The Official Russian Invasion of Ukraine Thread

878,971 Views | 9959 Replies | Last: 4 min ago by Cal88
Cal88
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The window for a winter attack is narrow, Russia will have to move in before mid-March. Chances are they will now try to stretch the front to exploit their numeric advantage, the opposite of what they did last Fall when they retreated from the Kherson and Kharkiv areas because their <200k forces were stretched very thin across a 1,200mi+ frontline.

Chances are they will attack on several fronts, east (in progress), north and south as well as maintain some pressure on Kiev to keep 100k+ Ukrainian soldiers pinned there, but they are less likely to sweep in big arrow maneuvers and expose their troops to ambushes and logistical failures, as happened last winter.

People are going to look at last Fall, period where Ukraine made large territorial gains, as a huge wasted opportunity for Ukraine to get a peace deal on relatively favorable terms, at a point where their losses were smaller, and where their negotiation position was the strongest since 2014.
movielover
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New HistoryLegends video, including reviewing an interview with a volunteer / Advisor from the Ukranian side (Australian?) HL breaks down the Advisors interview w maps and explanations.

Cal88
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^ Booth!
Unit2Sucks
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I've posted a few references to Wagner's tactical strategy recently. Here's another interesting discussion. There are too many to post so I just posted the first few to give the flavor.

The exec summary is that Wagner throws waves of men who are disposable (ex-convicts) and has developed a repeatable process to take positions. Because they don't care about their own men, this approach has worked for Wagner, even though it's generated heavy losses (as I've mentioned previously - the losses only matter to Prigozhin and Putin if they are running out of disposable victims to sign up and (barely) train.

At one point in the thread, he does mention that they manpower and shells are in shorter supply then before. They've also talked about importing Syrian fighters or other mercs but apparently they aren't a "fit" for this war.

Another reminder about all of the propaganda coming from the pro-Putin side is that when they talk about Russian casualties, in addition to obviously undercounting Russian military deaths, they likely aren't including Wagner's heavy losses at all. We should be very skeptical of anyone pretending to know what losses Russia has sustained at this point.






sycasey
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"Human wave" has been the Russian military strategy for generations.
Cal88
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sycasey said:

"Human wave" has been the Russian military strategy for generations.

You might want to look at the evidence I've posted above, in the form of an interview with an Australian officer who has been fighting Wagner in Bakhmut for months as part of the Ukrainian 24th Division (whose testimony completely contradicts your source and post above) rather than relying on cultural cliches and the posts of a "I stand with Ukraine" American blogger.
Big C
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Damn Rooskies!

Not that it has a chance of happening, but it would be "fun" (war-time fun) if, a few days before Russia's next "major offensive", another country decided to attack Russia on a different front and head straight for Moscow! Where's Napoleon when ya really need him? (Can't throw Hitler in there, too, because, you know... )
movielover
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According to "Russia lover", tank expert, and field commander Colonel Douglass McGregor, Poland is the only country in the EU with a decent military. Many only have a few weeks ammo on hand, and they're likely depleting that, sending it to Ukraine. We have 100k military in the EU, likely only 50k actual battle troops.

If anything, Belarus jumps in from the north to pin down 100k Ukrainian troops.

Ironic you don't suggest peace talks as it looks like Russia is going to bring down the hammer.

Even armchair General Lloyd Austin recently said Ukraine doesn't have much time left (not exact words) in urging donor countries to act quickly.

They seem to only want to delay the inevitable.
Unit2Sucks
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Big C said:


Damn Rooskies!

Not that it has a chance of happening, but it would be "fun" (war-time fun) if, a few days before Russia's next "major offensive", another country decided to attack Russia on a different front and head straight for Moscow! Where's Napoleon when ya really need him? (Can't throw Hitler in there, too, because, you know... )
China could take Moscow but the real question is why would they or anyone want to? China's got enough land and people to deal with without taking on a corrupy sh(thole kleptocracy and having to re-educate a bunch of people into communism. Russia, like the US, is safe from invasion which is part of the irony behind them holding all the world's nukes.

I also want to point out that the Swiss newspaper NZZ recently reported about an "offer" by the US to end the war which neither Putin nor Zelensky were interested in. If true, it would pretty much blow up all of the disingenuous arguments about the US and NATO being responsible for the continuation of this war. If true it would seem to confirm my position which is that Putin has zero interest in a negotiated outcome because his aims are entirely different from all of the claims made by the Kremlin and its propagandists and shills. Putin doesn't care one whit about Russian people, the suppression of their language and culture, woke Nazis or any of that other BS. He wants to erase Ukraine, full stop.


sycasey
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Unit2Sucks said:


I also want to point out that the Swiss newspaper NZZ recently reported about an "offer" by the US to end the war which neither Putin nor Zelensky were interested in. If true, it would pretty much blow up all of the disingenuous arguments about the US and NATO being responsible for the continuation of this war. If true it would seem to confirm my position which is that Putin has zero interest in a negotiated outcome because his aims are entirely different from all of the claims made by the Kremlin and its propagandists and shills. Putin doesn't care one whit about Russian people, the suppression of their language and culture, woke Nazis or any of that other BS. He wants to erase Ukraine, full stop.


Pretty much. The West didn't start and is not continuing this war. Russia doesn't want to stop invading and Ukraine doesn't want to give up any territory. All we can do is pick sides. For me the choice is easy.
movielover
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No, I believe the argument is that NATO and the US were the provocateurs for years.

You don't make an offer after talking smack for years, "weaken Russia", "take out Putin", install NATO, train 400k soldiers on their doorstep, etc. And Russia has cr-ploads of land and natural resources. They wanted security. You certainly don't go bomb the Nordstream 2 pipeline!

Why don't we have a negotiator, preferably fluent in Russian, on the ground for the past 2 years?

Our people also sound like a bunch of immature, short sighted, wanna bees playing video games.
bearister
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Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside
Cal88
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The premise here of Ukraine refusing the terms of a peace deal advanced by the US does not hold water. Ukraine has no say here, because they fully understand that if the US pulled the plug, Ukraine would fold in a matter of weeks. If this were really a serious deal advanced by the US, Ukraine would have been on board.

As well there is no doubt that Ukraine is currently run by hardline ideologues, who went as far as executing mafia-style a member of their own peace talks delegation to Istanbul because he was receptive to a deal with Russia. If the US wanted Ukraine to accept a land for peace deal, they would have started cleaning house within the Ukrainian leadership and put the right people in charge, the way they intervened several times since 2014 to staff Ukrainian top leadership.

Also this Swiss report allegedly came out shortly after both Ukraine and NATO signatories of Minsk II came out and outright boasted that they never had any intention of abiding by the terms of that peace settlement, clearly stating that it was just a stalling maneuver until they could build up Ukrainian forces. So Russia's confidence in NATO's good faith was completely shot at that point, this on top of the US/NATO having blown up the Nordstream pipes.

Still, Biden could stop this war with a phone call, declaring neutrality for Ukraine and starting by at least acknowledging Crimea as Russian. The window for this is pretty narrow, as once the Russian fully invest their half million soldier army into Ukraine, they're likely to keep going till they get Ukraine to surrender, barring a very unlikely Russian military defeat.
Unit2Sucks
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movielover said:

No, I believe the argument is that NATO and the US were the provocateurs for years.

You don't make an offer after talking smack for years, "weaken Russia", "take out Putin", install NATO, train 400k soldiers on their doorstep, etc. And Russia has cr-ploads of land and natural resources. They wanted security. You certainly don't go bomb the Nordstream 2 pipeline!

Why don't we have a negotiator, preferably fluent in Russian, on the ground for the past 2 years?

Our people also sound like a bunch of immature, short sighted, wanna bees playing video games.
Why don't you do everyone a favor and either get your story straight or stop posting? Even within the last 2 pages you've posted a number of contradictory statements, let alone the last 6 months.

You are an example of the "success" of the Russian firehose of falsehood propaganda that I outlined a few days ago. You flood the zone with absolute BS positions generated by a variety of sources all of which seem to have originated with Kremlin propaganda. You recently claimed that we should have been negotiating 6 months ago for a peace, now you say that it's too late because we have been "talking smack" for years and should have been negotiating for 2 years. Oh and WEF/NATO/US/UNIPARTY/BORIS JOHNSON/WOKE NAZIS.

Everyone can see that you have no idea what you are talking about. You parrot positions offered by anti-semite Mcgregor (while pretending you care about anti-semitism in Ukraine while ignoring anti-semitism in Russia) and you have yet to acknowledge any culpability on the part of the actual aggressor in the war.

Everyone would be much better off if you and Putin88 took your love for Russia's war efforts into DMs and left this thread to people who are interested in engaging in good faith about this war.
blungld
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sycasey said:

"Human wave" has been the Russian military strategy for generations.
It takes thousands and thousands of dead forced-to-fight Russian men to end that terrible terrible scourge of NATO at the border and those racist Ukrainians and make Ukraine as egalitarian, fair, democratic, non-corrupt, and un-racist as Russia.
Cal88
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Unit2Sucks said:

movielover said:

No, I believe the argument is that NATO and the US were the provocateurs for years.

You don't make an offer after talking smack for years, "weaken Russia", "take out Putin", install NATO, train 400k soldiers on their doorstep, etc. And Russia has cr-ploads of land and natural resources. They wanted security. You certainly don't go bomb the Nordstream 2 pipeline!

Why don't we have a negotiator, preferably fluent in Russian, on the ground for the past 2 years?

Our people also sound like a bunch of immature, short sighted, wanna bees playing video games.
Why don't you do everyone a favor and either get your story straight or stop posting? Even within the last 2 pages you've posted a number of contradictory statements, let alone the last 6 months.

You are an example of the "success" of the Russian firehose of falsehood propaganda that I outlined a few days ago. You flood the zone with absolute BS positions generated by a variety of sources all of which seem to have originated with Kremlin propaganda. You recently claimed that we should have been negotiating 6 months ago for a peace, now you say that it's too late because we have been "talking smack" for years and should have been negotiating for 2 years. Oh and WEF/NATO/US/UNIPARTY/BORIS JOHNSON/WOKE NAZIS.

Everyone can see that you have no idea what you are talking about. You parrot positions offered by anti-semite Mcgregor (while pretending you care about anti-semitism in Ukraine while ignoring anti-semitism in Russia) and you have yet to acknowledge any culpability on the part of the actual aggressor in the war.

You're just chafed because your arguments and supporting material don't withstand serious scrutiny, like the story of Wagner human waves that turns out to be pure folklore and is completely discredited by the informed, candid first-hand testimony of the Australian officer from the AFU's 24th Mechanized Brigade posted above.

Quote:

You parrot positions offered by anti-semite Mcgregor (while pretending you care about anti-semitism in Ukraine while ignoring anti-semitism in Russia)
Can you name an avenue, a public square, a large monument in Moscow, St Petersburg or Rostov that is dedicated to the glory of top SS leaders? Because I can literally name hundreds of these in central and western Ukraine...



A sample of media offerings from before the war on Ukraine's nazi problem:


Quote:

Everyone would be much better off if you and Putin88 took your love for Russia's war efforts into DMs and left this thread to people who are interested in engaging in good faith about this war.

If you don't want to play, you can take your ball and go home, rather than trying to shut down the debate and calling for censorship, which is a pretty bad look for you.
movielover
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Unit2Sucks said:

movielover said:

No, I believe the argument is that NATO and the US were the provocateurs for years.

You don't make an offer after talking smack for years, "weaken Russia", "take out Putin", install NATO, train 400k soldiers on their doorstep, etc. And Russia has cr-ploads of land and natural resources. They wanted security. You certainly don't go bomb the Nordstream 2 pipeline!

Why don't we have a negotiator, preferably fluent in Russian, on the ground for the past 2 years?

Our people also sound like a bunch of immature, short sighted, wanna bees playing video games.


I'll try to filter through your word salad, whining, and ad hominem attacks to actual attempted discussion points.

Why don't you do everyone a favor and either get your story straight or stop posting? Even within the last 2 pages you've posted a number of contradictory statements, let alone the last 6 months.

Please list three.

You are an example of the "success" of the Russian firehose of falsehood propaganda that I outlined a few days ago. You flood the zone with absolute BS positions generated by a variety of sources all of which seem to have originated with Kremlin propaganda. ** You recently claimed that we should have been negotiating 6 months ago for a peace, now you say that it's too late because we have been "talking smack" for years and should have been negotiating for 2 years.**

Reading comprehension problem. I stand by my statement. Step 1 is to establish a relationship and TRUST. Without trust, you're going nowhere. Building a LTR takes time. Step 2 is negotiating. So yes, we should have been working on a relationship for years. As Scott Ritter says, negotiating is just like working out, you have to work the muscles. Maybe Putin doesn't even invade if we are working well together. There is nothing contradictory here.

Oh and WEF/NATO/US/UNIPARTY/BORIS JOHNSON/WOKE NAZIS.

Yes, peace talks were scheduled in Istanbul with Zelensky, and Boris Johnson (USA / NATO) quashed them.

Everyone can see that you have no idea what you are talking about. You parrot positions offered by anti-semite Mcgregor (while pretending you care about anti-semitism in Ukraine while ignoring anti-semitism in Russia) and you have yet to acknowledge any culpability on the part of the actual aggressor in the war.

Why do we even have NATO, since the USSR crumbled? So NATO officials can collect phat paychecks, have us pay for the EUs defense, and NATO officials can frequent European brothels?

Our top people all knew NATO in Ukraine was a red line.We're not dealing with a nation of tribesman living in caves.


Everyone would be much better off if you and Putin88 took your love for Russia's war efforts ...


The timing of this alleged peace offer happens right around the time former President Trump has again called for peace talks. Coincidental?

Tangentially, do-gooder and peace advocate Jimmy Carter hasn't asked for peace talks. Neither has ever-present drone-addict Barack Obama. Or Bubba and Hillary Clinton.

P.S. Russia allegedly helps give China stability. And Colonel McGregor criticisms of rootless cosmopolitans apparently hurt your feelings. FTR, he has praised Israel for their start-from-scratch approach on a completely new tank design. I believe he has also lectured in Israel.
Unit2Sucks
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movielover said:




The timing of this alleged peace offer happens right around the time former President Trump has again called for peace talks. Coincidental?

Tangentially, do-gooder and peace advocate Jimmy Carter hasn't asked for peace talks. Neither has ever-present drone-addict Barack Obama. Or Bubba and Hillary Clinton.

Yet another contradiction. You agree with the calls for peace talks when Trump suggests it, but think it's pointless for Biden to have made an attempt. Sorry Biden (WEF / NATO / BORIS JOHNSON / WOKE NAZIS).

As for your last statement, former presidents with taste, tact and understand of global affairs know better than to make public statements without coordination with the White House. Your buddy Trump is, as his chief of staff Kelly put it, "far dumber and immoral and ignorant and lazy than he ever thought he was" so it's no surprise that he's polluting the conversation with his uninformed BS. The irony behind him stealing classified materials including NDI is that he was too dumb and lazy to bother to read or be able to comprehend them while president. But keep pretending that he's something he's not.

If you and Putin88 don't feel like DMing each other, maybe you can start a pro-Putin or anti-US thread to discuss your opinions on Putin's attempt to erase Ukraine's sovereignty. That way the rest of us can discuss the invasion in good faith without pollution from state media and shills.
movielover
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Our 'dumb' President who produced:

- low inflation, peace, prosperity
- cheap and plentiful energy
- 5 Mideast Peace deals
- USMCA trade deal in record time
- record-low unemployment for African Americans, Latinos, Asians, women, along with real blue collar wage growth
- peace talks with North Korea
- no proxy war with Russia!

P.S. Lazy? Biden's the first candidate to campaign from his basement.
movielover
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NPR: "Biden says of Putin: 'For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power' "

March 26, 2022

Then his handlers 'walked back' his idiotic comment.

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/26/1089014039/biden-says-of-putin-for-gods-sake-this-man-cannot-remain-in-power

CNN: Austin's assertion that US wants to 'weaken' Russia underlines Biden strategy shift

April 26, 2022

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/biden-administration-russia-strategy/index.html

The New Republic: Lloyd Austin Raised the Stakes in Ukraine in a Risky Way

April 28, 2022

The Pentagon chief's statement suggests a willingness to see the war prolonged. Which just means more unpredictable things could happen.

https://newrepublic.com/article/166232/lloyd-austin-ukraine-raised-stakes

Big C
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Unit2Sucks said:

Big C said:


Damn Rooskies!

Not that it has a chance of happening, but it would be "fun" (war-time fun) if, a few days before Russia's next "major offensive", another country decided to attack Russia on a different front and head straight for Moscow! Where's Napoleon when ya really need him? (Can't throw Hitler in there, too, because, you know... )
China could take Moscow but the real question is why would they or anyone want to? China's got enough land and people to deal with without taking on a corrupy sh(thole kleptocracy and having to re-educate a bunch of people into communism. Russia, like the US, is safe from invasion which is part of the irony behind them holding all the world's nukes.

I also want to point out that the Swiss newspaper NZZ recently reported about an "offer" by the US to end the war which neither Putin nor Zelensky were interested in. If true, it would pretty much blow up all of the disingenuous arguments about the US and NATO being responsible for the continuation of this war. If true it would seem to confirm my position which is that Putin has zero interest in a negotiated outcome because his aims are entirely different from all of the claims made by the Kremlin and its propagandists and shills. Putin doesn't care one whit about Russian people, the suppression of their language and culture, woke Nazis or any of that other BS. He wants to erase Ukraine, full stop.




Why would anyone else want to attack Russia? Well, yeah, that's the problem (which is why I wrote that it doesn't have a chance of happening). It just pisses me off that Putin gets to be on the attack all the time, without really having to worry about defending his own country.

Well, if Russia ends up "winning" a sizeable portion of Ukraine, then they will have to defend it... and good luck doing that, which is one of the reasons this war is so damn senseless. Vlad, what the heck?!? The era of the Czars is over, as is the USSR: What in the world are you trying to do? (Don't answer.)
movielover
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Victoria Nuland and Barack Obama

Fair Observer: "...After the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country and Yatsenyuk struggled to lead a new government, an anti-Russian billionaire, Petro Poroshenko, won the presidency in September 2014. He immediately appealed to the Obama administration for military assistance to counter Russia, but President Obama kept him at bay, reasoning that "Ukraine is a core interest for Moscow, in a way that it is not for the United States." "

"In other words, not only did the CIA work to overthrow the elected president, Yanukovych, but Nuland managed to manipulate Ukrainian politics from within and thus contribute to what was to evolve into a notoriously corrupt regime under Poroshenko. At the same time, her commander-in-chief, Barack Obama, chose to limit the US involvement in Ukraine by defining a prudent arm's length relationship with the fiasco that was unfolding, even after Russia seized Crimea from the Ukrainians."

https://www.fairobserver.com/region/north_america/peter-isackson-victoria-nuland-ukraine-war-russia-vladimir-putin-united-states-us-americcan-politics-news-89201/
Cal88
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Big C said:





Why would anyone else want to attack Russia? Well, yeah, that's the problem (which is why I wrote that it doesn't have a chance of happening). It just pisses me off that Putin gets to be on the attack all the time, without really having to worry about defending his own country.

Well, if Russia ends up "winning" a sizeable portion of Ukraine, then they will have to defend it... and good luck doing that, which is one of the reasons this war is so damn senseless. Vlad, what the heck?!? The era of the Czars is over, as is the USSR: What in the world are you trying to do? (Don't answer.)

Russia is the richest country in the world in natural resources, by a wide margin.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets-economy/090516/10-countries-most-natural-resources.asp

When the USSR dissolved, it was a free for all, international bankers and local oligarchs fed on Russia's carcass and nearly half the country was left in a state of abject poverty, probably the most extreme instance of a failed state in postwar Europe. Tens of millions starved, became alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, gangsters etc. All of this was made possible through the installation of Boris Yeltsin at the helm, through the intervention of the US foreign policy apparatus.

There are a lot of people in high places in the US, UK, Wall Street and other places who dearly miss the Yeltsin years and would like to revive the 90s, but now with the goal of literally tearing up Russia into several pieces, along the lines of Balkan banana republics like Kosovo or North Macedonia, so it never rises again.

Their goals for Russia are the same as those for Haiti, Honduras or your average third world country that is under globalist debt, with the difference that Russia is a much bigger play, a natural superpower, much like the US, China or India, a very large country with a lot of history and culture, a country whose potential was constantly cut down by communism (1917-1990), followed by a dark decade of neoliberal dystopia. It is just starting to rise again, and that's a problem for those who follow the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which has dominated US foreign policy since GWB's election.
Unit2Sucks
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sycasey said:

"Human wave" has been the Russian military strategy for generations.
True. The NYT had an article about this today. Here is a link to a non-paywall version.

The article corroborates a lot of what we have been saying and will be dismissed by the pro-Putin propagandists because it doesn't glorify their beloved Putin. The actual casualty numbers are less important than the strategy employed. Since the Kremlin values its fighters at close to zero (it has very little training invested in them and barely equips them) they benefit from a high casualty war. It's like a Sonny Dykes defense if Sonny were allowed to run extra offensive series. Putin is more than happy to rack up Pyrrhic victories and kill civilians because he only pretends to be a liberator and his real aim is to raze Ukraine and eliminate them as a people and culture. His twin goals are to eliminate Ukraine's sovereignty and to line his pockets and neither require him to reduce the death and destruction his war is generating.

Quote:


WASHINGTON The number of Russian troops killed and wounded in Ukraine is approaching 200,000, a stark symbol of how badly Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion has gone, according to U.S. and other Western officials.

While the officials caution that casualties are notoriously difficult to estimate, particularly because Russia is believed to routinely undercount its war dead and injured, they say the slaughter from fighting in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and the town of Soledar has ballooned what was already a heavy toll.

Russia analysts say that the loss of life is unlikely to be a deterrent to Putin's war aims. He has no political opposition at home and has framed the war as the kind of struggle the country faced in World War II, when more than 8 million Soviet troops died. U.S. officials have said that they believe that Putin can sustain hundreds of thousands of casualties in Ukraine, although higher numbers could cut into his political support.

Senior U.S. officials said this week that they believe the number for Russia is closer to 200,000. That toll, in just 11 months, is eight times higher than American casualties in two decades of war in Afghanistan.

The figures for Ukraine and Russia are estimates based on satellite imagery, communication intercepts, social media and on-the-ground media reports, as well as official reporting from both governments. Establishing precise numbers is extremely difficult, and estimates vary, even within the U.S. government.

"In this particular area, the Russians have employed around 40,000 to 50,000 inmates or prisoners," Salm said. "They are going up against regular soldiers, people with families, people with regular training, valuable people for the Ukrainian military.

"So the exchange rate is unfair. It's not one to one because for Russia, inmates are expendable. From an operational perspective, this is a very unfair deal for the Ukrainians and a clever tactical move from the Russian side."

Moscow has thrown people it sees as expendable into battles for decades, if not centuries. During World War II, Josef Stalin sent close to 1 million prisoners to the front. Boris Sokolov, a Russia historian, describes in a piece called "Gulag Reserves" in the Russian opposition magazine Grani.ru that an additional 1 million "special settlers" deportees and others viewed by the Soviet government as second-class citizens were also forced to fight during World War II.

"In essence, it does not matter how big the Russian losses are, since their overall human resource is much greater than Ukraine's," Salm said in a follow-up email. "In Russia the life of a soldier is worth nothing. A dead soldier, on the other hand, is a hero, regardless of how he died. All lost soldiers can be replaced, and the number of losses will not shift the public opinion against the war."

Unit2Sucks
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George Packer shows how fake Putin's attempt to pretend like he's the victim of Western aggression. Unlike in WWII, Russia is the aggressor and the parallels with Hitler's moves are obvious.

He also briefly mentions how Putin celebrates Stalin, a terrible mass murderer, but neglects to mention the Russian propaganda criticizing the Ukrainians who celebrate Bandera. Obviously there are shades of conservatives in the US who still idolize Robert E. Lee and even still fight against the removal of Nathan Bedford Forrest statues.

The below is the core of the article and highlights just how foundational Putin's lie is.

Quote:

Putin's purpose in going to Stalingrad was to connect the past war to the present one, and in doing so to rouse Russian pride and warn his enemies of their coming doom. "Unfortunately, we see that the ideology of Nazism in its modern form and manifestation again directly threatens the security of our country," he declared in a speech to a military audience. "Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective West. It's incredible but it's a fact: We are again being threatened with German Leopard tanks with crosses on them."

To grasp the enormity of this liethe foundational lie of Russia's war against Ukraineit helps to know something about the history of World War II. During Putin's visit to Stalingrad, I was rereading the classic Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer, a CBS radio correspondent who had been based in Berlin in the 1930s. So it was fresh in my mind how Adolf Hitler, in his first move of conquest, annexed Austria in March 1938, claiming it as a historical part of the German Reich, and then held a plebiscite in which 99.75 percent of Austrians officially voted to join Germany. Putin's first move in this war was to annex Crimea in March 2014, claiming it as a historical part of the Russian Empire, and then hold a plebiscite in which 97 percent of Crimeans officially voted to join Russia.


Next for Hitler in 1938 came the annexation of the Sudetenland, the German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia, where local Nazis, on orders from Berlin, instigated phony pretexts for a German takeover. Relentless Nazi propaganda transformed Czechoslovakia, a progressive democracy, into a hellish aggressor, and charged its president, Edvard Benes, with a litany of made-up crimes. "It is unbearable for a world power to know there are racial comrades at its side who are constantly being afflicted with the severest suffering for their sympathy or unity with the whole nation, its destiny and Weltanschauung," the Fuhrer roared. "To the interests of the German Reich belong the protection of those German peoples who are not in a position to secure along our frontiers their political and spiritual freedom by their own efforts."

It isn't all that hard to replace the German Weltanschauung with Ruskiy Mir, or "Russian world"; Hitler the protector of oppressed German speakers with Putin the liberator of oppressed Russian speakers; Edvard Benes with Volodymyr Zelensky; the Sudetenland with the Donbas; Berlin-backed Sudeten Nazis with Moscow-backed Ukrainian separatists. In both cases, incidents in the breakaway regions were ginned up on orders from the neighboring empire, giving it an excuse to invade. In the Reich Chancellery then, as in the Kremlin now, every gesture toward peace negotiations was a sham to buy more time for war. Within six months of the September 1938 Munich Conference where the Sudetenland was surrendered to Germany, Hitler swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakiaand he was just beginning. Eight years after starting a war in Crimea and the Donbas, Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, bringing destruction, murder, rape, occupation, annexation, deportation, threats of annihilation, and many more lies.

History doesn't repeat itself; it rarely even rhymes. Putin's claim that Russia is reliving the defense of Stalingrad shows how misleading and pernicious analogies can be. It's generally wise to resist themthis one above all, for Hitler truly was unique. But as I made my way through Shirer's 1,100-page book, resisting the analogies required much more effort than drawing them.

Putin raises the Nazi ghost as a way not just to discredit his enemies with a false charge, but to immunize himself from having a far more plausible charge flung at him. This is propaganda as projectiona common technique of demagogues. Hitler accused the Czechs and Poles of aggression against Germany as he prepared to invade; Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden of corrupting American justice as he turned the executive branch into an instrument of his personal interests. "No puppet!" Trump retorted in a debate after Clinton suggested how Putin regarded him. "You're the puppet!"

movielover
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Brief points from 'propagandist' Scott Ritter:

- a Harvard professor at Davos said sanctions against Russia were about regime change
- NATO, US, EU don't care about Ukraine
- Ukraine won't exist after this, and Russia has solved a host of problems - bigger military, systems improved, etc.
- RAND Corporation wrote a story in 2019 asserting a war w Ukraine would weaken Russia; RAND just flip flopped - said get out
- Russia has the best air defense system in the world (to protect Moscow from NATO), extensive, integrated...
- Ukraine has lost over 300,000 men; its tragic; media narrative changing

https://www.youtube.com/live/qA7SoH-QmDA?feature=share


Update: Zelensky now says Russia massing 500,000 troops for their offensive
Cal88
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Unit2Sucks said:

George Packer shows how fake Putin's attempt to pretend like he's the victim of Western aggression. Unlike in WWII, Russia is the aggressor and the parallels with Hitler's moves are obvious.

He also briefly mentions how Putin celebrates Stalin, a terrible mass murderer, but neglects to mention the Russian propaganda criticizing the Ukrainians who celebrate Bandera. Obviously there are shades of conservatives in the US who still idolize Robert E. Lee and even still fight against the removal of Nathan Bedford Forrest statues.

The below is the core of the article and highlights just how foundational Putin's lie is.



From Wikipedia:

Quote:

George Packer (born August 13, 1960) is a US journalist, novelist, and playwright.

You like to be told stories by novelists-playwrights, take their happy stories as stone-cold facts, but will pretend that an Australian officier who has been fighting within the Ukrainian armed forces on the front for months is Kremlin propaganda.

Sooner or later, reality is going to catch up with your fantasy world. Deep down I think you know that.
movielover
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movielover
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British correspondent Johnny Miller currently in the Donbas claims that Ukraine has been inflicting ethnic cleansing since 2018. Because of this, the area has shifted from majority Russian to the vast majority being Russian.

(During the interview he talks about Russian troops losses, not "propoganda"?)

https://fb.watch/iuqqqWB-0K/?mibextid=NnVzG8
movielover
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Unit2Sucks
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Scott Ritter isn't just a propagandist, he's a convicted felony repeat sex offender pedophile who is rumored to have been compromised by Russian intelligence.

He's also authored some absurd takes on Russia/Ukraine that have been laughably wrong including claiming that Russia wouldn't invade and then claiming they would win in less than a week.

So why would you trust the word of a Russia biased convicted pedophile who had proven himself over and over to be wrong? Oh right, because you are happy to amplify any pro-Russia take that you find regardless of trustworthiness because it suits your agenda.





movielover
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Interesting how the MSM has swung bigly in the direction of Colonel McGregor and Ritter the past week. Just a week ago they were all parroting 'a spring offensive' (one example), which may have launched the past week. We went from "Russia is running low on shells" to Russia may have 500,000 men mobilized (Zelensky).

Yes, Ritter spanked his pud in an over-18 chat room. Interesting that he was targeted.

Ritter claims only Poland has a decent, trained, equipped military.

Daily Mail, Feb 3, 2023: "Britain would run out of ammo in a day if it fought Russia: Top former General says years of cuts have left military's stores bare - as Ben Wallace warns UK's forces have been 'hollowed out' "

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11708161/Britain-run-ammo-day-fought-Russia-Cuts-left-militarys-stores-bare.html

He has said Russia won't go into NATO countries.
golden sloth
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golden sloth
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movielover said:

Interesting how the MSM has swung bigly in the direction of Colonel McGregor and Ritter the past week. Just a week ago they were all parroting 'a spring offensive' (one example), which may have launched the past week. We went from "Russia is running low on shells" to Russia may have 500,000 men mobilized (Zelensky).

Yes, Ritter spanked his pud in an over-18 chat room. Interesting that he was targeted.

Ritter claims only Poland has a decent, trained, equipped military.

Daily Mail, Feb 3, 2023: "Britain would run out of ammo in a day if it fought Russia: Top former General says years of cuts have left military's stores bare - as Ben Wallace warns UK's forces have been 'hollowed out' "

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11708161/Britain-run-ammo-day-fought-Russia-Cuts-left-militarys-stores-bare.html

He has said Russia won't go into NATO countries.


Because I love british panel shows, I'll just drop this here. You have to wait for their commentary on the daily mail. Also, note this was from 7 years ago and about 3 Jimmy Carr plastic surgeries.

Unit2Sucks
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movielover said:


Yes, Ritter spanked his pud in an over-18 chat room. Interesting that he was targeted.



Interesting that you choose to lie to defend a convicted repeat pedophile groomer.

It wasn't so long ago you still pretended to care about groomers. What else are you only pretending to care about? Do you ever wonder how you got here?
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