Putin's War With Ukraine (and democracy, freedom, self-determination, etc.)

A good take from a gamer. Worth the time IMO.

 

I haven't watched that, just took a quick look just now.

Heard somewhere else, the other day, that the Russians are getting lost because they don't have gps.

What? No gps? Everybody has gps these days. They don't have Google Maps? IN CRED EEE BULL.

Not that I am complaining. I hope they do get lost.

 

Pivoting
https://www.axios.com/russia-donbas-kyiv-military-briefing-20db3a5c-8db5-44b3-b6d2-0a094fb7a49b.html

 

We should not even be considering lifting economic sanctions if he thinks he is going to just keep Donbas.

Then there is the matter of reparations and possible war crimes.

 

I suspect they're not going anywhere for a long while.

About as much chance of that as Bush Jr. getting tried for stuff during the Iraq War.

 

I hope we drive a hard bargain. It will be interesting to see what is asked of the West when a ceasefire is reached. We are ostensibly not party to those negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, but I'm pretty sure we still really are.

Of course he would never stand trial anyway. That would just be for posterity.

 

Saw the headline today Ukraine had attacked a fuel depot on Russian territory. Ukraine seems to be denying it now, could be standard denial, could be a false flag too, but props to them if it is real.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-war-april1-2022-1.6404889

 

Btw, I really like Funker530.com for various war videos with analysis by ex military guys with combat experience.
This one from today is pretty cool. They have a lot of funny analysis of every propaganda video dropped by what they call “the Chechen TikTok brigade.

https://funker530.com/video/the-real-ghost-of-kyiv-is-dropping-tiktoks-and-my-panties/

 

If it was real, they damn well should be denying it. They tip over an empty vodka bottle in Russia and Putin can declare they're a national threat and things can get a lot worse.

 

I forget the exact words... "Use of nuclear weapons if the existence of the state is threatened."

It is not hard to make a paranoid leader believe that his state is threatened. Part of Putin's current reasoning is fighting "the west" for dissing Russia since forever.

I don't think he's wrong about that. Nor do I think it justifies what he is now doing. And I'm shit scared of what he may yet feel justified in doing. Nobody loves me: nuke the lot of them!

 

Hasn't he done that already? I though that was the entire pretense for his invasion. I'm heartened to see the Ukrainians fighting back effectively, no matter how badly it hurts Putin's feelings.

 

Right, that's the lie he told. It stops being a lie if Ukraine actually attacks inside Russia.

 

This is starting to feel like Finland 1939. I fear for the next country Putin decides to invade. The Russians will have learned some lessons.

 

Since when does that happen? lol

 

Another lie he is telling his people is that there is no war. Except there is an actual war, and both sides are expected to attack each other, that is how war works. Ukraine can not be expected to fight with some sort of deference to respecting Putin's lies. It is way past that now.

 

How is he going to afford another invasion? There's no way they can keep replacing the hardware and munitions they are burning through. Frankly, I think it will be a miracle if they can avoid defaulting on sovereign debt payments in the coming weeks.

 

It's the difference between war of liberation vs. counter-invasion. If there's real evidence that Ukraine is invading Russia this allows Putin doctrinal use of tactical nuclear weapons. I'd prefer there was no evidence of this.

It helps they have a lot of hardware and munitions to burn through. @purr1n is better at guesstimates but my assumption is Russia still has plenty of latent capacity and the pullback is simply to re-arm and launch a troop surge.

 

Counter invasion would be Ukrainian troops taking and holding Russian territory. I don't think attacking Russian supply lines qualifies. Putin may believe otherwise, but it would still be untrue, like everything he believes.

 

Yes. Slippery slope, at least for Putin's thinking.

 

Strategically, you could read the Western allied response to all of this as intended to make very sure Russia is not capable of doing this by the time they're done in Ukraine, at relatively little cost to themselves. All the export controls and sanctions aren't really capable of doing much about Ukraine, but they can do a lot to cripple their ability to ready for anything else.

This may or may not be a generous read. Sure, they're all acting like they aren't -really- worried about Russia actually being able to conquer Ukraine, and the current conditions on the ground bear that out. We pretty much know that a month ago they would have guessed the opposite, though...