Unit2Sucks said:
sycasey said:
The Russia stans have to keep talking about Bakhmut because it's the closest thing to a win they have had in months (though as of now, still not exactly a win).
Russia and its proponents count lots of losses as wins because there is a fundamental asymmetry at play. Russia's aim is to inflict damage on Ukraine and that's exactly what they've done with Bakhmut. If their aim was to minimize Russian losses or make advancements or other typical goals that militaries with strategy and competent command and control structures have, Bakhmut, like just about every other offensive element in the past 12 months, has been a massive disaster. Russia has expended wave after wave of soldiers and Wagner mercs with virtually no strategic benefit apart from the killing of UFA forces, which by most non-Kremlin accounts appears to be in UFA's favor. Of course from Russia's perspective, their own losses don't count. The world sees 3 to 1 or better in UFA's favor and Russia calls that a win because the 3 don't count.
You're now speaking for "the world"? That's a bit presumptuous, to say the least.
You're only flipping the narrative here.
Bakhmut was surrounded on 3 sides, with reinforcement roads being under fire, and the Russians using far more firepower to flatten Ukrainian positions from higher positions surrounding the city. They also attacked mostly at night, because most Ukrainians troops didn't have night vision equipment. The Wagner MO was to concentrate forces and focus on a small area up to 10 to 1, overwhelm frontline defenses then keep pushing on before Ukraine consolidates the next line of defense. This explains the long pattern of small and steady Russian advances into Bakhmut.
Quote:
And since this thread has long devolved into useful idiots sharing propaganda and conspiracy theories, here's one on the Tatarsky bombing that would support this being a typical liquidation of a political enemy by the Kremlin. Similar theories abound for that girl who was carbombed last year under similar circumstances. None of this fits within Ukraine's MO and there is no risk reward to justify it, so I'm extremely skeptical of any claims about Ukraine's involvement.
That's ridiculous, if the Russian officials didn't like Tatarsky or wanted him to stop, they would have just told him so, or had him arrested, as opposed to bombing a St Petersburg restaurant. This is even more stupid than believing that the Russians bombed their own pipelines.
"That girl who got carbombed"
was on an official Ukrainian kill list, and when she was killed, her file was gleefully marked "liquidated". The Russian authorities had no reasons to kill her, she was a well-spoken polyglot, and a very good representative of Russia.
This is on the level of your tales of Putin having poisoned Kadyrov, and Kadyrov escaping to Dubai. It's low-grade James Bond villain-level propaganda for the dumbest elements among the NATO warmongers.