War in Ukraine

No, those are very different things. But the point I was trying to make is that if Putin were to try and control the inflating price of food and other commodities in his country by fiat, it would fail and result in the same shortages Putin lived through in the dying days of the Soviet Union. Everyone was always in line for food and every other necessity in those days. But, hey, you could rely on the price.

 

my apologies, thought it was a swipe at dems going after grocers and others who have blown up prices for record profits while people struggle to put food on the table

I agree with your statements about how it would fail

 

Oh, it was, a light-hearted one. That was why the wink. Much of the inflation we are seeing is driven by the war, which has decreased the global supply of fuel and food while increasing the demand. When the cost of fuel goes up, everything goes up. That is an oversimplification, of course. But much of what we’re calling “gouging” is the market responding to supply and demand. As I pointed out in early 2022, including in this very thread, we needed to get ahead of this problem by producing more fuel, food, and munitions (for a different but obvious reason) immediately. The response I typically would get was “Yeah, but that would take six months to a year, and this will all be over by the time that could take effect.” The real reason was and is that making more fuel would have caused the President to lose the support of the extreme left, which does recognize the strategic priority of winning the war. And making more food means messing with our system of farming subsidies. Naturally, I tend to blame unnecessary inflation on those policy decisions more than on price gouging.

 

thoughts on the whole train system in russia being f'd up? Belarus is Russia's major production center now and all freight from Belarus is jammed up

 

My thought is I love it. Anything that hurts Russia and Belarus is great. Anything that raises pressure on Russia to prematurely attack into the Ukrainian incursion is excellent as well.

 

goal of invasion or side bene they stumbled into by getting to the train station?

 

I wish I knew.

 

Your trainer: “We’re going to totally catch [Mike Tyson] off guard. When the bell rings bull rush him, get inside. He won’t know what hit. It’ll have a demoralizing effect. Go get ‘em, Tiger!”

Russia’s double-punch back against Ukraine’s shock raid

 

and down goes another bridge....

body blows that hopefully cripple the response. could the threat of being encircled will be enough to get many to withdraw but the way the russians sacrifice men, the likely will not allow them to withdraw

Ukraine reportedly destroys 3rd key bridge, threatening to cut off Russian troops (msn.com)

Ukraine has reportedly destroyed a third and last key bridge in an area of Russia's Kursk region, according to Russian military bloggers, inflicting a potentially significant blow on Moscow's struggling efforts to push back Ukraine's incursion there.

The destruction of the third bridge over the Seym river at Karyzh would mean Russian troops on a broad stretch of the border beyond the river would now largely cut off, according to military analysts tracking the conflict.

Russian troops would be unable to receive significant re-supply or reinforcements, as Ukrainian troops move from the east, increasingly encircling them.

 

Russia takes another 57 sq km in the Pokrovsk direction in the past 24 hours. Things getting bogged down in the Kursk region. Since the start of the Kursk incursion, Russia are gaining territory at double and triple the rate per day they were in the months before leading up to Kursk.

 

I’ll believe they can take it when I see it. Remember when the goal from Putin was chasiv yar by the end of may? Yeah…

 

So do you think that the RGF taking Pokrovsk is of greater tactical, operational, or strategic importance than the AFU's incursion into Kursk?

 

Sure, but there is a very noticeable uptick in Russian momentum in that area. Which indicates a further degradation of Ukrainian lines of defense. They're not able to hold the Russians off as well as they were doing a few months ago.

 

100%. Is that even up for debate? From a tactical standpoint, what does the forestland in Kursk serve Ukraine's military? And we are just now two weeks into that incursion. It appears to have been halted for the most part. Do they even hold it for the next month? Ukraine will have to show that they can hold that land in Kursk before it can be considered of any sort of tactical military advantage.

 

Is that just because you say so, or do you have a source?

 

Stop traffic. You think Ukraine can hold that piece of Russia for up to another month? How is that? Doesn’t Russia have inexhaustible forces that only need a few days to redeploy?

 

I don't know if he sees the pattern, but over the past year all he does is focus on whatever is going not terribly for Russia at any given moment. Right now its pokrovsk like its the end of all things in Ukraine, completely ignoring the Kursk incursion like it's not important. A couple of months ago it was Chasiv Yar but then nothing happened so he dropped it. Before that it was Bakmuht and Avdiivka. When Russia invaded in the North he felt like Kharvkiv was sure to fall. Now we never hear him talk about it.

 

Whatever happened to Bakhmut and Avdiivka again ?

 

Which one of the three is it? Tactical, operational, or strategic?

 

There is a peculiar difference between people who think Russia is winning and people who think Russia is losing.

The people who think Russia is winning acknowledge what a ponderous task it was always going to be to grind down a military of over a million men (women, conscripts, mercenaries) armed three times over by 40+ nations fighting out of heavily fortified positions.