War in Ukraine

Russian progress in Bakhmut since August ...

 

Quotes from Ukrainian troops themselves give lie to the notion of equivalent Russian losses, let alone greater Russian losses ...

"(The Russians) keep firing at us, but we don't have artillery – so we have nothing to attack them back with," Volodymyr said. "I don't know if I will return or not. We are just getting killed."

Battle of Bakhmut: Ukrainian soldiers worry Russians begin to ‘taste victory’

 

Demonstrates that the strategy of sacrificing large numbers of poorly trained troops as cannon fodder can have a successful end result.

 

Never-ending human waves trope. Anything to avoid the revelation that Ukraine is dying and the proxy war is lost.

 

Did you read the article? It doesn’t reach the conclusion you lead with. It does show how horrible this war Putin started is.

 

Context-free Bad Man Putin conditioning.

 

Typically substantive response from DD.

 

I predicted, awhile back, that as grim reality became increasingly apparent, that the tenor here would shift from “Ha-Ha! Putin’s losing!” to just basically Putin Bad Man (without regards to context).

 

GOP Group Puts Tucker Carlson's Putin Love Affair On Full Display In New Video

 

Great video they put together. Thanks.

 

Russian army to be replenished with 400,000 new contract service personnel

We'll, let's see how this plays out

 

did you notice they are also having to recruit people to go into the newly annexed areas to try and run any sort of gubmnt as most of the "collaborators" that were doing the jobs have split for Russia or Crimea as attacks on them have increased and they have no confidence in Russia holding the line

It was also reported that 10,000 people should be recruited for professional service in Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk oblasts of the Russian Federation, and 9,000 more in the Perm Krai.

Russian occupation authorities prepare to flee from Kherson Oblast General Staff (yahoo.com)

In the settlements of Oleshky and Skadovsk, Kherson Oblast, the Russian occupation so-called ‘authorities’ are preparing to flee to the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Local collaborators have been detected leaving for the cities of Bakhchysarai, Simferopol and Kerch since 21 February, and the occupiers announced a so-called ‘evacuation’ for anyone interested from 24 February."

Details: The Russians used military lorries to transport the collaborators and allowed them to take hand luggage only.

 

Yes, at half the price.

 

Graham is the worst of the worst. Biden is bad enough. But Graham could literally get us all killed.

 

On the matter of the drone downing, I’m surprised that Putin has been this patient. The US is an active combatant insofar as providing intel, to Ukraine, so it can kill Russian soldiers. In this regard it doesn’t matter where the drone was. Never mind drones, I’m surprised that Putin hasn’t taken out some satellites. Hey, maybe he’s not the unhinged madman as he is so caricatured.

 

In all seriousness, this was a purposeful push by Russia to see what they can get away with going forward.
I have been thinking through responses today and they all either look meek or push the danger line up. Which is probably why we stayed quiet.
But my first thought was:
“This was an unmanned drone operating in international waters, in compliance with international law. Russia’s brazen destruction of it was unacceptable.”

it’s the next sentence I can’t get right, because you have to say what will happen if they do it again, otherwise it’s meaningless.
My first thought was “any future attacks on Legal US activities will be seen as an attack on US sovereignty”. But clearly that throws things up a notch.

and yes part of my job is writing copy, so things like this always interest me .

 

They have buzzed our manned aircraft in the past. Had they downed a manned aircraft this time, this would be an entirely different conversation.

 

D’uh! That’s why the US sends unmanned drones. It dare not risk the prospect of an F-35 going down in flames. Those things are damned expensive.