Ukraine war mega thread

[bsnub]

This will be a far more strategically important victory for Ukraine than the fake "victory" created by Russia in Soledar. A small town of no strategic value.

KREMINNA AXIS /1320 UTC 16 JAN/ RU forces conducted fire missions on Kuzmyne, indicating the presence of UKR forces. The Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA) is assessed to extend from the center of Kreminna in a southern direction to the banks of the Sievro-Donets River.

[sabang]

H'mmm. The other side of the coin:-




Also-

Military Overview On January 16, 2023: Wagner Fighters Achieved New Successes On Bakhmut-Soledar Front LinesSouth Front

[Backspin]

[helge]

WTF does that have to do with Ukraine?

I'll help you out again

Nothing

[helge]

This will be a far more strategically important victory for Ukraine than the fake "victory" created by Russia in Soledar. A small town of no strategic value.

Which is why Ukraine has defended it with great casualties

Common sense isn't your strong side, is it ?

[pickel]

Which is why Ukraine has defended it with great casualties

It's all about attrition rates helge. Russias losses were extremely higher than Ukraines. The Wagner Group are pretty much spent, and won't be taking any cities for a long time now.

[helge]

The Wagner Group are pretty much spent, and won't be taking any cities for a long time now.

If you say so

Your opinion is as good as anyone's, I guess

It's all about attrition rates helge. Russias losses were extremely higher than Ukraines

Were they ?

Again, I don't know and my suspicion is, that you don't either.

But the russians losses better be greater if attrition is the game

[helge]

Ouch

Zelenskyi's adviser resigns after Dnipro comment


of
Casper Lindbjerg Count


Oleksiy Arestovych, who is an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has resigned following public pressure.

This is written by the Reuters news agency.

Arestovych said in connection with the missile attack on an apartment block in Dnipro that the missiles had been shot down by Ukrainian air defense and therefore hit the property.

But that was contradicted by the official announcement by Ukrainian authorities, who announced that Dnipro was a target of Russian missiles.

In a post on Facebook today, Arestovych writes that he apologizes for his comment and that he withdraws with immediate effect.

At least 40 people lost their lives in connection with the missile attack.

[misskit]

Kissinger Sheds Resistance to Ukraine Joining NATO

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Ukraine joining NATO could be an “appropriate outcome” of Russia’s invasion, while reiterating his call for a negotiated solution to the conflict.

“The idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful,” Kissinger, 99, told the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday. Kissinger, long an opponent of Ukraine’s membership of the organization, has softened his stance on the issue in recent months.


Kissinger, a former secretary of state and national security adviser, said he believes in maintaining dialog with Russia while the war continues, with a view toward ending fighting if Ukraine is able to recapture territory that President Vladimir Putin’s forces seized after the Feb. 24 invasion. He warned against direct conflict between the west and Russia and stressed the importance of allowing Russia to rejoin the international system.

MORE Kissinger Sheds Resistance to Ukraine Joining NATO

[bsnub]

H'mmm. The other side of the coin:-

No, it is just Russian MOD lies.

It's all about attrition rates helge. Russias losses were extremely higher than Ukraines.

It is a waste of time trying to get these bozos to think with a military mindset.

Common sense isn't your strong side, is it ?

Do not try to pretend to understand how a military operates on either a strategic or tactical level. You clearly are not capable of it.

[bsnub]

The words of Australian General Mick Ryan...

The Battle of Bakhmut-Soledaar is draining away lives. The Russian Army and the Wagner Group have competed to hurl tens of thousands of Russian soldiers against Ukrainian defensive lines which have been developed and improved since 2014.

The towns of #Bakhmut & #Soledar have little strategic importance beyond their propaganda value for a Russian Army that has no victories for some time. Yet the fighting there is a bitter as any in this war and is resulting in mass casualties that few armies can sustain. To the north, the Ukrainian Army presses on with its methodical advance towards the Kreminna-Svatove-Starbil’s’k triangle.

Unlike the battle to the south, this offensive will have important strategic outcomes if the Ukrainians succeed. If Ukraine secures this critical triangle of cities, the Russian position in Luhansk is probably untenable, and its forces in Donetsk will be forced into a dilemma about how to orientate their troops.

https://mobile.twitter.com/WarintheF...89601474400261

There is your common sense, pal.

[helge]

It is a waste of time trying to get these bozos to think with a military mindset.

Do not try to pretend to understand how a military operates on either a strategic or tactical level. You clearly are not capable of it.

Speaks for itself.

[sabang]

Like your common sense on this fabled Ukrainian Winter offensive?

No, it is just Russian MOD lies.

I'm afraid you can waffle on all you want- it doesn't change the fact Russia has taken Soledar and some surrounding villages.

[bsnub]

I'm afraid you can waffle on all you want- it doesn't change the fact Russia has taken Soledar and some surrounding villages.

As your fellow Aussie General Mick Ryan has stated, it has not strategic value.

Speaks for itself.

Indeed it does. Just like the wise words of the General.

[bsnub]

Like your common sense on this fabled Ukrainian Winter offensive?

It is happening up in Kreminna, but your propaganda masters at the Kremlin do not want you to know that. Enjoy this video of things to come...

[Iceman123]

^
Oh, another one of your game changers.

Just wait until the ground freezes over I’m telling you

[bsnub]

Oh, another one of your game changers.

Oh, look it is icebitch the little gay lapdog. Clueless motherfuckers. I suggest you go back and read the words of your own General Nick Ryan. He has more to say here as well...

The Campaigns to Come - by Mick Ryan, AM - Futura Doctrina

[bsnub]

Russia has been getting its shit packed in for months, and you retards seem to see it differently. Utterly laughable. Useful idiots

[Iceman123]

Russia has been getting its shit packed in for months, and you retards seem to see it differently. Utterly laughable. Useful idiots

No buildings getting flattened, no problems with power and water, no civilians getting blown up. This is Russia.

However in the tiny mind of the Seattle simpleton that is Ukraine winning!

[sabang]

Another exciting nightly edition of recruit snubski's "Rent-a-general and wunderwaffen hour".

[panama hat]

Another exciting nightly edition of recruit snubski's "Rent-a-general and wunderwaffen hour".

Hardly something for you specifically to mock with our regurgutated government agitprop - how's that supersonic missile working for you by the thousands? How's that 'Kyiv in a week' bullshit?

It's a war. One side attacked, killing tens of thousands of civilians. It needs to get the fuck out of Ukraine and pay dearly.

[sabang]

It needs to get the fuck out of Ukraine and pay dearly.

Yeh sure tough guy- so get yer arse on a plane and bring some of your Mongrel mob bra's. I'm sure Vlad will quake in his cheap Russian boots. Or is he listening to this German General:-


Erich Vad: What are the war aims?

January 16, 2023INTEL-DROP

Annika Ross

Erich Vad is an ex-brigade general. From 2006 to 2013, he was the military policy advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He is one of the rare voices who spoke out publicly against arms deliveries to Ukraine early on, without political strategy or diplomatic efforts. Even now he speaks an uncomfortable truth.

Mr. Vad, what do you say about the delivery of the 40 Marder to Ukraine just announced by Chancellor Scholz?

This is a military escalation, also in the perception of the Russians – even if the more than 40-year-old Marder is not a wonder weapon. We are going down a slippery slope. This could develop a momentum of its own that we can no longer control. Of course it was and is right to support Ukraine and of course Putin’s invasion is not in conformity with international law – but now the consequences must finally be considered!

And what could be the consequences?

Is it the intention to achieve a willingness to negotiate with the delivery of the tanks? Do they want to reconquer the Donbass or the Crimea? Or does one want to defeat Russia altogether? There is no realistic end-state definition. And without an overall political and strategic concept, arms deliveries are pure militarism.

What does that mean?

We have a military stalemate that we cannot resolve militarily. That, by the way, is also the opinion of U.S. Chief of Staff Mark Milley. He has said that a military victory for Ukraine is not to be expected and that negotiations are the only possible way. Anything else means the senseless wear and tear of human lives.

General Milley’s statement caused much anger in Washington and was also heavily criticized publicly.

He spoke an uncomfortable truth. A truth, by the way, that was almost not published in the German media. The interview with Milley by CNN did not appear anywhere bigger, while he is the Chief of Staff of our Western leading power. What is being conducted in Ukraine is a war of attrition. And one with now close to 200,000 soldiers killed and wounded on both sides, with 50,000 civilian dead, and with millions of refugees. Milley has thus drawn a parallel with World War I that could not be more apt. In World War I, the so-called ‘Blood Mill of Verdun’ alone, designed as a battle of attrition, resulted in the deaths of nearly a million young French and Germans. They fell for nothing at that time. So the refusal of the warring parties to negotiate led to millions of additional deaths. This strategy did not work militarily then – and will not do so now.

You, too, have been attacked for calling for negotiations.

Yes, so has the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, General Eberhard Zorn, who, like me, has warned against overestimating the Ukrainians’ regionally limited offensives during the summer months. Military experts – who know what goes on among the intelligence services, what it looks like on the ground and what war really means are largely excluded from the discourse. They don’t fit in with the media’s opinionmaking. To a large extent, we are witnessing a media conformity that I have never seen before in the Federal Republic of Germany. This is pure opinion mongering. And not on behalf of the state, as is known from totalitarian regimes, but out of pure selfempowerment.

They are attacked by the media on a broad front, from BILD to FAZ and Spiegel, and thus also the 500,000 people who signed the Open Letter to the Chancellor initiated by Alice Schwarzer.

That’s right. Fortunately, Alice Schwarzer has her own independent media to be able to open this discourse at all. It probably wouldn’t have worked in the leading media. The majority of the population has been against further arms deliveries for a long time, and according to the latest polls. But none of this is being reported. There is no longer any fair, open discourse on the war in Ukraine, and I find that very disturbing. It shows me how right Helmut Schmidt was. He said in a conversation with Chancellor Merkel: Germany is and remains a nation at risk.

Military operations must always be coupled with an attempt to bring about political solutions. The one-dimensionality of the current foreign policy is hard to bear. It is very much focused on weapons. But the main task of foreign policy is and remains diplomacy, reconciliation of interests, understanding and conflict resolution. That’s what I miss here. I’m glad that we finally have a female foreign minister in Germany, but it’s not enough just to engage in war rhetoric and walk around Kiev or the Donbass wearing a helmet and flak jacket. That is not enough.

Yet Baerbock is a member of the Greens, the former peace party.

I don’t understand the mutation of the Greens from a pacifist party to a war party. I myself don’t know any Green who has even done military service. Anton Hofreiter is for me the best example of this double standard. Antje Vollmer, on the other hand, whom I would count among the ‘original’ Greens, calls a spade a spade. And the fact that a single party has so much political influence that it can maneuver us into a war is quite alarming.

If Chancellor Scholz had taken you over from his predecessor and you were still the chancellor’s military advisor, what would you have advised him to do in February 2022?

I would have advised him to support Ukraine militarily, but in a measured and prudent way, to avoid slippery slope effects into a war party. And I would have advised him to influence our most important political ally, the United States. For the key to a solution to the war lies in Washington and Moscow. I have liked the course the chancellor has taken in recent months. But the Greens, the FDP and the bourgeois opposition – flanked by largely unanimous media accompaniment – are exerting such pressure that the chancellor can hardly absorb it.

And what if the leopard is also delivered?

Then the question arises again as to what should happen with the tank deliveries in the first place. To take over Crimea or the Donbass, the Marder and Leopard are not enough. In eastern Ukraine, in the Bachmut area, the Russians are clearly on the march. They will probably have completely conquered the Donbass before long. Just consider the numerical superiority of the Russians over Ukraine alone. Russia can mobilize up to two million reservists. The West can send 100 martens and 100 leopards, they will not change the overall military situation. And the all-important question is how to get through such a conflict with a belligerent nuclear power – by the way, the strongest nuclear power in the world! – without going into a third world war. And exactly this does not go into the heads of the politicians and the journalists here in Germany!

The argument is, Putin does not want to negotiate and that one must put him in his place, so that he does not rage further in Europe.

It is true that you have to signal to the Russians: This far and no further! Such a war of aggression must not be allowed to set a precedent. That is why it is right for NATO to increase its military presence in the east and for Germany to join in. But Putin’s refusal to negotiate is untrustworthy. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians were prepared to reach a peace agreement at the beginning of the war at the end of March, beginning of April 2022. Then nothing came of it. After all, it was also during the war that the grain agreement was finally negotiated by the Russians and Ukrainians with the involvement of the United Nations.

Now the dying continues.

You can continue to wear down the Russians, which in turn means hundreds of thousands of deaths, but on both sides. And it means further destruction of Ukraine. What will be left of this country? It will be razed to the ground. In the end, that is no longer an option for Ukraine either. The key to resolving the conflict does not lie in Kiev, it does not lie in Berlin, Brussels or Paris, it lies in Washington and Moscow. It is ridiculous to say that Ukraine must decide this.

With this interpretation one is quickly considered a conspiracy theorist in Germany…

I myself am a convinced transatlanticist. I’ll tell you honestly, when in doubt, I’d rather live under an American hegemony than under a Russian or Chinese one. This war was initially just a domestic Ukrainian dispute. It started back in 2014, between the Russian-speaking ethnic groups and the Ukrainians themselves. So it has been a civil war. Now, after Russia’s invasion, it has become an interstate war between Ukraine and Russia. It is also a struggle for the independence of Ukraine and its territorial integrity. That is all true. But it is not the whole truth. It is also a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia, and there are very concrete geopolitical interests at stake in the Black Sea region.

What are those?

The Black Sea region is as important to the Russians and their Black Sea fleet as the Caribbean or the region around Panama is to the USA. As important as the South China Sea and Taiwan for China. As important as Turkey’s protection zone, which they established against the Kurds in violation of international law. Against this background and for strategic reasons, the Russians cannot get out of it either. Apart from the fact that in a referendum in Crimea, the population would certainly decide in favor of Russia.

So how should this continue?

If the Russians were forced by massive Western intervention to withdraw from the Black Sea region, then before they step off the world stage, they would certainly turn to nuclear weapons. I find naive the belief that a nuclear strike by Russia would never happen. Along the lines of, ‘They’re just bluffing.’

But what could be the solution?

One should simply ask the people in the region, i.e. in the Donbass and Crimea, who they want to belong to. One would have to restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine, with certain Western guarantees. And the Russians need such a security guarantee as well. So no NATO membership for Ukraine. Since the Bucharest summit in 2008, it has been clear that this is the red line for the Russians.

Erich Vad: What are the war aims? - THE INTEL DROP


For snubski-

In eastern Ukraine, in the Bachmut area, the Russians are clearly on the march. They will probably have completely conquered the Donbass before long.

[helge]

You, too, have been attacked for calling for negotiations.

Yes, so has the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, General Eberhard Zorn, who, like me, has warned against overestimating the Ukrainians’ regionally limited offensives during the summer months. Military experts – who know what goes on among the intelligence services, what it looks like on the ground and what war really means are largely excluded from the discourse. They don’t fit in with the media’s opinionmaking. To a large extent, we are witnessing a media conformity that I have never seen before in the Federal Republic of Germany. This is pure opinion mongering. And not on behalf of the state, as is known from totalitarian regimes, but out of pure selfempowerment.

Like that

In eastern Ukraine, in the Bachmut area, the Russians are clearly on the march. They will probably have completely conquered the Donbass before long.

Before long ?

A definition of 'long' would be nice

[Norton]

The key to resolving the conflict does not lie in Kiev, it does not lie in Berlin, Brussels or Paris, it lies in Washington and Moscow. It is ridiculous to say that Ukraine must decide this.

Bottom line it sure does rely on US/Russia agreements if this particular war is to end.
The Ukraine and NATO will follow as they are now.

[sabang]

This is merely my humble opinion, but I fear the more Nato escalates (in the Russian view) with this unlimited cheque book and war toys strategy (none of which is a wunderwaffen), the more Russia will push out westwards from current borders, towards the Dniepr River and Odessa in the south. Meaning a long bloody war, and Ukraine quite likely ending up a landlocked rump state. Or worse still, direct conflict between Russia and Nato.

The ceding of some territory in the east and south, containing a distinctly Russian leaning population, seems a much lesser price to pay in comparison- unpalatable though it is for some.