War in Ukraine

“I don’t actually read his posts.” Telling.

For those who read his posts and don’t regard GDP as an indication of military strength, recall that we were chased out of Afghanistan, after fighting for twenty years, by a bunch of goat herders.

 

I wasn’t a 1996 Husker worshipper when I opined, at the time, that they would beat us nine out of ten times.

 

Decidedly not off-topic. Just an analogy you weren’t looking for. Russia is Huskering NATO’s great proxy.

 

Shivering rib shot for Ukraine. This is like telling the Gators they need to beat the KC Chiefs to join the NFL …

NATO Tells Ukraine It Must Win The War To Become Full Alliance Member | ZeroHedge

 

Butt, back to Ukraine, after talking about Boobbert. I see what you did there!

 

Correct Yoda:

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/biden-zelensky-g7-summit-06-13-24/index.html

 

Ruble in trouble:

 

And just like that… all was not well in the land of F-16 cheerleading…

Ukraine, allies clash over F-16 training — POLITICO

 

The US is correct. I suspect Ukraine simply doesn’t understand just how constrained our pilot training pipeline is. Simulator time is really difficult. I seriously doubt cross-training would be more than four-five months with native English speakers but it doesn’t appear their pilot candidate have any English proficiency.

 

Canada declares it will not send weapons to Ukrainian Nazis. Wait, Canada has weapons ?

 

Twenty years ago a babuska nearly strangled Putin. Had she not let go we wouldn’t be in this mess …

 

Zelenskyy’s reason given for rejection of the Russian ceasefire proposal: Putin won’t stop.

Not “we have them on the ropes” or “we will never surrender our territory.”

 

and?

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-wi...ets-semiconductors-sent-via-china-2024-06-12/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/13/russia-sanctions-us-war-ukraine/
https://www.reuters.com/markets/cur...-territory-after-new-us-sanctions-2024-06-13/
Russia halts foreign exchange trading as US sanctions sow confusion

These seem like they will hurt more, but I wonder if it will be enough to hurt Russia enough to turn them away from their current course. It still doesn't seem like it.

 

Vladimir Putin issues bombshell Ukraine war ceasefire plea if two conditions are met (msn.com)

I absolutely love Putin's two conditions for a ceasefire:

1. You must pledge to never join NATO.



2. You must let us have all of Ukraine we currently occupy, whatever regions you liberated in 2022, and some regions we never successfully conquered.



So Putin does not seem to get the game he signed up for in February 2022. He wanted to play the realist game: "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must." See, the first part of that matters. If you can't kill it, then you don't get to eat it.

 

No, it won't. Mounting Russian casualties in the field will play a far larger role than any economic pain we can inflict.

 

Surely, you understand that the reason he stated -- that Russia will just regroup and come back for more later -- is the most compelling to the international community, on whom Ukraine depends for military aid. There are many people (you seem to be one of them) who naively believe that Ukraine should just trade its land for peace to get this over with, so "we will never surrender our territory" doesn't resonate with them as much as "we will just be back here again in five to ten years if we don't resolve, not merely suspend, this conflict now."

 

putin ceasefire plan is lol - getting desperate? Or just trying to distract the west?

 

If Putin was as smart as he thinks he is, he would have opened with only the neutrality of Ukraine (not joining NATO) as the basic framework, leaving all questions of territory subject to negotiation. He may have gotten his ceasefire for talks. When you start with a non-starter, you get laughed at.

 

Just further or off that Putin either isn’t getting or isn’t taking good advice. That whole speech made him look in a worse position, not a better one.
Didn’t mention any of his previously stated reasons for taking Ukraine, like de-nazification, just made it about a land grab. Practically begged for peace talks but offered up a ridiculous set of terms that even his allies wouldn’t be able to defend. He was literally demanding land they haven’t even taken at this point.
Can’t even imagine what he was thinking, other than 20 plus years of not backing down and demanding more has worked for him, so why stop now? Or maybe for his domestic audience, to show he was willing to talk but would stay strong.
Whole thing was just weird though.

meantime, the latest round of sanctions appears to be biting hard, Russia banned the use of dollars and euros on their exchange, which makes them even less liquid, they are trying to artificially set the price of the ruble, among other things. If their economy does collapse it’s happening soon.