The Official Russian Invasion of Ukraine Thread

914,882 Views | 10110 Replies | Last: 11 hrs ago by Big C
Unit2Sucks
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dimitrig said:

oski003 said:

Cal88 said:

This analyst, a vet from Utah, predicted the outcome of Ukrainian policy in the Donbas:



He has had excellent coverage of the Ukraine war, here is his blog:
https://www.imetatronink.com/

Latest assessment on the Ukrainian Kherson offensive:





What does he mean by this?

"As did the US. And now, except for its UK poodle, it will lose its colonies in Europe."

That seems like very strong language.


It is totally delusional like a lot of Russian propaganda.

Zerohedge made it obvious that this is just another pro Kremlin loon.



Beyond that, just so much garbage from Cal88 today. Amazing that anyone can say with a straight face that Putin has reined in the oligarchs and then talk about how Zelensky was implicated by the Pandora Papers, which proved that Putin has ... not reined in the oligarchs. It's not by accident that he pearl clutches over every report that the Kremlin can produce to show that Ukrainians aren't saints, but he's refused for years to acknowledge any wrongdoing by Putin or the Kremlin. He will never address the fact that Putin is using nazis to fight Ukraine. Nor will he acknowledge Putin's war crimes. Nor will he acknowledge that Putin has stolen billions (perhaps a hundred billion or more). There's a reason that Cal88 won't talk about all of the Putin critics who find themselves on the wrong side of an open window on a high floor. Just a few days ago another one "fell" to his death. But I'm sure it was "suicide" just like Navalny was "accidentally" poisoned with Novichok.

Nor will he ever acknowledge that most of his predictions prove laughably incorrect. He predicted COVID would be gone in August ... 2020. He predicted Didier Raoult and the cult of HCQ would save everyone but now Didier is under investigation for potentially criminal misconduct (some of which explains why he is such a prolific author as Cal88 likes to note - he just adds his names to everyone's papers he can). He predicted Trump would win in 2020. He predicted Putin would take Kyiv and win the war in weeks, and then months. He may very well win it within a year, but Cal88 has no idea since he only believes Putin's own propaganda and can't discern fact from Kremlin fiction.

Cal88 is is going to continue to cherry-pick his way through biased sources, dated materials and select other choices to avoid ever having to answer for what is really going on. He'll continue to dodge why it is that he only pretends to care about nazis in Ukraine and won't ever respond when asked what he thinks about Putin enlisting them to attack Ukraine. And of course Cal88 will continue to layer on his thin veneer of international expertise and pretend like we're the provincial ones for calling out his utter reliance on Kremlin propaganda.

Honestly if Ca88 was intended to be a satire account of a Kremlin apologist, it wouldn't surprise me at this point.
Sebastabear
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Cal88 said:

Sebastabear said:

Unit2Sucks said:

golden sloth said:

Unit2Sucks said:

golden sloth said:

Unit2Sucks said:

The best part about Cal88's farcical pearl-clutching about right wing nationalism in Ukraine is that he supports right-wing nationalism the world over. Whether it's Hungary, Turkey, France, UK or Poland, he's always on the side of right wing nationalists.

Obviously Putin is his favorite and Trump isn't far behind. Anti-semitism plays a part in every single one of those nationalist movements. Every. Single. One. And you'll never hear Cal88 say a word about it because he couldn't care less. He'll never address the obvious fact that nazis play a prominent role in the Russian military or that Putin has signed up Rusich and Russian Imperial Legion - both neo-nazi groups - to help in its campaigns against Ukraine or that there are numerous stories about nazi ideology within the ranks.

Yet he still is trying to gaslight us to believe that right wing nationalism is the reason Cal88 supports Russia's war against Ukraine? Gimme a break. I'll sooner believe that Trump stole national security secrets because he is trying to prevent sexual abuse by politicians.

Anyone who is still waiting to hear Cal88 say one bad thing about Putin or Russia's "special military operation" better not hold their breath.



Nice try, but what about Cal88's theory that nazis, funded by a Jewish oligarch, secretly run Ukraine and elected a Jewish Prime Minister but didn't manage to get a single seat in parliament? Oh and that we should just ignore all the anti semitism everywhere else, most notably in Russia.

Just give Cal88 this one win. He really needs it! And maybe it will spare us from him sharing some other crackpot conspiracy theory. Have you heard that there are no birds left on the planet? All replaced by drones to spy on us.

I feel like you didn't make it to the end of the video where the narrator concludes it is ridiculous to believe Russia is secretly run by Nazi's, as less than 1% of the Ukrainian military are far right nationalists and the far right currently hold zero seats in parliament.
Believe me, I don't think Ukraine is run by nazis, I was just being sarcastic. I do appreciate your link, which is consistent with my previous post in this thread that shows how much Cal88 is overstating the nazi presence in Ukraine.

There is some irony to the fact that for centuries conspiracy theorists like Cal88 have complained that jewish people are puppeteers secretly controlling everything behind the scenes. Now they're saying that nazis are actually controlling everything, although Cal88 is also claiming that there are jewish people behind the nazis in Ukraine. It's all a bit ridiculous but Cal88 will believe anything so long as it lines up with Kremlin propaganda.

The belief that Jews were behind the nazis and actually directed the holocaust is a well-worn trope of the neo-Nazi movement. Cal88's absurd statements about Zelensky being backed by a secret Jewish oligarch who is actually a nazi are just another version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's disgusting.

You have very little in terms of rationality, and a very limited understanding of geopolitics and EE history. Your posts amount to emotional outbursts of someone who is nose-deep into the cult of Ukraine as the current thing.

Instead of throwing your disgusting and ridiculous slanderous accusations my way, you could at the very least read the articles from reliable news sources that I've posted above on this subject:

https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8279397/kolomoisky-oligarch-ukraine-militia

Quote:

It's never good news for the rule of law when an oligarch sends armed men in combat fatigues to occupy a state-owned oil company. That's what just happened in Ukraine, where billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky appears to have sent members of his private army last week to temporarily take over the offices of oil company UkrTransNafta in order to protect his financial interests in the company.


The situation may be even more frightening than it sounds.

Kolomoisky funds and directs a large private militia that has been helping the Kiev government fight against the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Militias like his and there are dozens of them are a source of deep concern to analysts who believe they could threaten Ukraine's long-term stability.

Bands of thugs that became armies


Members of the Azov Battalion, a private militia group, take a public oath in Kiev. ( SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
Kolomoisky, an oligarch who is also the governor of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, is a significant backer of the pro-Kiev private militias fighting in the country's east. He funds the Dnipro Battalion, a private army that, according to the Wall Street Journal, has 2,000 battle-ready fighters and another 20,000 in reserve. Newsweek reported that Kolomoisky has funded other militia groups, as well.

Before the Russian invasion, it was not unusual to find media coverage that was accurate and neutral on the corrupt nature of Ukrainian politics, and the oligarchs' control of neo-nazi militias. This type of reporting has been purged since.

Kolomoisky is not a "secret Jewish oligarch", he's the owner of, among other things in Ukraine, a large media conglomerate that produced many of Zelensky's TV shows, including the one where he played the role of president. There is nothing secret about this. Much of Zelensky's personal fortune, likely in the mid 9 figures, has been built through his business association with Kolomoisky.

Kolomoisky funded neo-nazi militias, which he used to strengthen his position in the takeover of a number of Ukrainian state-owned large industrial assets. Kolomoisky used these militias to intimidate and eliminate any rivals in his takeover of mills, oil and gas companies, banks, airlines etc.

This is the nature of the Ukrainian oligarchy, and the reason why Ukraine is the most corrupt and poorest country in Europe, with a GDP per capita more than 3 times lower than Russia's. Russia managed to rein in its oligarchs, and has made some significant economic gains in the last two decades with large infrastructure spending and a sound fiscal policy, with virtually no debt and large gold and currency reserves.





Oh please. I have no rationality? I have no understanding of geopolitics? Your takes on everything are so comically wrong they'd be farcical if they weren't so sad and wholly derived from Kremlin propaganda.

Here's the bottom line. When you are wrong about everything all the time you can't be surprised when at some point people mention that. You repeatedly posted a fake Time magazine cover even though you were told over and over again it was fake because of your absurd jihad against the science of climate change. The only good thing about that is that your laughably bad takes on climate change and "thickening ice sheets" and other pseudo-scientific babble (derived from, again, shockingly, petro-state Kremlin talking points) have been completely blown up by the last few years of actual climate science. And you want us to pretend like that's irrelevant when you make your next bold prediction and give us Russia's (I mean your) insights on Ukraine. Or on the election, or on hyrdrochlorquine or on any of the other nonsense you spew on here.

But to take your post above on Kolomoisky, the point you are not at all subtly making is he's (a) a Jewish Nazi sympathizer (cause there's just so many of those) and (b) controlling Zelensky. And, as noted by others, you are using Kremlin propagandists Rubenstein and Blumenthal to do it. That's literally straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and neo-Nazi playbook. There's some secret Jew pulling the strings who is "actually" the one in charge - and apparently supports a group of people whose most noted policy position is to kill jews. Because again, that makes total sense.

Your positions are disgusting and pointing that out isn't slanderous. Because it's the truth.
dajo9
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Unit2Sucks said:

dimitrig said:

oski003 said:

Cal88 said:

This analyst, a vet from Utah, predicted the outcome of Ukrainian policy in the Donbas:



He has had excellent coverage of the Ukraine war, here is his blog:
https://www.imetatronink.com/

Latest assessment on the Ukrainian Kherson offensive:





What does he mean by this?

"As did the US. And now, except for its UK poodle, it will lose its colonies in Europe."

That seems like very strong language.


It is totally delusional like a lot of Russian propaganda.

Zerohedge made it obvious that this is just another pro Kremlin loon.



Beyond that, just so much garbage from Cal88 today. Amazing that anyone can say with a straight face that Putin has reined in the oligarchs and then talk about how Zelensky was implicated by the Pandora Papers, which proved that Putin has ... not reined in the oligarchs. It's not by accident that he pearl clutches over every report that the Kremlin can produce to show that Ukrainians aren't saints, but he's refused for years to acknowledge any wrongdoing by Putin or the Kremlin. He will never address the fact that Putin is using nazis to fight Ukraine. Nor will he acknowledge Putin's war crimes. Nor will he acknowledge that Putin has stolen billions (perhaps a hundred billion or more). There's a reason that Cal88 won't talk about all of the Putin critics who find themselves on the wrong side of an open window on a high floor. Just a few days ago another one "fell" to his death. But I'm sure it was "suicide" just like Navalny was "accidentally" poisoned with Novichok.

Nor will he ever acknowledge that most of his predictions prove laughably incorrect. He predicted COVID would be gone in August ... 2020. He predicted Didier Raoult and the cult of HCQ would save everyone but now Didier is under investigation for potentially criminal misconduct (some of which explains why he is such a prolific author as Cal88 likes to note - he just adds his names to everyone's papers he can). He predicted Trump would win in 2020. He predicted Putin would take Kyiv and win the war in weeks, and then months. He may very well win it within a year, but Cal88 has no idea since he only believes Putin's own propaganda and can't discern fact from Kremlin fiction.

Cal88 is is going to continue to cherry-pick his way through biased sources, dated materials and select other choices to avoid ever having to answer for what is really going on. He'll continue to dodge why it is that he only pretends to care about nazis in Ukraine and won't ever respond when asked what he thinks about Putin enlisting them to attack Ukraine. And of course Cal88 will continue to layer on his thin veneer of international expertise and pretend like we're the provincial ones for calling out his utter reliance on Kremlin propaganda.

Honestly if Ca88 was intended to be a satire account of a Kremlin apologist, it wouldn't surprise me at this point.



Baghdad Bob comes to mind
sycasey
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Sebastabear said:

But to take your post above on Kolomoisky, the point you are not at all subtly making is he's (a) a Jewish Nazi sympathizer (cause there's just so many of those) and (b) controlling Zelensky. And, as noted by others, you are using Kremlin propagandists Rubenstein and Blumenthal to do it. That's literally straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and neo-Nazi playbook. There's some secret Jew pulling the strings who is "actually" the one in charge - and apparently supports a group of people whose most noted policy position is to kill jews. Because again, that makes total sense.
Here's the thing: a clear explanation for a powerful Jewish "oligarch" funding a militia like Azov has already been provided: because Ukraine's leaders were looking to support anyone and everyone who would be willing to help fight off Russia's invasions. What's more likely? That this was an uncomfortable alliance of convenience, or that powerful Jews are really pursuing a secret plot to put more neo-Nazis in charge of their country?
Cal88
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oski003 said:

Cal88 said:

This analyst, a vet from Utah, predicted the outcome of Ukrainian policy in the Donbas:



He has had excellent coverage of the Ukraine war, here is his blog:
https://www.imetatronink.com/

Latest assessment on the Ukrainian Kherson offensive:





What does he mean by this?

"As did the US. And now, except for its UK poodle, it will lose its colonies in Europe."

That seems like very strong language.

The US/NATO have gone all in on the Ukraine war, getting Europe into a full-blown economic war with Russia, when Europe depends on cheap Russian gas and other resources to power its economy.

The economies of Europe already were in a fragile stage, even before covid. France for instance has had unprecedented social upheaval last decade, as a result of the economic hardship for the working poor, struggling small businesses and retirees, with fuel prices being front and center of their situation. These protests were met by an unprecedented level of police brutality, with hundreds of unarmed protesters being shot in the eye and face from close range:



Energy prices are shooting up astronomically in most of Europe, not by 10%, but tenfold, while food prices are also skyrocketing due to higher input costs and fertilizer costs. Here is a recent post by an Irish small coffee shop owner:




Europe is not going to get through this winter unscathed, the economic damage is going to create unprecedented social and political turmoil. The sanctions on Russia, which have not hurt that country one bit, are destroying European economies. There`s going to be a lot of blowback and a fundamental shift in domestic and foreign policy in a number of European governments in the next year or two.
Cal88
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Sebastabear said:

Cal88 said:

Sebastabear said:

Unit2Sucks said:

golden sloth said:

Unit2Sucks said:

golden sloth said:

Unit2Sucks said:

The best part about Cal88's farcical pearl-clutching about right wing nationalism in Ukraine is that he supports right-wing nationalism the world over. Whether it's Hungary, Turkey, France, UK or Poland, he's always on the side of right wing nationalists.

Obviously Putin is his favorite and Trump isn't far behind. Anti-semitism plays a part in every single one of those nationalist movements. Every. Single. One. And you'll never hear Cal88 say a word about it because he couldn't care less. He'll never address the obvious fact that nazis play a prominent role in the Russian military or that Putin has signed up Rusich and Russian Imperial Legion - both neo-nazi groups - to help in its campaigns against Ukraine or that there are numerous stories about nazi ideology within the ranks.

Yet he still is trying to gaslight us to believe that right wing nationalism is the reason Cal88 supports Russia's war against Ukraine? Gimme a break. I'll sooner believe that Trump stole national security secrets because he is trying to prevent sexual abuse by politicians.

Anyone who is still waiting to hear Cal88 say one bad thing about Putin or Russia's "special military operation" better not hold their breath.



Nice try, but what about Cal88's theory that nazis, funded by a Jewish oligarch, secretly run Ukraine and elected a Jewish Prime Minister but didn't manage to get a single seat in parliament? Oh and that we should just ignore all the anti semitism everywhere else, most notably in Russia.

Just give Cal88 this one win. He really needs it! And maybe it will spare us from him sharing some other crackpot conspiracy theory. Have you heard that there are no birds left on the planet? All replaced by drones to spy on us.

I feel like you didn't make it to the end of the video where the narrator concludes it is ridiculous to believe Russia is secretly run by Nazi's, as less than 1% of the Ukrainian military are far right nationalists and the far right currently hold zero seats in parliament.
Believe me, I don't think Ukraine is run by nazis, I was just being sarcastic. I do appreciate your link, which is consistent with my previous post in this thread that shows how much Cal88 is overstating the nazi presence in Ukraine.

There is some irony to the fact that for centuries conspiracy theorists like Cal88 have complained that jewish people are puppeteers secretly controlling everything behind the scenes. Now they're saying that nazis are actually controlling everything, although Cal88 is also claiming that there are jewish people behind the nazis in Ukraine. It's all a bit ridiculous but Cal88 will believe anything so long as it lines up with Kremlin propaganda.

The belief that Jews were behind the nazis and actually directed the holocaust is a well-worn trope of the neo-Nazi movement. Cal88's absurd statements about Zelensky being backed by a secret Jewish oligarch who is actually a nazi are just another version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's disgusting.

You have very little in terms of rationality, and a very limited understanding of geopolitics and EE history. Your posts amount to emotional outbursts of someone who is nose-deep into the cult of Ukraine as the current thing.

Instead of throwing your disgusting and ridiculous slanderous accusations my way, you could at the very least read the articles from reliable news sources that I've posted above on this subject:

https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8279397/kolomoisky-oligarch-ukraine-militia

Quote:

It's never good news for the rule of law when an oligarch sends armed men in combat fatigues to occupy a state-owned oil company. That's what just happened in Ukraine, where billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky appears to have sent members of his private army last week to temporarily take over the offices of oil company UkrTransNafta in order to protect his financial interests in the company.


The situation may be even more frightening than it sounds.

Kolomoisky funds and directs a large private militia that has been helping the Kiev government fight against the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Militias like his and there are dozens of them are a source of deep concern to analysts who believe they could threaten Ukraine's long-term stability.

Bands of thugs that became armies


Members of the Azov Battalion, a private militia group, take a public oath in Kiev. ( SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
Kolomoisky, an oligarch who is also the governor of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, is a significant backer of the pro-Kiev private militias fighting in the country's east. He funds the Dnipro Battalion, a private army that, according to the Wall Street Journal, has 2,000 battle-ready fighters and another 20,000 in reserve. Newsweek reported that Kolomoisky has funded other militia groups, as well.

Before the Russian invasion, it was not unusual to find media coverage that was accurate and neutral on the corrupt nature of Ukrainian politics, and the oligarchs' control of neo-nazi militias. This type of reporting has been purged since.

Kolomoisky is not a "secret Jewish oligarch", he's the owner of, among other things in Ukraine, a large media conglomerate that produced many of Zelensky's TV shows, including the one where he played the role of president. There is nothing secret about this. Much of Zelensky's personal fortune, likely in the mid 9 figures, has been built through his business association with Kolomoisky.

Kolomoisky funded neo-nazi militias, which he used to strengthen his position in the takeover of a number of Ukrainian state-owned large industrial assets. Kolomoisky used these militias to intimidate and eliminate any rivals in his takeover of mills, oil and gas companies, banks, airlines etc.

This is the nature of the Ukrainian oligarchy, and the reason why Ukraine is the most corrupt and poorest country in Europe, with a GDP per capita more than 3 times lower than Russia's. Russia managed to rein in its oligarchs, and has made some significant economic gains in the last two decades with large infrastructure spending and a sound fiscal policy, with virtually no debt and large gold and currency reserves.





Oh please. I have no rationality? I have no understanding of geopolitics? Your takes on everything are so comically wrong they'd be farcical if they weren't so sad and wholly derived from Kremlin propaganda.

Here's the bottom line. When you are wrong about everything all the time you can't be surprised when at some point people mention that. You repeatedly posted a fake Time magazine cover even though you were told over and over again it was fake because of your absurd jihad against the science of climate change. The only good thing about that is that your laughably bad takes on climate change and "thickening ice sheets" and other pseudo-scientific babble (derived from, again, shockingly, petro-state Kremlin talking points) have been completely blown up by the last few years of actual climate science. And you want us to pretend like that's irrelevant when you make your next bold prediction and give us Russia's (I mean your) insights on Ukraine. Or on the election, or on hyrdrochlorquine or on any of the other nonsense you spew on here.

But to take your post above on Kolomoisky, the point you are not at all subtly making is he's (a) a Jewish Nazi sympathizer (cause there's just so many of those) and (b) controlling Zelensky. And, as noted by others, you are using Kremlin propagandists Rubenstein and Blumenthal to do it. That's literally straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and neo-Nazi playbook. There's some secret Jew pulling the strings who is "actually" the one in charge - and apparently supports a group of people whose most noted policy position is to kill jews. Because again, that makes total sense.

Your positions are disgusting and pointing that out isn't slanderous. Because it's the truth.

The one aspect of being in a cult is that you don`t know you`re in a cult.

The other aspect, which we are witnessing here in full bloom, is that anyone who tries to present an alternative viewpoint to your cult`s will be met with the kind of hysteric outburst and over the top character assassinations, as you are engaging in here.

...So pointing out uncomfortable truths about neo-Nazis being in leading positions within Ukrainian politics, security and armed forces is "straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

I don't think you even knew who Kolmoisky was, and that he packaged and launched Zelensky's political career, before I've provided you with the articles above, from sources like Vox and the Nation.

Part of the Ukraine histrionics package is that anyone who presents a different viewpoint from that you are constantly fed by the MSM , people like Max Blumenthal and Rubenstein, will automatically be labelled as "Kremlin propgandists". So I'm proud to be mentioned alongside these competent journalists who have the highest ethical standards in their profession.

You're married to an idiotic narrative that is ending up destroying Ukraine and killing a quarter million people in the process, when Ukraine could have been left unscathed by simply following the Minsk II Agreements that it signed several years ago.

The US and NATO have favored the most extreme elements in Ukraine, much like they have backed jihadi radicals in the Levant, for geopolitical reasons, at the expense of Ukrainians and Levantines who are being used as pawns in this global geopolitical game. That's why hardcore neo-Nazis have been festering in Kiev, running the 30,000 strong SBU, Ukrainian KGB, who neutralize and kill off opposition to moderate and pragmatic Ukrainians. These radical nationalists will fight Russia to the last man, and that's exactly the kind of people NATO wants running the show in Kiev.
Cal88
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This is the arguably the most insightful analysis of the war from a technical military perspective, published in a US Marines military journal, the Marines Corps Gazette:

https://www.imetatronink.com/2022/08/a-former-us-marine-corps-officers.html

It is a somewhat technical read, but well worth the effort, as you won't find this kind of candid and penetrating analysis of the military conflict in Ukraine in mainstream media.

Preface from William Schryuver:

"This article originally appeared in the Marine Corps Gazette August 2022 issue. Authored by an apparently frequent anonymous contributor ("Marinus") to the Gazette, it has since raised quite a ruckus among the United States military community in various online debates.

There has been much speculation by no means definitively confirmed that "Marinus" is none other that USMC Lt. Gen. (ret) Paul K. Van Riper, a long-revered champion of many Marines, and a prominent proponent of the so-called "Maneuverists" a school of military thought strongly influenced by the work of the incomparable military strategist John R. Boyd.

...
I highly recommend it, partly because it so strongly parallels my own analysis as originally posted in a Twitter thread on July 3, 2022, and subsequently expanded upon in a formal blog post on July 8, 2022: Destroying the Mother of All Proxy Armies in Ukraine."

Excerpts:

"...the raids of the first five weeks of the war [were] a grand deception that, while working little in the way of direct destruction, made possible the subsequent attrition of the Ukrainian armed forces. In particular, the threat posed by the raids delayed the movement of Ukrainian forces in the main theater of the war until the Russians had deployed the artillery units, secured the transporting network, and accumulated the stocks of ammunition needed to conduct a long series of big bombardments.

This delay also ensured that, when the Ukrainians did deploy additional formations to the Donbass region, the movement of such forces, and the supplies needed to sustain them, had been rendered much more difficult by the ruin wrought upon the Ukrainian rail network by long-range guided missiles. In other words, the Russians conducted a brief campaign of maneuver in the north in order to set the stage for a longer, and, ultimately, more important campaign of attrition in the east.

...The Russian campaign in the south served direct political aims. That is, it served to incorporate territories inhabited by a large number of ethnic Russians into the "Russian World." At the same time, the rapid occupation of cities like Kherson and Melitopol enhanced the deceptive power of operations conducted in the north by suggesting the possibility that the columns on either side of Kyiv might attempt to do the same to cities like Chernihiv and Zhytomyr. Similarly, the raids conducted north of Kherson raised the possibility that the Russians might attempt the occupation of additional cities, the most important of which was Odessa.

The Challenge
The three ground campaigns conducted by the Russians in Ukraine in 2022 owed much to traditional models. At the same time, the program of missile strikes exploited a capability that was nothing short of revolutionary. Whether new or old, however, these component efforts were conducted in a way that demonstrated profound appreciation of all three realms in which wars are waged. That is, the Russians rarely forgot that, in addition to being a physical struggle, war is both a mental contest and a moral argument.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine may mark the start of a new cold war, a "long twilight struggle" comparable to the one that ended with the collapse of the Soviet Empire more than three decades ago. If that is the case, then we will face an adversary who, while drawing much of value from the Soviet military tradition, has been liberated from both the brutality inherent in the legacy of Lenin and the blinders imposed by Marxism. What would be even worse, we may find ourselves fighting disciples of John R. Boyd."

golden sloth
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Cal88 said:

Sebastabear said:

Cal88 said:

Sebastabear said:

Unit2Sucks said:

golden sloth said:

Unit2Sucks said:

golden sloth said:

Unit2Sucks said:

The best part about Cal88's farcical pearl-clutching about right wing nationalism in Ukraine is that he supports right-wing nationalism the world over. Whether it's Hungary, Turkey, France, UK or Poland, he's always on the side of right wing nationalists.

Obviously Putin is his favorite and Trump isn't far behind. Anti-semitism plays a part in every single one of those nationalist movements. Every. Single. One. And you'll never hear Cal88 say a word about it because he couldn't care less. He'll never address the obvious fact that nazis play a prominent role in the Russian military or that Putin has signed up Rusich and Russian Imperial Legion - both neo-nazi groups - to help in its campaigns against Ukraine or that there are numerous stories about nazi ideology within the ranks.

Yet he still is trying to gaslight us to believe that right wing nationalism is the reason Cal88 supports Russia's war against Ukraine? Gimme a break. I'll sooner believe that Trump stole national security secrets because he is trying to prevent sexual abuse by politicians.

Anyone who is still waiting to hear Cal88 say one bad thing about Putin or Russia's "special military operation" better not hold their breath.



Nice try, but what about Cal88's theory that nazis, funded by a Jewish oligarch, secretly run Ukraine and elected a Jewish Prime Minister but didn't manage to get a single seat in parliament? Oh and that we should just ignore all the anti semitism everywhere else, most notably in Russia.

Just give Cal88 this one win. He really needs it! And maybe it will spare us from him sharing some other crackpot conspiracy theory. Have you heard that there are no birds left on the planet? All replaced by drones to spy on us.

I feel like you didn't make it to the end of the video where the narrator concludes it is ridiculous to believe Russia is secretly run by Nazi's, as less than 1% of the Ukrainian military are far right nationalists and the far right currently hold zero seats in parliament.
Believe me, I don't think Ukraine is run by nazis, I was just being sarcastic. I do appreciate your link, which is consistent with my previous post in this thread that shows how much Cal88 is overstating the nazi presence in Ukraine.

There is some irony to the fact that for centuries conspiracy theorists like Cal88 have complained that jewish people are puppeteers secretly controlling everything behind the scenes. Now they're saying that nazis are actually controlling everything, although Cal88 is also claiming that there are jewish people behind the nazis in Ukraine. It's all a bit ridiculous but Cal88 will believe anything so long as it lines up with Kremlin propaganda.

The belief that Jews were behind the nazis and actually directed the holocaust is a well-worn trope of the neo-Nazi movement. Cal88's absurd statements about Zelensky being backed by a secret Jewish oligarch who is actually a nazi are just another version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's disgusting.

You have very little in terms of rationality, and a very limited understanding of geopolitics and EE history. Your posts amount to emotional outbursts of someone who is nose-deep into the cult of Ukraine as the current thing.

Instead of throwing your disgusting and ridiculous slanderous accusations my way, you could at the very least read the articles from reliable news sources that I've posted above on this subject:

https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8279397/kolomoisky-oligarch-ukraine-militia

Quote:

It's never good news for the rule of law when an oligarch sends armed men in combat fatigues to occupy a state-owned oil company. That's what just happened in Ukraine, where billionaire oligarch Igor Kolomoisky appears to have sent members of his private army last week to temporarily take over the offices of oil company UkrTransNafta in order to protect his financial interests in the company.


The situation may be even more frightening than it sounds.

Kolomoisky funds and directs a large private militia that has been helping the Kiev government fight against the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Militias like his and there are dozens of them are a source of deep concern to analysts who believe they could threaten Ukraine's long-term stability.

Bands of thugs that became armies


Members of the Azov Battalion, a private militia group, take a public oath in Kiev. ( SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
Kolomoisky, an oligarch who is also the governor of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, is a significant backer of the pro-Kiev private militias fighting in the country's east. He funds the Dnipro Battalion, a private army that, according to the Wall Street Journal, has 2,000 battle-ready fighters and another 20,000 in reserve. Newsweek reported that Kolomoisky has funded other militia groups, as well.

Before the Russian invasion, it was not unusual to find media coverage that was accurate and neutral on the corrupt nature of Ukrainian politics, and the oligarchs' control of neo-nazi militias. This type of reporting has been purged since.

Kolomoisky is not a "secret Jewish oligarch", he's the owner of, among other things in Ukraine, a large media conglomerate that produced many of Zelensky's TV shows, including the one where he played the role of president. There is nothing secret about this. Much of Zelensky's personal fortune, likely in the mid 9 figures, has been built through his business association with Kolomoisky.

Kolomoisky funded neo-nazi militias, which he used to strengthen his position in the takeover of a number of Ukrainian state-owned large industrial assets. Kolomoisky used these militias to intimidate and eliminate any rivals in his takeover of mills, oil and gas companies, banks, airlines etc.

This is the nature of the Ukrainian oligarchy, and the reason why Ukraine is the most corrupt and poorest country in Europe, with a GDP per capita more than 3 times lower than Russia's. Russia managed to rein in its oligarchs, and has made some significant economic gains in the last two decades with large infrastructure spending and a sound fiscal policy, with virtually no debt and large gold and currency reserves.





Oh please. I have no rationality? I have no understanding of geopolitics? Your takes on everything are so comically wrong they'd be farcical if they weren't so sad and wholly derived from Kremlin propaganda.

Here's the bottom line. When you are wrong about everything all the time you can't be surprised when at some point people mention that. You repeatedly posted a fake Time magazine cover even though you were told over and over again it was fake because of your absurd jihad against the science of climate change. The only good thing about that is that your laughably bad takes on climate change and "thickening ice sheets" and other pseudo-scientific babble (derived from, again, shockingly, petro-state Kremlin talking points) have been completely blown up by the last few years of actual climate science. And you want us to pretend like that's irrelevant when you make your next bold prediction and give us Russia's (I mean your) insights on Ukraine. Or on the election, or on hyrdrochlorquine or on any of the other nonsense you spew on here.

But to take your post above on Kolomoisky, the point you are not at all subtly making is he's (a) a Jewish Nazi sympathizer (cause there's just so many of those) and (b) controlling Zelensky. And, as noted by others, you are using Kremlin propagandists Rubenstein and Blumenthal to do it. That's literally straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and neo-Nazi playbook. There's some secret Jew pulling the strings who is "actually" the one in charge - and apparently supports a group of people whose most noted policy position is to kill jews. Because again, that makes total sense.

Your positions are disgusting and pointing that out isn't slanderous. Because it's the truth.

The one aspect of being in a cult is that you don`t know you`re in a cult.

The other aspect, which we are witnessing here in full bloom, is that anyone who tries to present an alternative viewpoint to your cult`s will be met with the kind of hysteric outburst and over the top character assassinations, as you are engaging in here.

...So pointing out uncomfortable truths about neo-Nazis being in leading positions within Ukrainian politics, security and armed forces is "straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

I don't think you even knew who Kolmoisky was, and that he packaged and launched Zelensky's political career, before I've provided you with the articles above, from sources like Vox and the Nation.

Part of the Ukraine histrionics package is that anyone who presents a different viewpoint from that you are constantly fed by the MSM , people like Max Blumenthal and Rubenstein, will automatically be labelled as "Kremlin propgandists". So I'm proud to be mentioned alongside these competent journalists who have the highest ethical standards in their profession.

You're married to an idiotic narrative that is ending up destroying Ukraine and killing a quarter million people in the process, when Ukraine could have been left unscathed by simply following the Minsk II Agreements that it signed several years ago.

The US and NATO have favored the most extreme elements in Ukraine, much like they have backed jihadi radicals in the Levant, for geopolitical reasons, at the expense of Ukrainians and Levantines who are being used as pawns in this global geopolitical game. That's why hardcore neo-Nazis have been festering in Kiev, running the 30,000 strong SBU, Ukrainian KGB, who neutralize and kill off opposition to moderate and pragmatic Ukrainians. These radical nationalists will fight Russia to the last man, and that's exactly the kind of people NATO wants running the show in Kiev.

The Minsk Accords are irrelevant. Russia chose to invade because they wanted to conquer, and for no other reason. It was not the US, it was not NATO, it was Russia wanting Ukrainian land. This is why Russia's leader Vladimir Putin made his bumbling and rambling speech stating why Ukraine does not have a right to exist. NATO, Neo-Nazis, and Russian language in east Ukraine are all distractions from the truth.

Russia wants to conquer and colonize Ukraine, so they invaded.. The Ukrainians are saying no. That is the honest narrative.

Also, the narrative is not killing Ukrainians, the Russian military is killing Ukrainians. If Russia doesn't want to kill Ukrainians, they can simply not pull the trigger.
golden sloth
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Cal88 said:

This is the arguably the most insightful analysis of the war from a technical military perspective, published in a US Marines military journal, the Marines Corps Gazette:

https://www.imetatronink.com/2022/08/a-former-us-marine-corps-officers.html

It is a somewhat technical read, but well worth the effort, as you won't find this kind of candid and penetrating analysis of the military conflict in Ukraine in mainstream media.

Preface from William Schryuver:

"This article originally appeared in the Marine Corps Gazette August 2022 issue. Authored by an apparently frequent anonymous contributor ("Marinus") to the Gazette, it has since raised quite a ruckus among the United States military community in various online debates.

There has been much speculation by no means definitively confirmed that "Marinus" is none other that USMC Lt. Gen. (ret) Paul K. Van Riper, a long-revered champion of many Marines, and a prominent proponent of the so-called "Maneuverists" a school of military thought strongly influenced by the work of the incomparable military strategist John R. Boyd.

...
I highly recommend it, partly because it so strongly parallels my own analysis as originally posted in a Twitter thread on July 3, 2022, and subsequently expanded upon in a formal blog post on July 8, 2022: Destroying the Mother of All Proxy Armies in Ukraine."

Excerpts:

"...the raids of the first five weeks of the war [were] a grand deception that, while working little in the way of direct destruction, made possible the subsequent attrition of the Ukrainian armed forces. In particular, the threat posed by the raids delayed the movement of Ukrainian forces in the main theater of the war until the Russians had deployed the artillery units, secured the transporting network, and accumulated the stocks of ammunition needed to conduct a long series of big bombardments.

This delay also ensured that, when the Ukrainians did deploy additional formations to the Donbass region, the movement of such forces, and the supplies needed to sustain them, had been rendered much more difficult by the ruin wrought upon the Ukrainian rail network by long-range guided missiles. In other words, the Russians conducted a brief campaign of maneuver in the north in order to set the stage for a longer, and, ultimately, more important campaign of attrition in the east.

...The Russian campaign in the south served direct political aims. That is, it served to incorporate territories inhabited by a large number of ethnic Russians into the "Russian World." At the same time, the rapid occupation of cities like Kherson and Melitopol enhanced the deceptive power of operations conducted in the north by suggesting the possibility that the columns on either side of Kyiv might attempt to do the same to cities like Chernihiv and Zhytomyr. Similarly, the raids conducted north of Kherson raised the possibility that the Russians might attempt the occupation of additional cities, the most important of which was Odessa.

The Challenge
The three ground campaigns conducted by the Russians in Ukraine in 2022 owed much to traditional models. At the same time, the program of missile strikes exploited a capability that was nothing short of revolutionary. Whether new or old, however, these component efforts were conducted in a way that demonstrated profound appreciation of all three realms in which wars are waged. That is, the Russians rarely forgot that, in addition to being a physical struggle, war is both a mental contest and a moral argument.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine may mark the start of a new cold war, a "long twilight struggle" comparable to the one that ended with the collapse of the Soviet Empire more than three decades ago. If that is the case, then we will face an adversary who, while drawing much of value from the Soviet military tradition, has been liberated from both the brutality inherent in the legacy of Lenin and the blinders imposed by Marxism. What would be even worse, we may find ourselves fighting disciples of John R. Boyd."


So the Russians intentionally forgot to bring fuel for their 40 mile column when they attacked Kyiv as it was all part of a grand fake out?

That is just stupid.
Cal88
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golden sloth said:



So the Russians intentionally forgot to bring fuel for their 40 mile column when they attacked Kyiv as it was all part of a grand fake out?

That is just stupid.

Here is what the author of the article had to say about Russia's northern attack:

Raids in the North

American Marines have long used the term "raid" to describe an enterprise in which a small force moves swiftly to a particular location, completes a discrete mission, and withdraws as quickly as it can. [1] To Russian soldiers, however, the linguistic cousin of that word (reyd) carries a somewhat different meaning. Where the travel performed by the team conducting a raid is nothing more than a means of reaching particular points on the map, the movement of the frequently larger forces conducting a reyd creates significant operational effects. That is, in the course of moving along various highways and byways, they confuse enemy commanders, disrupt enemy logistics, and deprive enemy governments of the legitimacy that comes from uncontested control of their own territory. Similarly, where each phase of a present-day American raid necessarily follows a detailed script, a reyd is a more open-ended enterprise that can be adjusted to exploit new opportunities, avoid new dangers, or serve new purposes.

The term reyd found its way into the Russian military lexicon in the late 19th century by theorists who noted the similarities between the independent cavalry operations of the American Civil War and the already well-established Russian practice of sending mobile columns, often composed of Cossacks, on extended excursions through enemy territory. [2]

An early example of such excursions is provided by the exploits of the column led by Alexander Chernyshev during the Napoleonic Wars. In September of 1813, this force of some 2,300 horsemen and two light field guns made a 400-mile circuit through enemy territory. At the middle point of this bold enterprise, this column occupied, for two days, the city of Kassel, then serving as the capital of one of the satellite states of the French Empire. Fear of a repetition of this embarrassment convinced Napoleon to detail two army corps to garrison Dresden, then the seat of government of another one of his dependencies. [3] As a result, when Napoleon encountered the combined forces of his enemies at the Battle of Leipzig, his already outnumbered Grande Arme was much smaller than it would otherwise have been.

In 2022, the many battalion tactical groups that moved deeply into northern Ukraine during the first few days of the Russian invasion made no attempt to re-enact the occupation of Leipzig. Rather, they bypassed all of the larger cities in their path and, on the rare occasions when they found themselves in a smaller city, occupation rarely lasted for more than a few hours. Nonetheless, the fast-moving Russian columns created, on a much a larger scale, an effect similar to the one that resulted from Chernyshev's raid of 1813. That is, they convinced the Ukrainians to weaken their main field army, then fighting in the Donbass region, to bolster the defenses of distant cities."


The analysis of this Marine Lt Gen. is similar to that of many other military analysts. Basically, Russia used up around 40,000 troops in and around Kiev to pin down around 150,000-200,000 Ukrainian troops for the defense of the capital. And yes indeed, they were very much strained from a logistical standpoint, but they've managed to achieve their primary goal.

golden sloth
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Cal88 said:

golden sloth said:



So the Russians intentionally forgot to bring fuel for their 40 mile column when they attacked Kyiv as it was all part of a grand fake out?

That is just stupid.

Here is what the author of the article had to say about Russia's northern attack:

Raids in the North

American Marines have long used the term "raid" to describe an enterprise in which a small force moves swiftly to a particular location, completes a discrete mission, and withdraws as quickly as it can. [1] To Russian soldiers, however, the linguistic cousin of that word (reyd) carries a somewhat different meaning. Where the travel performed by the team conducting a raid is nothing more than a means of reaching particular points on the map, the movement of the frequently larger forces conducting a reyd creates significant operational effects. That is, in the course of moving along various highways and byways, they confuse enemy commanders, disrupt enemy logistics, and deprive enemy governments of the legitimacy that comes from uncontested control of their own territory. Similarly, where each phase of a present-day American raid necessarily follows a detailed script, a reyd is a more open-ended enterprise that can be adjusted to exploit new opportunities, avoid new dangers, or serve new purposes.

The term reyd found its way into the Russian military lexicon in the late 19th century by theorists who noted the similarities between the independent cavalry operations of the American Civil War and the already well-established Russian practice of sending mobile columns, often composed of Cossacks, on extended excursions through enemy territory. [2]

An early example of such excursions is provided by the exploits of the column led by Alexander Chernyshev during the Napoleonic Wars. In September of 1813, this force of some 2,300 horsemen and two light field guns made a 400-mile circuit through enemy territory. At the middle point of this bold enterprise, this column occupied, for two days, the city of Kassel, then serving as the capital of one of the satellite states of the French Empire. Fear of a repetition of this embarrassment convinced Napoleon to detail two army corps to garrison Dresden, then the seat of government of another one of his dependencies. [3] As a result, when Napoleon encountered the combined forces of his enemies at the Battle of Leipzig, his already outnumbered Grande Arme was much smaller than it would otherwise have been.

In 2022, the many battalion tactical groups that moved deeply into northern Ukraine during the first few days of the Russian invasion made no attempt to re-enact the occupation of Leipzig. Rather, they bypassed all of the larger cities in their path and, on the rare occasions when they found themselves in a smaller city, occupation rarely lasted for more than a few hours. Nonetheless, the fast-moving Russian columns created, on a much a larger scale, an effect similar to the one that resulted from Chernyshev's raid of 1813. That is, they convinced the Ukrainians to weaken their main field army, then fighting in the Donbass region, to bolster the defenses of distant cities."


The analysis of this Marine Lt Gen. is similar to that of many other military analysts. Basically, Russia used up around 40,000 troops in and around Kiev to pin down around 150,000-200,000 Ukrainian troops for the defense of the capital. And yes indeed, they were very much strained from a logistical standpoint, but they've managed to achieve their primary goal.




Ha! Good luck selling that BS revisionist history.
Cal88
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golden sloth said:




Ha! Good luck selling that BS revisionist history.

The author of that article was not "selling", he was presenting a BS-free high-level military analysis, which does indeed go counter pretty much everything you've heard or read, or more precisely, been sold before.
golden sloth
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Cal88 said:

golden sloth said:




Ha! Good luck selling that BS revisionist history.

The author of that article was not "selling", he was presenting a BS-free high-level military analysis, which does indeed go counter pretty much everything you've heard or read, or more precisely, been sold before.
Yah, the reason why this version hasn't been heard before is because it is not true. It is untrue because::

1. When the Russian troops retreated, they left behind large numbers of vehicles due to lack of fuel for the vehicles and lack of food for the soldiers. If it were intentional or tactical Russia would not have left the equipment.

2. Russia didn't need a large diversion tactic to entrench their soldiers strategically in the Donbass. Most of the Donbass territory was already under the control of their allied separatist groups. They could have simply moved them there and taken up their positions.

3. Putin would not have fired his lead commander if they were achieving their objectives in 'The Grand Deception'.

4. The Russian offensive has stalled over the last month, and with exception to the gains in the south made during the opening month or two, very little progress has actually been made, and their gains over the last 4 months have been minor. If 'The Grand Deception' had achieved their objectives, they would not have be stalled out now.
dajo9
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People criticize the Army of the Potomac before Grant took over but people don't understand the 120,000 man Army of the Potomac was just pinning down 60,000 traitor troops and traitor Robert Lee so the Army of Tennessee could move into Mississippi.

History.
Cal88
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The Civil War was the first instance of industrial warfare, the North won largely on the depth and strength of its industrial output. From what I understand, the South was led with more capable military tacticians but was ultimately defeated through shear lack of depth in a war of attrition, though my knowledge of the Civil War is somewhat limited.

There are some parallels with the war in Ukraine, Russia relying on its industrial strength, waging a war of attrition on Ukrainian forces.

This is a definitive article on the subject, from a leading British military think tank:

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare
"The war in Ukraine demonstrates that war between peer or near-peer adversaries demands the existence of a technically advanced, mass scale, industrial-age production capability. The Russian onslaught consumes ammunition at rates that massively exceed US forecasts and ammunition production. "
Cal88
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golden sloth said:

Cal88 said:

golden sloth said:




Ha! Good luck selling that BS revisionist history.

The author of that article was not "selling", he was presenting a BS-free high-level military analysis, which does indeed go counter pretty much everything you've heard or read, or more precisely, been sold before.
Yah, the reason why this version hasn't been heard before is because it is not true. It is untrue because::

1. When the Russian troops retreated, they left behind large numbers of vehicles due to lack of fuel for the vehicles and lack of food for the soldiers. If it were intentional or tactical Russia would not have left the equipment.

2. Russia didn't need a large diversion tactic to entrench their soldiers strategically in the Donbass. Most of the Donbass territory was already under the control of their allied separatist groups. They could have simply moved them there and taken up their positions.

3. Putin would not have fired his lead commander if they were achieving their objectives in 'The Grand Deception'.

Russia went into this war with a total force of less than 200,000, including its Donbass militia allies, facing a 600.000+ strong Ukrainian army (see British RUSI institute study linked above). Had Russia focused completely on the Donbass in the early stages of the war, it would have likely been overrun by an army up to 3 times its size. That's why they chose a multipronged attack.

They had some difficulties executing this strategy in the north, largely due to inexperience (not having conducted an operation of this scale since WW2), and the elements, having started the campaign shortly before mud season, which came early this winter in EE.

Quote:

4. The Russian offensive has stalled over the last month, and with exception to the gains in the south made during the opening month or two, very little progress has actually been made, and their gains over the last 4 months have been minor. If 'The Grand Deception' had achieved their objectives, they would not have be stalled out now.
Russia has been fighting the war it wants to fight since April-May, a war of attrition based on artillery duels across the ~1000 mile frontline, a war in which it outguns Ukraine by a factor greater than 10 to 1.

The ongoing loss ratio is somewhere around 5 to 1 in favor of Russia, this is a war that is unsustainable for Ukraine.

Ukraine has already lost nearly all its air force, and nearly all its experienced pilots, and about 80% of its experienced tank crews and tank fleet, while Russia has lost around 5% of its air fleet and maybe 10% of its tank fleet.

Russia has a strong, deep and efficient military industrial base that is replenishing and sustaining its current high ammunition output, while the Ukraine, where Soviet MIC used to be concentrated, no longer has a domestic MIC. Ukraine has to rely on NATO stocks, and these stocks are getting depleted. Furthermore, less than half of NATO weaponry and ammo even makes it to the frontlines, due to Ukrainian corruption and Russian long-range bombing.

Almost everything you're being told about the Ukraine war consists of wartime propaganda. Ukrainains are being slaughtered on an industrial scale, nearly a quarter million soldiers have been killed, injured, captured or MIA, while the number of Russians killed or injured is around 4 to 5 times smaller, with the Donbass militias bearing a disproportionate casualty weight.
dajo9
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Cal88 said:

The Civil War was the first instance of industrial warfare, the North won largely on the depth and strength of its industrial output. From what I understand, the South was led with more capable military tacticians but was ultimately defeated through shear lack of depth in a war of attrition, though my knowledge of the Civil War is somewhat limited.

There are some parallels with the war in Ukraine, Russia relying on its industrial strength, waging a war of attrition on Ukrainian forces.

This is a definitive article on the subject, from a leading British military think tank:

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare
"The war in Ukraine demonstrates that war between peer or near-peer adversaries demands the existence of a technically advanced, mass scale, industrial-age production capability. The Russian onslaught consumes ammunition at rates that massively exceed US forecasts and ammunition production. "



Where is that gif that shows the point way over on the right and you way over on the left?
sycasey
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Cal88 said:

Almost everything you're being told about the Ukraine war consists of wartime propaganda.
Ah yes. And you, with your multiple citations of Russian state-sponsored media, are the clear antidote to propaganda.
Cal88
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sycasey said:

Cal88 said:

Almost everything you're being told about the Ukraine war consists of wartime propaganda.
Ah yes. And you, with your multiple citations of Russian state-sponsored media, are the clear antidote to propaganda.
Do you consider the US Marines journal or The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the UK's leading defense think tank as "Russian-sponsored media"?
sycasey
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Cal88 said:

sycasey said:

Cal88 said:

Almost everything you're being told about the Ukraine war consists of wartime propaganda.
Ah yes. And you, with your multiple citations of Russian state-sponsored media, are the clear antidote to propaganda.
Do you consider the US Marines journal or The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the UK's leading defense think tank as "Russian-sponsored media"?
Well, the thing is that the "US Marines journal" article you posted was being reprinted on the blog of this guy Schryver, who earlier was clearly just reposting whatever the Russian Ministry of Defense reported.



So yeah, he's literally reposting Russian state media.
golden sloth
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Cal88 said:

golden sloth said:

Cal88 said:

golden sloth said:




Ha! Good luck selling that BS revisionist history.

The author of that article was not "selling", he was presenting a BS-free high-level military analysis, which does indeed go counter pretty much everything you've heard or read, or more precisely, been sold before.
Yah, the reason why this version hasn't been heard before is because it is not true. It is untrue because::

1. When the Russian troops retreated, they left behind large numbers of vehicles due to lack of fuel for the vehicles and lack of food for the soldiers. If it were intentional or tactical Russia would not have left the equipment.

2. Russia didn't need a large diversion tactic to entrench their soldiers strategically in the Donbass. Most of the Donbass territory was already under the control of their allied separatist groups. They could have simply moved them there and taken up their positions.

3. Putin would not have fired his lead commander if they were achieving their objectives in 'The Grand Deception'.

Russia went into this war with a total force of less than 200,000, including its Donbass militia allies, facing a 600.000+ strong Ukrainian army (see British RUSI institute study linked above). Had Russia focused completely on the Donbass in the early stages of the war, it would have likely been overrun by an army up to 3 times its size. That's why they chose a multipronged attack.

They had some difficulties executing this strategy in the north, largely due to inexperience (not having conducted an operation of this scale since WW2), and the elements, having started the campaign shortly before mud season, which came early this winter in EE.

Quote:

4. The Russian offensive has stalled over the last month, and with exception to the gains in the south made during the opening month or two, very little progress has actually been made, and their gains over the last 4 months have been minor. If 'The Grand Deception' had achieved their objectives, they would not have be stalled out now.
Russia has been fighting the war it wants to fight since April-May, a war of attrition based on artillery duels across the ~1000 mile frontline, a war in which it outguns Ukraine by a factor greater than 10 to 1.

The ongoing loss ratio is somewhere around 5 to 1 in favor of Russia, this is a war that is unsustainable for Ukraine.

Ukraine has already lost nearly all its air force, and nearly all its experienced pilots, and about 80% of its experienced tank crews and tank fleet, while Russia has lost around 5% of its air fleet and maybe 10% of its tank fleet.

Russia has a strong, deep and efficient military industrial base that is replenishing and sustaining its current high ammunition output, while the Ukraine, where Soviet MIC used to be concentrated, no longer has a domestic MIC. Ukraine has to rely on NATO stocks, and these stocks are getting depleted. Furthermore, less than half of NATO weaponry and ammo even makes it to the frontlines, due to Ukrainian corruption and Russian long-range bombing.

Almost everything you're being told about the Ukraine war consists of wartime propaganda. Ukrainains are being slaughtered on an industrial scale, nearly a quarter million soldiers have been killed, injured, captured or MIA, while the number of Russians killed or injured is around 4 to 5 times smaller, with the Donbass militias bearing a disproportionate casualty weight.


Ah, yes, I forgot this was a story of the plucky Russian underdog fighting big bad Ukraine!

I wonder why more people hadn't heard that story?
Cal88
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Quote:

Ah, yes, I forgot this was a story of the plucky Russian underdog fighting big bad Ukraine!

I wonder why more people hadn't heard that story?

The real story here is that the underdog, Ukraine, is being pushed by a big outside player to pick a fight its huge neighbor, a fight where it stands no chance.

The underdog has been badly bruised with open wounds, but is still at it, being egged on by a strong outsider it looks up to and in whom it put all its trust, an outsider who will not get into this fight, but is gladly using the underdog in an attempt to weaken the big neighbor.

At some point in the not too distant future, perhaps sometime between late Fall and early Summer, it will become fairly clear to the general public that Ukraine cannot win this war, and that this massacre could have been averted, and the territorial integrity of Ukraine as the largest country in Europe preserved through a democratic Ukrainian government that believes in minority rights the same way modern democracies like Belgium, Canada or Spain do.

And that is the story you haven't heard.
Cal88
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sycasey said:

Cal88 said:

sycasey said:

Cal88 said:

Almost everything you're being told about the Ukraine war consists of wartime propaganda.
Ah yes. And you, with your multiple citations of Russian state-sponsored media, are the clear antidote to propaganda.
Do you consider the US Marines journal or The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the UK's leading defense think tank as "Russian-sponsored media"?
Well, the thing is that the "US Marines journal" article you posted was being reprinted on the blog of this guy Schryver, who earlier was clearly just reposting whatever the Russian Ministry of Defense reported.



So yeah, he's literally reposting Russian state media.

Here's the latest tally:





It doesn't take a military genius to realize that this attack, on flat, open field terrain with little in terms of ground cover, and with virtually no air cover, against an enemy with much higher concentration of artillery units is doomed to failure.

The Russians use Mongol-like tactics when faced with a large armed enemy attack, they yield territory and wait for the advanced troops to stretch into open positions, then pick them off with artillery and to a lesser extent, airpower.

If the numbers above are true, Ukraine would have wasted a good chunk of the modernized T72 tanks it got from Poland in this offensive. Chances are these tanks were manned by inexperienced crews, Ukraine having already lost most of their seasoned tank operators.
sycasey
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Cal88 said:

It doesn't take a military genius to realize that this attack, on flat, open field terrain with little in terms of ground cover, and with virtually no air cover, against an enemy with much higher concentration of artillery units is doomed to failure.
It doesn't take a military genius to realize that Russia expected to have conquered a lot more territory by now and if this war were going well for them they would have. This spin is just trying to put lipstick on a pig.
Unit2Sucks
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LOL at Putin88 continuing to blindly push Russian propaganda.

Sure sure, Ukraine has a tank operator problem and everything is just peachy keen with Russia.




And of course, Russian tanks have a design defect that leads to jack in the boxes.






Cal88
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sycasey said:

Cal88 said:

It doesn't take a military genius to realize that this attack, on flat, open field terrain with little in terms of ground cover, and with virtually no air cover, against an enemy with much higher concentration of artillery units is doomed to failure.
It doesn't take a military genius to realize that Russia expected to have conquered a lot more territory by now and if this war were going well for them they would have. This spin is just trying to put lipstick on a pig.

That's like claiming a moral victory because Kansas is only down by 12 points in the middle of the third quarter, with half their defense injured and redshirt Fr linemen struggling to keep up with Nebraska seniors.

Russia has conducted this campaign with a combined force less than a third that of the total Ukrainian armed forces.

Since Spring, they've been conducting the war in a manner which results in minimal losses to their troops, an artillery-based war of attrition where they use over 10 times as much firepower as Ukraine.

They've already captured about 2/3 of the territories they intend to keep, they're going to take Nikolayev, Odessa, Zaporizhia and Kharkov sometime next year, about 35%-40% of Ukraine, almost all of its Russian speakers and 60% of Ukraine's GDP, and call it a day.
Cal88
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The point I've been trying to drive here, is that for Ukraine, the time for stopping the war was yesterday. They have lost about one fifth of the country, but almost all of these territories are Russophones who are fairly hostile to the current Kiev government.

Ukraine is never going to recover Crimea, the Donbass and the land bridge between them (Kherson-Mariupol).

What they could do right now is take their loss, sign a Minsk II type agreement with Russia, stay neutral and hold on to Nikolayev, Odessa and Kharkov, Ukraine's second largest city and most of its Black Sea coastline, averting in the process another 100,000-200,000 Ukrainian military casualties.

Zelensky's government is not going to do this though, they're going to keep fighting Russia to the last or next to last Ukrainian. The endresult is going to be the same, Russia will win, the only issue here is where Ukraine will be at that point in terms of amount of bloodshed and territory lost.
Cal88
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Unit2Sucks said:

LOL at Putin88 continuing to blindly push Russian propaganda.

Sure sure, Ukraine has a tank operator problem and everything is just peachy keen with Russia.




And of course, Russian tanks have a design defect that leads to jack in the boxes.







You could put out a slick highlight real of Kansas first downs and their one TD pass and FG conversion in the first 2 1/2 quarters, and fool yourself that they are winning this game where they are down 21-10 in the middle of the 3rd qtr with a much thinner bench and all the momentum with Nebraska...

The relevant question here is, what does the scoreboard look like?
-what percentage of its tank fleet has Russia lost?
-what percentage of its tank fleet has Ukraine lost?

The answers are,
-for Russia, between 10% and 30%, the larger estimate being in all likelihood too optimistic.
-for Ukraine, close to 80%, with that count rising by the hour in the Kherson offensive.

And a follow up question: what percent of this military hardware are these two protagonists capable of rebuilding?
-Russia: 100%
-Ukraine: 0%

Ukraine could still acquire another 50-100 tanks from Poland, Bulgaria etc, but these countries' fleets have been shrinking as well, they don't want to cede their entire inventories.
Unit2Sucks
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Cal88 said:

Unit2Sucks said:

LOL at Putin88 continuing to blindly push Russian propaganda.

Sure sure, Ukraine has a tank operator problem and everything is just peachy keen with Russia.




And of course, Russian tanks have a design defect that leads to jack in the boxes.







You could put out a slick highlight real of Kansas first downs and their one TD pass and FG conversion in the first 2 1/2 quarters, and fool yourself that they are winning this game where they are down 21-10 in the middle of the 3rd qtr with a much thinner bench and all the momentum with Nebraska...

The relevant question here is, what does the scoreboard look like?
-what percentage of its tank fleet has Russia lost?
-what percentage of its tank fleet has Ukraine lost?

The answers are,
-for Russia, between 10% and 30%, the larger estimate being in all likelihood too optimistic.
-for Ukraine, close to 80%, with that count rising by the hour in the Kherson offensive.

And a follow up question: what percent of this military hardware are these two protagonists capable of rebuilding?
-Russia: 100%
-Ukraine: 0%

Ukraine could still acquire another 50-100 tanks from Poland, Bulgaria etc, but these countries' fleets have been shrinking as well, they don't want to cede their entire inventories.

Putin88 is so deep inside Kremlin propaganda he don't know which way is up. Kremlin Bob is closer to the truth than it should be.

He's previously cited bulgarianmilitary, so it must be a reputable source for him. They recently noted that Russia has lost 1,000 tanks (vs Ukraine's estimate of ~1,700) and they expounded on Russia's inability to replace or repair destroyed tanks, in part due to sanctions which Putin88 continues to pretend don't impact Russia.

Russia has likely lost far more tanks than the Kremlin claims, has destroyed fewer Ukrainian ones than it claims and has almost no ability to repair or replace it's lost hardware.

He loves making the comparison between Nebraska and Kansas. He thinks Russia is Tom Osborne's Nebraska, but it's probably worse than Scott Frost's, which is 15-30 the last few years and just lost to Northwestern. He is pretending that they have a deep bench of all-americans, but the truth is that they've lowered their walk-on standards and they're taking drunk fans from the stands and sending them out as drone fodder.

I just have to say it's quite entertaining to see Cal88 proven wrong again and again. Even he is starting to recognize how clueless his predictions have been so rather than his previously confident "in a few weeks" he's starting to use timelines like "not too distant future". He initially thought the war, sorry "special military operation" .. would be near instant, as Kremlin propaganda insisted it would be. After it became apparent that Ukraine would fight, he continued to make dumb bold claims (see here where he predicts the "liberation" of the Donbass within 2-4 weeks ... of April 15 lol) and now he's saying "perhaps sometime between late Fall and early Summer, it will become fairly clear to the general public". LOL, what a joke. A few days, became a few weeks, became a few months became a few years. Just like he is pretending that he was just off by a little bit when he predicted IN JULY 2020 that COVID would end a few weeks later. Now he says he was slightly off on timing but that it's essentially ended because it's less virulent, which both ignores that the main difference is that everyone has been vaccinated and/or infected and that we're still losing 3,000+ Americans per week to COVID.

So Putin88 - Don't quit your day job, which by the way you should probably get back to before promising to come back this weekend to provide us with more Kremlin propaganda. Still waiting for you to explain those fake charts you posted in the Moderna thread a few weeks ago.
sycasey
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Cal88 said:

The point I've been trying to drive here, is that for Ukraine, the time for stopping the war was yesterday. They have lost about one fifth of the country, but almost all of these territories are Russophones who are fairly hostile to the current Kiev government.
And we thank you for keeping us up to date on the Kremlin spin on recent events.

I agree, the time for stopping this war was yesterday. Hopefully Putin ends it ASAP.
Cal88
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Unit2Sucks said:


LOL, what a joke. A few days, became a few weeks, became a few months became a few years. Just like he is pretending that he was just off by a little bit when he predicted IN JULY 2020 that COVID would end a few weeks later. Now he says he was slightly off on timing but that it's essentially ended because it's less virulent, which both ignores that the main difference is that everyone has been vaccinated and/or infected and that we're still losing 3,000+ Americans per week to COVID.

I agree with you, the vaccines don't work. And yes, the virus is less virulent, and natural immunity for most people is better than the vaccines'. Always been the case with respiratory viruses.

Countries like Sweden and Denmark with a somewhat more sane and competent leadersip have lifted all covid mandates, but I guess in California and Blue Coastal City, USA, covid will last forever, so you'd better double mask while you're showering, and get a mRNA booster every 3 months, for the rest of your life, or else you're going to kill grandma.

And here's your latest relevant Moderna chart based on British data, published today, courtesy of a UCSF epidemologist/biostatitian:



You're welcome.


Back to the main topic, Oryx, who is the go to NATO outlet, and a somewhat biased one, like ISW, estimates 970 Russian tanks lost, about 30% of their inventory. The real number is probably closer to half that, hence my 10%-30% range estimate.

Blugarianmilitary.com, formerly your most mocked site, now officially a trusted source, claims Russia somehow can't build tanks anymore, because of red tape/lawsuits and lack of funds, in a country with a daily income from oil and gas sales alone of close to $1 billion. OK then.

As to the big picture with the war, time will tell who is right. The outcome of the Kherson Counter-Offensive, the largest scale Ukrainian offensive deployment in months, which started a couple of days ago, will be a good litmus test. We`ll see how it goes,
Cal88
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sycasey said:

Cal88 said:

The point I've been trying to drive here, is that for Ukraine, the time for stopping the war was yesterday. They have lost about one fifth of the country, but almost all of these territories are Russophones who are fairly hostile to the current Kiev government.
And we thank you for keeping us up to date on the Kremlin spin on recent events.

I agree, the time for stopping this war was yesterday. Hopefully Putin ends it ASAP.

Russia is not going to stop, they`re winning the war of attrition, and have the upper hand. The sanctions on Russia haven`t worked, they`ve backfired, and there are no more sactions left on NATO`s deck.

The only way this stops is for Ukraine/Zelensky to come to the negotiation table with territorial concessions. The longer he waits, the more concessions he will have to make, and the longer the carnage goes.


Cal88
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Slava Ukraina! Hail to the Heroes! (insert Ikea flag here)



Nice bunch of freedom fighters there.

Are you going to cheer for this one too, like the cheering for killing 29yo journalist Dugina last week?
Unit2Sucks
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Cal88 said:

Unit2Sucks said:


LOL, what a joke. A few days, became a few weeks, became a few months became a few years. Just like he is pretending that he was just off by a little bit when he predicted IN JULY 2020 that COVID would end a few weeks later. Now he says he was slightly off on timing but that it's essentially ended because it's less virulent, which both ignores that the main difference is that everyone has been vaccinated and/or infected and that we're still losing 3,000+ Americans per week to COVID.
I agree with you, the vaccines don't work. And yes, the virus is less virulent, and natural immunity for most people is better than the vaccines'. Always been the case with respiratory viruses.

Countries like Sweden and Denmark with a somewhat more sane and competent leadersip have lifted all covid mandates, but I guess in California and Blue Coastal City, USA, covid will last forever, so you'd better double mask while you're showering, and get a mRNA booster every 3 months, for the rest of your life, or else you're going to kill grandma.
Oh goody, Sweden. I believe Sweden's last case of COVID was just more than 2 years ago - right? Isn't that what you predicted in summer of 2020? And yet, Californians are dying in droves from the cursed COVID that our stupid policies can't kick.

Except, to no one's surprise once again you are laughably wrong. You are actually quite a reliable predictor of the opposite of reality.







NB for anyone checking the Y axis, CA is 4x as large as SE, which is the same size as MI. There are plenty of relevant differences between SE, MI and CA - wealth inequality, access to healthcare, overall population age and health - so no serious person would attribute all of the differences in outcomes to COVID policy alone - but it's foolish to pretend, as Putin88 has, that it's not meaningful.

Cal88 said:


Back to the main topic, Oryx, who is the go to NATO outlet, and a somewhat biased one, like ISW, estimates 970 Russian tanks lost, about 30% of their inventory. The real number is probably closer to half that, hence my 10%-30% range estimate.

Blugarianmilitary.com, formerly your most mocked site, now officially a trusted source, claims Russia somehow can't build tanks anymore, because of red tape/lawsuits and lack of funds, in a country with a daily income from oil and gas sales alone of close to $1 billion. OK then.

As to the big picture with the war, time will tell who is right. The outcome of the Kherson Counter-Offensive, the largest scale Ukrainian offensive deployment in months, which started a couple of days ago, will be a good litmus test. We`ll see how it goes,
Yes, yes, we all know that you take whatever Putin wants you to say and you layer some hyperbole on top of that. You are correct about one thing though - time will tell us who is right. And you have just about always been wrong and as of today everything you've said about this war continues to be wrong. Maybe some day that will change. Or maybe Putin will decide he can no longer afford to wage this stupid unprovoked war.

Either way we can count on you to dissemble Kremlin propaganda, cherry-pick sources and continue to attempt to gaslight us while entirely ignoring any possible criticism of Putin or Russia.

We know who you are and what you are doing here. So why do you still bother? At least Baghdad Bob was paid to do it for Saddam.
sycasey
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Cal88 said:

Russia is not going to stop, they`re winning the war of attrition, and have the upper hand. The sanctions on Russia haven`t worked, they`ve backfired, and there are no more sactions left on NATO`s deck.

The only way this stops is for Ukraine/Zelensky to come to the negotiation table with territorial concessions. The longer he waits, the more concessions he will have to make, and the longer the carnage goes.

Your enthusiasm for Russia's impending victory is noted.
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