War in Ukraine

1. They aren't advancing in the north.
2. The tiny gains they have made in the east and south are also not an indicator that they are winning the war.

 

They are advancing in the north, bro. They're T-H-E-R-E. It's only been a few weeks. But when one country invades and occupies a significant amount of land and the country being invaded can't push them out, that's an advancement by the invading party. Every theatre ebbs and flows, but in the aggregate, in a few weeks time, Russian has advanced significantly in the Kharkov region. Again, prior to a few weeks ago, Russia held NO territory north of Kharkov. We call that an advance. Ukraine halting the advance for a few days is normal. That's what happens in war. One party strikes, the other hits back. But in the aggregate, Russia is still there and Ukraine have not liberated much (if any) of the territory Russia took over north of Kharkov last month.

The tiny gains in the east and south certainly don't mean Ukraine is winning the war and just to tread water, they will have to put some blue on that map at some point.

None of this will change your outlook, because you want to be lied to. Your narrative isn't satisfied otherwise.

 

I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that Ukraine is deliberately trading space for time to maximize enemy casualties? They don’t seem to be losing prisoners or equipment the way they have in the past when intransigently trying to hold ground. And the casualties they’re inflicting on Russia have been some of the worst we’ve seen since the early days of the war when Russia tried and failed to take Kyiv (and they did).

 

It has occurred to me, because you've attempted to make that tired argument here countless times before. Besides it being a complete fantasy, it's a stupid proposal. Trading casualties for territory sounds like something a kid made up. Neither one of us have reliable casualty numbers, but given the enormous evidence available that Ukraine are using a lot of 40+ something conscripts and the widespread reports of Ukrainian men staying holed up in their homes for fear of conscription, I think we can safely say Ukraine is having a rough go with the casualties. Even if Ukraine have only suffered 10,000 deaths since the start of the war, they're in bad shape if they're relying on men in their 40's to take up the slack.

What's more likely considering Russia have made very small gains over the past two years is that they are largely satisfied with what they have right now as it achieves their geopolitical goal to keep Ukraine out of NATO. Putin's latest ceasefire proposal was literally in line with what I've been saying here for over a year. The Russians know with what they have right now, mission is accomplished. Yeah, they're doing some minor offensives along the front line, but they're just doing that to apply some pressure. Russia doesn't need to occupy all of Ukraine to achieve their security objectives.

Even if we took your view, don't you think the Russians by now would be terrified of a mission to conquer all of Ukraine? If they're taking heavy casualties now, wouldn't that amplify such casualties? And what objective will that achieve for Russia exactly? Without the Donbas and Crimea, Ukraine is of no value to NATO. I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about this. Yeah and the lebensraum schtick isn't going to work, considering Putin has had 24 years to initiate a push to conquer eastern Europe yet never moved. Russia has more living space than any other country in the world. They don't need to occupy all of Ukraine to achieve anything other than vanity.

You probably thought you knew it all back in 2003 also and I bet you bought the WMD narrative hook, line and sinker. Just because our government tells you something is so doesn't mean it's so. Our government (and by extension our military) lie to us about a great many things. Especially when it comes to war. The truth always gets very blurry in those times.

 

Cooler heads prevailed in 1962 when the Doomsday Clock was seven minutes to midnight.

It’s ninety seconds to midnight today …

Previously, there was symmetry. In the late 1980s the U.S. held approximately 9000 tactical nuclear weapons, while the Soviet Union (Russia) was estimated to have held anything between 13000 and 22000 tactical nuclear weapons. In 2019, these numbers were around 230 for the U.S. and some 2000 for Russia. Moreover, the capacity of remaining arsenal differs greatly. Russia has developed and modernized a wide variety of platforms capable of launching both conventional and nuclear warheads. Russia has bombers, missiles in ships, subs, aicrafts and helicopters, hypersonic missiles and possibly even artillery capable of delivering tactical nuclear strikes. The U.S. has mostly just aircrafts and guided bombs to do the same. France and Britain have all but eliminated their arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons. So, between NATO and Russia, the symmetry in tactical nuclear weapons has turned into a clear asymmetry to the benefit of Russia.

The Changing Nature Of Nuclear Deterrence | ZeroHedge

 

A whole shit ton of russian talking points jam packed into a single post.
Casualties are exaggerated. Putin is doing exactly what he wants - 4d chess style. Give me a friggen break.
Minor offenses along the front line? They have 700,000 men in Ukraine! Minor offenses? On twitter, telegram et al. they are reporting over 1000 engagements across the line - which is in line with the running average. What are you smoking?
if Putin is happy with what he has why the hell did he attack Kharkiv - which by the way, you still haven't admitted you were WRONG about that. He hasn't even been able to create an effective buffer.
Meanwhile, even conservative estimates are the Russians have been effed up the A in that region - and for what?
Mission accomplished? Are you for real?
Trying And Failing To Cross A River In Vovchansk, 400 Russian Troops Got Cut Off. Now They’re Surrendering.

 

OMG, 400 troops?!?! How can Russia ever bounce back from that???

You don't have a clue. Enjoy cheerleading and disappointment.

 

Says the biggest cheerleader on the board.

 

And the Soviets always exaggerated the Russian population. I suspect they are still doing it. Couple that with Russian women aren’t having children. I wonder how many people Russia has to send into the meat grinder?

 

I can’t think of a country offhand that’s having more than a couple of kids.

 

You mean Russia didn’t have to scavenge chips from washing machines for their missiles ?

 

In terms of acheivments, for Russia, I would add:

1 Added Finland and Sweden to: NATO!
2 Kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukranian children and shipped them on buses to Russia.
3 Alienated the Ukranian Citizenery FOREVER towards shared cultural commonality and history.
4 Has DESTROYED the ukranian territories he has occupied. Even if Russia wins, how long will
it take to put that part of Ukraine back together again?
5 Has DESTROYED the long standing European Peace since ww2.

A few more "accomplishments" by the communist dictator.

 

Actually, she pretty much covered all of those, explicitly or implicitly, in her post.

 

Your entire post is, like I wrote earlier, a great example of you getting increasingly shrill and emotional as none of your dire predictions of Ukrainian collapse come any closer to fruition. I am not going to address most of it, because I already have, particularly the irrelevant references to 2003, but I will address this part, which I will admit amused me:

No idea, but I will bet everyone on this website who ever served in the military (in any service) got a kick out of that one. You basically just argued with an engineer, "Of course, you can divide by zero! Only an idiot thinks you can't divide by zero!" Trading space for time while causing attrition to the enemy is about as classic a military strategy as there is. Oldest example that comes to mind is the Greek delaying action against the Persians at Thermopylae and Artemisium to kill as many Persians as possible while gaining time for the Athenian fleet and main body of the Spartan-led ground forces. There is an old adage that you can always regain lost ground, but you can never recover lost forces or lost time.

Anyway, I sure hope you're better at explaining your profession to others than you are at explaining mine to me.

 

Please don’t call me a Patriot. Now, if you insist, I’ll call you a Patriot. Just know what you’re standing for …

The level of betrayal and outright treason by both congressional Democrats and Republicans staggers the mind when one stops to consider what evils they have vomited on the American people. The following is only a small sampling of what our government has perpetrated on the world and its own citizens.

Don’t Be a Patriot

 

What Russia should have said when Sweden and Finland, already NATO in all but name, became NATO in name …

“Oh nos! We didn’t know that would happen! Okay, you win. Induct NATO.”

 

I am sure that there are quite a few missile defense systems surrounding Moscow (and a handful at other locations around the country), so it's not like Russia is completely out of these systems. And Russia knows that Ukraine is not going to launch a nuke. Putin and his generals know that launching a nuclear attack would be the last thing they ever do, so there would be some attempt to confirm that there were incoming nukes before they launched their own nukes.

 

The restrained language and the “peace summit”

 

I think the word desperation fits because Russia has a habit of sidelining their newest equipment in a war with an opponent that fights back, so they can make outrageous and unsubstantiated claims about its capabilities, all the more to inflate the reputation of all of their equipment and increase sales and profits to countries that don't know any better. They have done that with their latest T-14 Armata tank and Su-57 Felon fighter jet. (Obviously, this war is nowhere near existential for Russia or they would be using their latest equipment to try to get an edge in the fighting without caring what their future sales might be.) They made a mistake with their hypersonic missiles and were humiliated when their invincible missiles were shot down repeatedly.