Morning Ukraine Update ... War experts completely befuddled about Russian strategy. Confess to not being able to understand it. Scratching their heads about it.
People said the same thing about Rudy Giuliani's court strategy, Hershel Walker's campaign speeches, and Will Muschamps offensive scheme...
Rudy lays bare Joe’s — not Hunter’s — crimes in Ukraine. Herschel stomps Gators with hobnail boot. Muschamp 2-0 vs. Urban Meyer. Head scratching continues.
Yep. Before we could get meaningful insights and questions answered from knowledgeable posters. Now it’s usually just empty trolling.
We enter the New Year under a dark and dangerous cloud. The failure of the United States and NATO to stop Russia may lead the Western alliance to act with more desperation and recklessness. Russia, for its part, admitted as much this week and is taking steps to bulk up its forces in the event this escalates into a World War. I continue to pray for peace, but there are no Western leaders embracing that approach. They are pinning their hopes on getting rid of Vladimir Putin without taking a moment to consider that Putin’s replacement would likely be more nationalistic and less inclined to negotiate. We are living in an historic, epochal moment that likely signifies the beginning of the end of American dominance in world affairs. Has NATO's Strategy To Bleed Russia Backfired? - A Son of the New American Revolution
Lt Col (Retd) Alex Vershinin has 10 years of frontline experience in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. For the last decade before his retirement, he worked as a modelling and simulations officer in concept development and experimentation for NATO and the US Army. He writes ... The opposing sides have adopted two opposing strategies: Russians are fighting a traditional firepower-centric war of attrition; Ukraine is pursuing a terrain-focused war of maneuver. These opposing strategies are as much a product of national resource availability as a deliberate choice. As freezing ground ushers in the winter campaign season, both sides will follow their strategies into limited offensives. So far both strategies appear to work. Ukraine has recaptured large swaths of territory but exhausted itself during the fall offensive. It suffered frightful losses and depleted key stockpiles of equipment and ammunition. There is still capacity to replace losses and establish new combat formations, but those are rapidly withering. I believe that neither side will achieve spectacular territorial gain, but the Russian side is more likely to achieve its goals of draining Ukrainian resources while preserving its own. What’s Ahead in the War in Ukraine | Russia Matters
Russia launches Christmas Eve terror attack against Kherson Sad - Ukraine took back Kherson without damaging it much. Too bad Russia is gonna basically burn down “their own” city now… Ukraine Invasion Day 304: will there be new peace plans interesting tidbit in this one that zelenskyy is going to present a peace plan early next year - maybe to build off a failed Russian offensive. Hope they can hold.
Vietnam 2.0 When things go badly for Washington’s foreign policy, the true believers in the great cause always draw deeply from the well of ideological self-delusion to steel themselves for the final battle. Blinken, Klain, Austin, and the rest of the war party continue to pledge eternal support for Kiev regardless of the cost. Like the “best and the brightest” of the 1960s they are eager to sacrifice realism to wishful thinking, to wallow in the splash of publicity and self-promotion in one public visit to Ukraine after another. This spectacle is frighteningly reminiscent of events more than 50 years ago, when Washington’s proxy war in Vietnam was failing. Doubters within the Johnson administration about the wisdom of intervening on the ground to rescue Saigon from certain destruction went into hiding. In 1963, Washington already had 16,000 military advisors in Vietnam. The idea that Washington was supporting a government in South Vietnam that might not win against North Vietnam was dismissed out of hand. Secretary of State Dean Rusk said, “We will not pull out until the war is won.” By the spring of 1965, American military advisors were already dying. General Westmoreland, then commander of Military Assistance Command Vietnam, reported to LBJ: “It is increasingly apparent that the existing levels of United States aid cannot prevent the collapse of South Vietnam... North Vietnam is moving in for the kill... Acting on the request of the South Vietnamese government, the decision must be made to commit as soon as possible 125,000 United States troops to prevent the Communist takeover.” The Biden administration’s unconditional support for the Zelensky regime in Kiev is reaching a strategic inflection point not unlike the one LBJ reached in 1965. Just as LBJ suddenly determined in 1964 that peace and security in Southeast Asia was a vital U.S. strategic interest, the Biden administration is making a similar argument now for Ukraine. Like South Vietnam in the 1960s, Ukraine is losing its war with Russia. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/washington-is-prolonging-ukraines-suffering/
Head of a major shipyard instrumental in Russian naval forces dies suddenly. Are all these people aprt of the corruption that has rotted the Russian military from the inside out? Or different pawns in an internal war being waged in Russia? Russian Defense Bigwig Dies Suddenly and ‘Tragically’ (msn.com) The head of a shipyard producing warships and submarines for Russia’s Defense Ministry has died suddenly at the age of 66—just the latest in a long line of powerful figures to croak mysteriously in recent months. Alexander Buzakov was praised for overseeing some of Admiralty Shipyards’ most “complex orders” in a statement from United Shipbuilding Corporation announcing his death on Saturday. “The United Shipbuilding Corporation, the Admiralty Shipyards and the entire national shipbuilding industry have suffered an irreparable loss, as Alexander Sergeevich Buzakov, Director General of the Admiralty Shipyards, passed away at the age of 66,” the corporation said in a statement.
Interesting that Putin’s solution to the Western bloc pulling apart “historical Russia” is to bomb the hell out of “historical Russia.”
Poignant how Ukrainians still celebrate Christmas… “Ukraine celebrates Christmas as a national holiday on Dec. 25 — for churches observing the religious holiday on the Western calendar, like the Catholics in western Ukraine — and on Jan. 7, for churches observing the Eastern Orthodox religious holiday. “It is important for the Russians,” he said, “that Christmas and New Year’s Eve pass in darkness in Ukraine.” With that in mind, some Ukrainian cities decided to be inventive with their Christmas decorations — finding ways to win back the season while not wasting precious electricity or disappointing children as holiday lights blink out during the attacks. The war is horrible, but we should not leave our children without a holiday,” said Daria Pervaya, 18, a college student, who had to speak loudly to be heard above the tree’s generator. “I do not have a holiday mood this year at all,” she added. “I am waiting for my boyfriend, who is fighting.” https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...-spirit.html&usg=AOvVaw3lL8FY0y9h7tkpxGKSXZ8E
Putin publicly mentions negotiations again. Putin says Russia ready to negotiate over Ukraine I get the vibe that both sides seem to be inching toward discussions. Maybe it’s just idol chatter though. ETA- I wonder from Putin’s side how much the 45 billion we just dropped is impacting his thinking. That’s roughly equivalent to what we gave in the first 10 months, so it basically means to wait us out he needs to make it another year at least. And he hasn’t broken Europe even in the dead of winter with oil and has shortages. All as his economy slows, pushback grows louder and munitions dwindle.
With all the Western money pouring in, I don’t see Zelenskyy agreeing to anything short of a full withdrawal by Russia. We are in a proxy war with Russia at this point. Crimea is too important strategically. Ukraine and the West want it back.
Weird thing to do when you have a massive superoffensive getting ready to sweep all of the Nazis and Romanians out of Little Russia. Usually one waits until after they have reversed the cycle of defeat on the battlefield before offering a magnanimous peace to the vanquished.
