But what is the point? If Ukraine was going to fall quickly as most presumed, what is the appropriate course? We provided intelligence to tell them it was coming and offered to evacuate a government in exile, but what is the other path if you assume (wrongly) that it is a fait accompli? With respect, not sure I understand your critique. If you want to go to the critique that the Obama Administration did not sufficiently prioritize Russia as a threat, fair enough. The emphasis was on extricating from the Middle East and pivoting to Asia. In retrospect, the Russian threat was larger than appreciated, but China and the ME were understandable paramount priorities. And it's not like nothing was done under 44 to contain Russia - that is the so called provocation - tripwire troops in the Baltics, supporting color revolutions such that VP got paranoid. And that "error in judgment", such as it is, is arguably less significant than Condi Rice telling Clinton Officials that non-state terrorism was no higher than No. 6 on NatSec concerns. It happens. And white supremacy and global warming are very real threats.
Even more bizarre that some of us understand the difference between Kyiv and Kiev and some apparently don’t..
“Kyiv, also spelled Kiev,[a] is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine” (Ukraine - Wikipedia) .
I think he’s trying to tell you that “Kiev” is the Russian spelling, and generally that’s how the Russophiles insist on spelling it. It’s one of those Russian microaggressions like calling it the Ukraine to suggest it’s just another part of Russia like the Kola.
Could the attacks on non fortified russian territory be an attempt to get russia to move forces to defend russian territory instead of Ukranian territory? Maybe Ukraine occupies a big piece of Russia and offers it up in exchange for occupied uk land? Reading that some belueve Putin is about to order a massive mobilization. Maybe that will be the genesis for a general rebellion to oust the current leadership
Brits say that Russia is losing the initiative in the war. Ukraine is winning, and Russia is terrified of the counter-attack. Russia is increasingly losing initiative in war – UK Intelligence
Increasingly? Either the British or the author (it’s the author) does not understand the meaning of the word “initiative” if they think Russia is just losing it. The last side to exercise any freedom of action and/or maneuver was Ukraine with its two successful counteroffensives last fall. No idea where that stands now until Ukraine makes its next move, but Russia, despite its enormous disparity in manpower and firepower, hasn’t had any meaningful gains on the ground for about a year.
They just switch out a word or two and regurgitate the same "update" every day. Then chemgator rushes here to post it as if something has monumentally shifted from the previous "update" he provided 18 hours earlier. His heart is in the right place.
Well, the more overtly Ukraine moves against Russian territory, the wider that proverbial door opens for Putin to go nuclear. I think that door would be flung wide open before Ukraine occupied "a big piece of Russia."
This is part of it. The major facet is the fact that as soon as Biden took office, Russia began their troop buildup on the Ukrainian border. (March 2021 to be precise). So we know that Putin never took Biden seriously and that likely has do with how Biden handled Ukraine/Russia as Obama's wingman on Ukraine up until January 2017, among other things we've already discussed on previous occasions. The writing was on the wall as soon as Putin began the troop buildup. He had/has no respect at all for Biden all this time and these are the same mf'ers who are going on and on about "Trump is a Kremlin puppet". The irony and deflection couldn't be any thicker. Putin was licking his chops for Biden's inauguration so he could annex more Ukrainian territory, clearly. To date, nothing has changed and it won't as long as Biden is CiC.
I think you have this backward. Trump’s own National Security Advisor says Trump fought sanctions on Russia every step of the way and made it easier for Russia to invade Ukraine. It’s much more likely Putin thought he had time under a continuing Trump administration that was anti-NATO but with changing of the Whitehouse to a favorable NATO expansion policy played into Putin’s calculations.
Men in trenches. I found this to be sobering account of a small cadre of Ukrainian soldiers at the front who are resolute in their purpose and accepting of their fate. Two Weeks at the Front in Ukraine Soldiers on the front in Ukraine adhere to a maxim that grows more sacrosanct the longer they survive: If you want to live, dig. In mid-March, I arrived at a small Army position in the eastern region of the Donbas, where shock waves and shrapnel had reduced the surrounding trees to splintered canes. Artillery had churned up so much earth that you could no longer distinguish between craters and the natural topography. Eight infantrymen were rebuilding a machine-gun nest that Russian shelling had obliterated the previous week, killing one of their comrades. A torn piece of a jacket, from a separate blast, hung on a branch high above us. A log-covered dugout, where the soldiers slept, was about five feet deep and not much wider. At the sound of a Russian helicopter, everyone squeezed inside. A direct hit from a mortar had charred the timber. To refortify the structure, new logs had been stacked over the burned ones. Ukrainian soldiers often employ netting or other camouflage to evade drone surveillance, but here subterfuge would have been futile. Russian forces had already pinpointed the position and seemed determined to eradicate it. As for the infantrymen, their mission was straightforward: not to leave and not to die. …….. Syava’s battalion, which numbered about six hundred men, was posted on the edge of a village south of Bakhmut. The village was controlled by the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization notorious for committing atrocities in Africa and the Middle East. For the war in Ukraine, Wagner recruited thousands of inmates from Russian prisons by offering them pardons in exchange for combat tours. The onslaught of expendable convicts proved too much for the Ukrainians, who were still reeling from Kherson and had not yet replenished their ranks and matériel. The commander of the battalion, a thirty-nine-year-old lieutenant colonel named Pavlo, said of the Wagner fighters, “They were like zombies. They used the prisoners like a wall of meat. It didn’t matter how many we killed—they kept coming.”
Belarus claims to have the sledgehammer used by Wagner to execute the Russian who didn't want to be used as cannon fodder. They have it on display in the president's palace for children to admire. Presumably, the children will aspire to wielding such a sledgehammer (on defenseless countrymen) in war, not getting their brains splattered with it. Sledgehammer suspected to have been used to execute Russian citizen displayed in Lukashenko's palace
It's far more likely that Putin realized that there was a real chance that Biden might re-build NATO after Trump did his best to destroy it. Putin had a limited time to attack before that might happen. Of course, it turned out that Russia invading Ukraine very quickly reunited NATO, without too much help from Biden or anyone else. No doubt, Putin also concluded that Biden would not risk U.S. troop lives in Ukraine. He did not count on the U.S. sending some fairly powerful weapons to Ukraine, and feeding intel and advice to Ukraine, however. The only thing that's changed is that Russia is getting its ass handed to it . . . by Ukraine.
Good read on Russian tactics being deployed now. Basically pump the disposables full of drugs, force them to run into fire to expose positions and then use more trained soldiers to focus on the Uk positions After a year of fighting in Ukraine, the brutal logic behind Russia's 'human wave' attacks is becoming clear So Russia's military reverted to an informal system from the Red Army's playbook: create multiple classes of riflemen, ranging from the most valuable to the most expendable. It now uses four types of infantry — specialized, assault, line, and disposable — according to a recent report by the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. Disposable" infantry troops often continue trying to advance even after being wounded and fight until killed; in some cases they have been fired on from their own lines when they try to retreat, according to Ukrainian accounts. Captured Russian fighters have reported executions under similar circumstances. More cannon fodder will then be sent in until the Ukrainians have revealed their positions and exhausted their ammunition. Disposable" infantry troops often continue trying to advance even after being wounded and fight until killed; in some cases they have been fired on from their own lines when they try to retreat, according to Ukrainian accounts. Captured Russian fighters have reported executions under similar circumstances. More cannon fodder will then be sent in until the Ukrainians have revealed their positions and exhausted their ammunition. Weak points are prioritized for a prepared assault, and stronger positions are designated for attrition by sustained fire from specialized infantry. Disposable infantry is tasked with going forward to prepare jumping-off points for those assaults or to dig positions from which snipers and heavy-weapons teams can fire on Ukrainian forces. The assault troops attack in larger company-size formations, backed by tanks and artillery as they attempt to outflank Ukrainian defenses. Once their mission is complete, assault forces are replaced by line and disposable infantry, who begin preparing for the next attack.
Russia is being forced to accept payment for oil from India in the form of rupees. Russia is racking up a billion dollars worth of rupees a month but they can't even take the rupees out of India, much less convert them into anything else. Russia has racked up $147 billion in foreign currency that it doesn't know what to do with. For comparison, Russia only spent $68 billion on defense in 2022. Russia doesn't know what to do with the $1 billion in rupees it is amassing in India each month
Putin's alleged birth mother died yesterday at 96. She got pregnant by an already-married agricultural mechanic while in college. When she later married, her husband persuaded her to give up her nine-year-old son to her parents, who put little Vlad in an orphanage a year later. She was proud when she realized her son became president, but after the war in Georgia in 2008, she was ashamed. Vera Putina, Georgian woman who claimed to be Vladimir Putin’s biological mother – obituary
Please let us know specifically what Trump did to weaken NATO? You indicated "Biden might re-build NATO." What specifically did Trump do to NATO that it needed to be "rebuilt"? What specifically did Trump do to "try to destroy it"?
