe this figure is wrong, but you'll need to breakdown your analysis, as clearly 10% and 90% are pretty far apart.

Are you advocating that NATO nukes Moscow to save Mariupol? Because that would be a bit odd, ligically speaking, to kill millions of civilians here in order to save thousands of civilians there. — Olivier5

I just explained it pretty clearly. The whole basis of Russia wanting Ukraine not to join NATO and commit to neutrality, is because NATO has nukes.

Hence NATO has this leverage vis-a-vis Ukrainian neutrality because it has nuclear weapons.

I just explained that "leverage" rarely means "threaten" in a negotiation. Indeed, the only time you directly threaten someone in a negotiation is when they don't already understand what you're capable of and so not already acting in a rational way according to that.

Peace and resolutions are usually obtained through constructive dialogue focused on positive outcomes, with what people can do to each other if negotiations break down something everyone should already know because they put at least some effort into understanding the situation they are in.

This strategy is discussed on Fox news, just saying the public is aware (or some of the public). — FreeEmotion

Yes, when I say "Western media" I mean the dominant narrative, but there's definitely exceptions.

And, of course, even the journalists are sometimes clearly not believing anymore the assurances Ukraine is "winning in some way". I saw this video the other day of a guy explaining to these two news anchors that NATO is working on supplying Ukraine with Russia's S-400 system, and explaining how great a system that is ... and news anchors were clearly just like WTF is going on.

You don't really pay attention, do you? — Olivier5

NATO and EU represent more nukes, more conventional military power (both direct and indirect by supplying Ukraine), and more economic power than China. Therefore, they have more leverage than China in the situation.

China also has leverage, and I hope they too use it to deescalate and help end the conflict, but to say China has more leverage than NATO in a military situation ... is to say Russia fears China's military power more, which is untrue.

Russia needs China to deal with the military leverage (pumping in ATGM's and Manpads) and, even more so it's almost not comparable, the economic leverage of pulling Western corporations out of Russia all of a sudden, requiring substitutes for those technologies and equipment and services in the short term.

However, if China had more economic leverage to begin with ... it would have already out-competed all those Western firms using the "efficiency" of the communist approach to capitalism.

This is what this whole nuclear escalation situation has been about ... that Russia has nukes, and so too NATO. And it is this nuclear standoff that creates intense motivation for Russia to want Ukraine not to join NATO in the first place (if NATO did not have nuclear weapons, and Russia did, Russia may not be so concerned about NATO).

You do not understand how negotiation works.

Leverage does not mean "threaten", it could but it could equally mean what you have that the counter party wants, with only implied threats that go along with not reaching a resolution (which in most negotiations don't exist as you just go to the next supplier, bring in the next interviewee, if you fail to reach a deal with the current one).

Russia wants a commitment that Ukraine doesn't join NATO, that's the biggest chip in play, and not only could NATO give this commitment directly it can also pressure Zelensky to accept that (for instance, by informing him he isn't getting into NATO anyways nor getting a NATO no-fly-zone).

It's the biggest chip in play because NATO also has a whole bunch of nuclear weapons. That's the basic geo-political question being sorted out in the Ukraine war: how far is both Russia and NATO willing to escalate to a war, and at one point does escalation go nuclear. For example, pumping in ATGM's and Manpads is an escalation, in response to Russia's escalation of invading the entire country, but that was not sufficient to go nuclear ... but, seems everyone agrees, the next escalation by NATO of a no-fly-zone would likely be responded to first with tactical nuclear weapons, first in Ukraine and also maybe in the air to take out superior NATO planes the easy way, and then maybe even in space as a giant EMP, which then means NATO can only respond to this escalation with tactical nukes of it's own, which can easily destroy all the Russian positions in Ukraine, leaving Russia with the only "viable" (from a military perspective) way of responding to that with a strategic nuclear strike on NATO cities inviting a similar philosophy about that.

Leverage is what you have or what you can do, you don't literally have to say it in a negotiation.

Russia is a aware that NATO has nuclear weapons. One thing Russia wants is better protection from those weapons, which Ukraine joining NATO doesn't accomplish, and so this is part of NATO's leverage in the situation.

Continuing my analysis of the military situation, which is obviously relevant to make decisions about it.

Again, only Ukrainian commanders can know if they have military objectives that can be feasibly attained.

Diplomacy is then informed by this military situation. If you are losing a war, you have less and less leverage as the war goes on. Hence, if one wants Ukrainians to selfless sacrifice themselves and their country to bleed Russia and create a new cold war, then you need to convince both Ukrainians and the whole world that they are winning, even if you know they are losing.

However, obviously NATO and EU also knows Ukraines chances, so Western media repeating over and over the idea Ukraine is "winning" is ... maybe true, or then maybe a lie to justify pumping more arms into Ukraine.

For, the moment the Western Media says that Ukraine has lost militarily the immediate followup question is that "isn't sending more arms into a lost situation creating more bloodshed for other purpose and also a 'low-blow' to the Russians that will be retaliated against us sooner or later" (if you think the Russians will forget ... you haven't met many Russians). And, indeed, the entire purpose of the rules of war is that fighting is done with honor and integrity and rationally based to protect civilians, to avoid cycles of retaliation. Regardless of who is morally / politically, correct, one side wins and one side loses in a war, and fighting with honour avoids drawing things out longer than it needs to be (sometimes decades) which then create cycles of retaliation and no peaceful building.

Sure, the Taliban eventually "won" ... but are Afghan civilians really better off due to all the cowardly civilian-clothed ambushes and suicide bombings the Taliban needed to win an insurgency?

Which is an exemplary case, for whatever we think of the morality of the US invasion of Afghanistan (who had nothing really to do with 911), imagine the state of Afghanistan today if the Taliban followed the rules of war and accepted defeat and there was no insurgency? Regardless of the initial war and it's reasons, imagine what 20 years of peace would have built in Afghanistan. So, Taliban are certainly morally responsible for that outcome even if the US invasion not justified to begin with ... but, of course we know ahead of time there will be an insurgency and Jihadist fighters aren't going to follow our little rule book, so US is responsible for the outcome as well on that account.

So, a useful contrast in terms of what the rules of war are even about in the first place, but also Taliban insurgency serves as a contrast to conventional warfare. The Taliban did not win a single conventional style battle against NATO, and didn't "win" in the end in any military sense, just tired NATO out essentially.

Both Afghanistan insurgency and first person shooter games, it seems to be most people online base their understanding of the Ukrainian conflict.

This basis of understanding leads to, for example, the narrative of the day that "tough guy" foreign fighters are going to arriving in Ukraine and that matters; as you just need a bunch of tough guys with riffles and shoulder launched missiles to "do tough guy shit" and win battles. The mental image seems to be that tough guys can go out with a riffle and a bottle of Jameson and "find the enemy" and shoot them.

First misconception with this mental image, is that you mostly don't see the enemy at all in conventional warfare, at least not in the sense that you can then just shoot them with a riffle.

Conventional warfare is not fought on the basis of tough guys, although they can play a role, but is mostly a positional battle between artillery and the logistics to supply that artillery. It is a "system" and not a individual first person shooters bravely fucking up the enemy.

The core thing first person shooter games lack as a basis to understand real warfare is the mortar. Of course, you could have a mortar team in a first person shooter game, but it would be insanely boring to be on said mortar team. Which is why in every single conventional battle, pretty much anywhere on the world, you will at least find assault riffles and mortars even in the poorest military engagements (at least on the winning side).

The system of mortars and rifles is already insanely more dangerous than just assault riffles, and you can't just "throw a bunch of tough guys together" and work a mortar team. It takes real training and skill on several levels.

On television we sometimes see soldiers casually dropping mortars into tubes that go off and explode somewhere, but this is not the whole "team" and, hopefully, they aren't just firing in the general direction of the enemy but actually at something. The whole process starts with an observer and his communications side-kick, who sneak around and find a target. If all goes well the observer figures out where the target is on the map, the communications side-kick then gets that information to the calculator guy, usually at the command post wherever it is but he can also be just hiding under makeshift umbrella in the rain. The "gold standard" of communication in this context is a wired line that sends (little) signals, but could also be just communicated by sneak. Anyways, the calculator guy works out the direction and the distance, takes into account wind speed and rain, and therefore the angle and additional powder / high explosives (mortars go like 20 feet with just the shotgun shell that sets them off), and whoever is in command approves the strike, and then this information is relayed to the team running the actual mortars. The actual fire team then needs to work out how to get the mortars in the right direction and angle (this is not some trivial task, and starts with setting up a guide stick as a reference direction, but sight on a mortar is not fixed in space and so moving the mortar around moves it off the guide-line which needs to be compensated for), and then the mortars are backed with powder / high-explosive required, pins removed and away they go.

Obviously, this whole process is in the context of some officer having some workable plan, we hope.

Now, the difference in accuracy between a good mortar team and a bad mortar team, and the difference in the observer (of which the whole process depends) not-getting-killed first and getting-the-enemy-killed first, and the time to setup, camouflage and setup a adequate defense of the mortar battery / escape plan, is really immense. A good mortar team can not only avoid getting killed, but can achieve the accuracy of the mortar, which on relatively short distances on a windless day can be a few meters.

Observer can also observe where rounds land and so send back corrective instructions (which are then very quick to process).

There are also other weak links in the chain such as the communications guys and calculator guys.

Point is, takes a lot of training. However, the result is that indirect vertical-ish fire can be brought down on an enemy position such as directly into their trenches. Also, mortars going off in the general vicinity (fire for effects) causes people to hide and the opportunity to maneuver or then tactically retreat.

Mortars can also fire other kinds of ordinance like anti-tank mortars, anti-other things, and giant flares that case a shadow at several kilometres. When assaulting a position at night, what feels save may not actually be safe if a artificial sun goes off overhead and you're totally visible and come under immediate mortar fire. We don't see the US using flares in an insurgency as A. they have really good night vision and so B. if would only give the opposing side an advantage. However, in conventional warfare flares are insanely useful to defend a dug in position.


The point of this long explanation is that this system takes a pretty long amount of training to use effectively and the tactical upgrade from just guys with riffles is immense.

From this basic riffle / mortar system, the purpose of bullets is mostly to pin down enemy forces to then hit them with mortar fire. Nearly all bullet firing in conventional warfare is suppressive fire for the purposes of striking the enemy position with indirect fire.

A war system then builds up from this, mostly just doing the same thing. Artillery serve the same basic purpose of mortars but against harder targets or farther away and requires the same basic info chain, and the basic purpose of air power is to both observe and substitute artillery strikes. Armor comes in precisely because the bullets and indirect fire system is so effective, sending a wave of infantry just get slaughtered like in WWI. WWII was totally different because armor can be concentrated to break through enemy defensive lines. And so, since armor is so amazing effective against the basic bullets and shells game, air power became so critical because it's armor's biggest weakness.

"Peak armor" was certainly the Nazi's invasion of France, and ever since then significant effort has been put into systems and tactics to defeat armor.

However, all these other way more expensive systems, such as planes and missiles of different kinds, is all happening at the end of the day to get tactical advantages (information and strikes of key things / critical moments) needed to make defensive lines of infantry and mortar/artillery cover (as bullets and shells are insanely cheap compared to cruise missiles and jet fighters).

The basic thing you want to accomplish in conventional warfare is surround your enemy cutting them off from reinforcements and supplies. So, in this basic strategic situation of lines of infantry supported by indirect fire, the counter is to break through the line at some point creating the problem for the enemy of either abandoning their positions and falling back to make a new defensive line (costs time and energy and gives up ground) or then risk being encircled. Hence, the counter offensive is critical to be able to deploy, but this requires armor and / or air power (who can both show up to the fight in a relatively short amount of time). You can't easily send infantry by foot to reinforce a position twenty kilometres away; the battle maybe over by the time they get there, so you need vehicles, civilian vehicles are extremely vulnerable, so you may need armor personnel carriers to even get reinforcements to the battle front requiring reinforcements.

The conclusion to be drawn from this analysis is that talk of "hundreds of thousands" of Ukrainians joining the fight may not be effective in any conventional military battle. Pretty much the only thing an untrained conscript or civilian can do is simply wait in a trench or some urban trench-like location for the enemy to arrive.

Hence the pumping in of ATGMs and Manpads which can be used by infantry individually with even minimum training, and does not require a coordinated team. However, these weapons can only slow the enemy as they are great to ambush armor, causing losses and caution, but they cannot really be used to assault a infantry line (insane waste of money) nor can do anything about relentless shelling of your own infantry positions, and, without good logistics, ATGM's may run out in a given location allowing the enemy to break through with armor that then no one there can do much about.

Because Nuland is not a CBRN expert either. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A. you don't need to be a CBRN expert to have such experts in your staff somewhere who have told you the state of bio-weapons.

B. if she's just talking nonsense as she's not an expert and the answer requires real expertise to answer, then she would have just said "I'm not an expert".

The question does not require being a CBRN expert to answer.

The lengths you're willing to go to try to deflect from the core thing: Q. is there bio-weapons in Ukraine A. non-no-answer, is truly remarkable.

And your long explanations of the difficulty of bio-weapons for tactical purposes, which have a lot of good info and point ... as @Isaac points out, only undermines your case, such as:

1. If there's no tactical reasons to have bio-weapons such as viruses that seem to be included in what Ukraine has/dad, then the only possible reason is for strategic purposes such as starting a pandemic for whatever reason. This would be the only rational explanation of why the CIA would be running bio-weapons labs in Ukraine or then letting Ukrainians, very potentially neo-Nazi's do so.

2. If the Russians have only non-communicable diseases like anthrax to use tactically in an invasion of Ukraine, there's not really any bio-research that helps against that. We know where to find anthrax, we know what it can do, it's more a mechanical (i.e. gas masks) than biological problem in dealing with an attack.

3. Considering the difficulties in bio-weapons development that you point out, there is zero legitimate reason for Ukraine, ranked more corrupt than Russia, to be working on any bio-weapons research of any kind. If there was some legitimate bio-weapons "defensive" research Ukraine "like super needs" it could be done in the United States at a secure lab run by people literally at the top of their field and qualified to work with insanely dangerous pathogens (and even then we worry about the risks and lab escapes do happen), and whatever reason Ukraine could legitimately have ... would also apply to the US who would therefore do that research with far more funds and skills, and just tell the Ukrainians whatever the defensive info is (... like the basics of CBN gear and usage? which, I've done, and is basically put on your gas mask and your rain suite ... and tuck your sleeves into your boots and gloves and hope not to die a terrible, terrible death ... so critical defensive information supplied? You really need bio-weapons research labs for basically the only defensive thing you can do in a tactical situation?).

Looks like Russia is taking a breather. Simply to stack on supplies and some brigades that have endured losses have been withdrawn. — ssu

This is the pattern of the war, as Russia needs to setup forward operating bases before going to the next objective.

Russia has only committed 10% of it's standing army to Ukraine, and so can also rotate units in and out of the war as well as reinforce if it needs.

No doubt Russia has suffered losses, but so too Ukraine. We can't really evaluate relative losses and operational capacity of each side with the information we have, we can only really evaluate general strategic situation (such as Russia doesn't have a fuel problem in any fundamental sense, but Ukraine may), strategic objectives that we can be sure have no strategic or tactical reason to give-up. Obviously, Ukrainians would have prevented the encirclement of the capital if they could have.

This narrative that the Russians have "stalled" makes zero sense. Had Russia failed to siege Kiev (the biggest single strategic objective), ok, then clearly a big stall, but it didn't fail. Reporters are essentially reporting Kiev is now under siege. It may not be completely surrounded, but if it can cover the Southern gap with artillery fire then it becomes significantly harder to resupply Kiev.

It is completely expected that Russia is consolidating this strategic gain to then workout their next move and the logistics for that. Had Russia really been stalled in their encirclement of Kiev, then likely we would have seen some big move on a second priority, but insofar as Russia was making progress then strategy is a very "eye's on the prize" game, and they would prioritize completing that objective with only a defensive posture and easy gains everywhere else (to keep pressure on Ukrainian forces, pin them down and tie them up to avoid them reinforcing Kiev).

There was an attempt to cut off the North-West salient, which simply revealed a long defensive completely straight line of defense the Russians had built up to protect their encirclement.

The evaluation metric the Western media is using of how much land Russia "occupies", makes zero sense. If you want to trap the enemy forces and encircle them (common sense strategy), then the goal is not to just take and occupy a lot of land, but to take the land required for encircling.

What we see now is the start of the next phase of Russian salients forming to encircle Ukrainian forces in the East, in multiple ways and multiple levels.

Again, maybe there is some surprise counter offensive in the works that will rout the Russian forces, but it seems to me an essentially impossible military task.

Ukrainian forces also need water, food, fuel, ammo and to get at least some sleep; there is zero indication that Ukrainian supply lines are working better than the Russians.

That is simply false. China has greater leverage right now. — Olivier5

This is simply false.

NATO has far more nuclear weapons than China, far more and more advanced aircraft (could make a "no-fly zone" or help the Ukrainians directly if it wanted to), far more intelligence capabilities, and EU and US and co. are together far larger economies than China.

China also has leverage, but China is a totalitarian state in a "special friendship" with Russia right now and clearly backed the invasion ahead of time (frustrate the US "pivot" to Asia).

You should probably learn something about the world before discussing world affairs. Corporate truisms, as @Benkei as so aptly pointed out, are not an actual basis of understanding pretty much anything at all.

Why the EU? Why not China or Zimbabwe do that? What's the unsaid assumption here? — Olivier5

They should too.

This is classic whataboutism.

The reason to focus on EU / NATO and US policy is because:

A. They have the most leverage with Russia currently. Russia's top demand in Ukraine doesn't join NATO and so NATO has what Russia wants. Likewise, the sanctions are from the US and EU and the whole point of sanctions, diplomatically, is to create leverage. Germany can open the second pipeline that would be good for Germany, Russia and the entire EU.

B. These parties nominally claim and have voters who not only claim but actually believe, unnecessary loss of life should be avoided, and so criticising people who claim to want to do something ... but aren't, is a lot more productive than criticising parties that make no such claims. If you look at India and Africa media: a pretty strong theme is that this is a white person problem that white people are crying about and not their issue, go fuck yourselves (certainly a stronger theme than in the Western Media).

Now, if you want more carnage and want a 20 year insurgency for Russia to deal with as that would be some sort of "cold war 2 win" than say so. If you care about Ukrainians then you should want the best resolution possible to Ukrainians.

More fighting could help get Ukrainians a better deal ... or it could make it that the deal must be worse for Russia to justify the further loss of life that Ukraine insists on. "Morally supporting" Ukraine losing lives, traumatising children (and everyone else), losing homes and livelihoods, to "stick it to the Russians" is not helping Ukrainians, it is harming the Russians with Ukrainians as a tool to do so.

Maybe Ukrainians have a way to "win" the war with only handheld weapons, and maybe we'll see that.

However, distributing small arms to civilians is just distributing random death to visit those civilians. Media complained of a mortar attack on civilians ... but a guy with a riffle was literally in the foreground of that video (the subject of the videographer).

Professional soldiers would not just wander around a civilian area in range of mortar fire. Professional soldiers will try to keep the fighting away from civilians even at some risk to themselves.

So, this policy is a bloodlust policy with zero military benefit.

Likewise, not trying to evacuate civilians from coastal areas ... by a fucking boat, is a bloodlust policy.

Neither of these policies are Russian. Obviously, Russia has bloodlust too driving their policies, but they at least make reasonable offers that are preferable to further blood being spilt at each step. If US, Nato, EU and Ukraine had counter proposals that are "more reasonable" then they could credibly blame Russia for everything.

Fact of the matter is, one Azov brigade, from my point of view, can easily justify invading a country to destroy the entire armed forces and institutional structure that tolerates an Azov brigade. This argument is, as far as I can see, completely valid one.

It would be Putin appeasing these neo-Nazi's by not invading, not us appeasing Putin by not-pumpin-weapons into Ukraine that we don't care enough to have join Nato or send any troops to defend.

And, the military support to Ukraine during the civil war phase was predicated on an "officially" Azov brigade wasn't doing any fighting, but journalists went and demonstrated that to be false. The West was supporting neo-Nazi's fighting a war. I don't actually like neo-Nazi's, Putin simply has a point on this particular issue, which has been documented by the Wests own media since 2014.

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.