Ukraine war mega thread

[Backspin]

So. Who supports Finlandization and the end of the war right now ? Me.

Anything less is overly emotional war mongering.

[misskit]

[Backspin]

Gilbert Doctorow blog

I have three points to make today about how the Russians are conducting their military campaign in Ukraine.

The first point is a generalization from the remarks I made yesterday about their humane treatment of the enemy’s servicemen. This approach to the military tasks results from awareness that the military is a handmaiden to diplomacy and to politics, not vice versa, as has been the case in each of the major wars that the United States fought and ultimately lost in the past thirty years. That is why the Russians are not practicing “shock and awe,” which is the American way of war.

The second point closely abuts the first. The ascent of Russia’s military capability in the past decade was defined not by their celebrated cutting edge hypersonic missile technology or the deep sea nuclear drone Poseidon.. After all, in the final analysis once parity is established in means of nuclear deterrence, the weapons become useless in the garden variety conflicts that we see everywhere and in every age. Ultimately what counts to project power at the regional level, which is where Russia positions itself, is conventional weapons which can be and are used in attempts to resolve intractable conflicts by force of arms. This is precisely where the Russians amazingly caught up with the United States, bypassing, incidentally, all of the weapons industry of Western Europe in quality and quantity.

So the Russians have their ‘toys for the boys,’ which they designed, manufactured and implemented in their ground, air and sea forces. They did all this at bargain basement prices. But they use them sparingly and demonstratively rather than as blunt instruments of mass destruction. This is a cardinal difference from the American way of war.

The third point is that there is continuity in Russian military behavior which makes it predictable. In the takeover of Crimea, the game-changer favoring the Russian PsyOps was their ability to disrupt entirely the military communications of the Ukrainian enemy, so that field units lost touch with their commanders and were exposed on the spot to calls for surrender and desertion, to which the vast demoralized and confused majority acceded at once. There is evidence that the same technique is being practiced today by Russia in Ukraine

Yesterday anyone watching Euronews on one screen and Russian state television on another would have been perplexed by the totally contradictory coverage of both with respect to the fate of the armed detachment of Ukrainian border guards on one island in the southeast of Ukraine. Euronews carried the address of President Zelensky awarding posthumous designation as Heroes of Ukraine to the entire detachment, which reportedly resisted the attacking Russian forces and were slaughtered. Meanwhile Russian news showed those same border guards seated at tables and signing sworn statements that they voluntarily lay down their arms and awaited repatriation to their homes and families.

Was Zelensky engaging in brazen propaganda? No, he was simply misinformed because the detachment had been wholly cut off from its superior officers in Kiev and they feared for the worst. This is what the Russians practiced so successfully in their Crimean campaign in 2014.

Finally, I wish to share one more defining pattern of Russian military behavior today that carries over from their operations in their Syrian campaign to destroy the US-backed terrorist groups in that country. In Syria, the Russian army established special units to sort out in field conditions the bad terrorists from the very bad terrorists. The former were allowed to lay down their arms and go home to their families. The latter were fought to the death and “neutralized.”

This slow, painstaking effort to distinguish enemies who can be brought back into civil society from those who cannot is unique to the Russian way of war today, and it deserves much more attention than it receives in our media. It is surely enabled by advanced psychological training of officers in charge. And it is an entirely different mindset from the “counterinsurgency” techniques that David Petraeus popularized and rode to fame and advancement in the Iraq War.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

[NamPikToot]

Yeah, deploying Chechens who have no regard for the Geneva convention really backs that up

[pickel]

Ukrainian civilians are out in the streets attacking the Russian units with Molotov cocktails...

https://twitter.com/soleyman_1/statu...54388088127490

*deleted

It may be from the Maidan protests in 2014.

[beachbound]

Yeah, those Russians are really humane.

[HermantheGerman]

Nice, Herman
Very civiliced

Where do you live? Disneyland?
There is a war in Europe, heavy tanks and artillery are moving into a civilian city called Kyiv.
OhOh the scumbag is still posting communist bullshit and is trying to justify Putin's action.

Yes, very civilized indeed!

I feel sorry for people like you who had to wake up and realize that their bullshit idealism has been shattered.
Are you still trying to figure out what kind of political system Russia has?

Wake up Helge!

[david44]

Large Russian convoy spotted in village c 7m n of end of Hostomel runway a while ago
Large military convoy near Zdvyzhivka village of Kyiv region Kyiv - Ukraine Interactive map - Ukraine Latest news on live map - liveuamap.com


If not stopped may well be there to repair prep runway for dawn landing

Google Maps




just a few minutes from huge Hostomel runway.
The Antonov largest planes in word used this strip

It maybe mined but once secured and Russians cleared snipers they will be able to airlift huge numbers for final asault on Kie another 12m South

Absent air support and ports cut off Zelensky's fate is sealed , will he stay to be killed/captured or leg it to Tel Aviv or Warsaw or London to lead a government in exile?

[helge]

I feel sorry for people like you who had to wake up and realize that their bullshit idealism has been shattered.

What ideallism would that be, Herman ?

Are you still trying to figure out what kind of political system Russia has?

Please explain their political system to me, Herman

Thanks in advance

You fucking moron.

Yes

That's what you have.

[Backspin]

Russia is just de militerizing Ukraine. Capturing the 1500 tons of weapons that the UK flew in a few weeks ago. I doubt the roll into the streets of Kiev will even happen.

They will pull back to the Donbass extended border after the Ukraine is demiliterized.

[Backspin]

Yes. Keep it to this. We do not need WW3. Regardless if 77% of ppl in CNN's poll want WW3

Austin says US may train Ukrainian soldiers remotely: report | TheHill

[NamPikToot]

Russia is just de militerizing Ukraine. Capturing the 1500 tons of weapons that the UK flew in a few weeks ago. I doubt the roll into the streets of Kiev will even happen.

They will pull back to the Donbass extended border after the Ukraine is demiliterized.

Of course, you are 100% right. Just like that article you quoted about how peaceful the invasion is.

[pickel]

Video of a Russian attack helicopter being shot down. Russian mothers are going to get pissed with Putin soon.

Reddit - Dive into anything

[misskit]

^ It worse than that! Those soldier’s mamas will be furious.

Part of a Defense One article about media being cracked down on in Russia.

The Ukraine invasion has been accompanied by other attempts to limit public discourse and understanding. Russian media has been inundating listeners, viewers, and readers with false messaging about the conflict and its origins. Even soldiers captured during the invasion have told interviewers that they believed they were taking part in exercises, said Olena Prokopenko, a non-resident fellow of the Co-chair of the Transatlantic Task Force on Ukraine and non-resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund.


“If you watch interrogations of the captured Russian servicemen soldiers that are invading Ukraine right now, many of them, if not most of them…they say they have not been informed by their leadership why and where they're going,” Prokopenko said on a German Marshall Fund program.


A Russian veterans group called the Committee for Soldiers' Mothers echoed that claim on Friday, adding that Russian conscripts are writing home in shock at finding themselves on the frontlines—where Russian law says only volunteer troops are supposed to be.


Gastov said the move to restrict Facebook could backfire. When Russian news consumers have access to multiple points of view, they may be more likely to accept the government’s course of action even if they don’t like it, he said.


But when readers “try to get alternative information and there is none, they get worried,” he said. The move to block Facebook “will increase tensions and definitely will make people more disconnected with Putin’s own media.”


“It’s not that Russians have been completely brainwashed and are obedient to Putin’s narrative,” he said. Indeed, thousands of protestors have ignored the threat of detention and taken to the streets to protest the invasion.


“They have a certain amount of capacity to express themselves, but it’s narrowing. It’s getting smaller. Unfortunately, there is not much chance that it will be better,” Gastov said.

Russia Cracks Down Harder on Media, Facebook as Protests Sweep Russia - Defense One

[NamPikToot]

The mothers of dead soldiers from the Chechen and Afghan wars were very vocal and created real problems for the Kremlin.

[sabang]

Yeah, deploying Chechens who have no regard for the Geneva convention really backs that up

I read (on Quora I think) that a Chechen special forces regiment had been used to wipe out the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade, HQ'd outside of Mariupol. Can't confirm that, but hope they got the job done!

[Backspin]

I read (on Quora I think) that a Chechen special forces regiment had been used to wipe out the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade, HQ'd outside of Mariupol. Can't confirm that, but hope they got the job done!

Yup. Revenge on the CIA for the wars in Chechnya in the 90's.

[NamPikToot]

^ & ^^ you two are a pair war glorifying idiots, the sad thing is that to you this is the best thing to happen to your lives in a decade. For most normal people the situation is horrific and a walk back to a time 60 or even 75 years ago.

[HermantheGerman]

Please explain their political system to me, Herman
Thanks in advance

No cheating Helge! I asked YOU to figure it out. Post it here on TD and I will try to help you.

* How come that almost 50% of your posts include a question mark

[misskit]

What the fuck is wrong with you, sabang? You and backspin beating the same drum. I thought you had more heart that that Canadian clown and you were just poking fun on TD to get a rise. It ain’t so. You are empty inside.

[HermantheGerman]

I read (on Quora I think) that a Chechen special forces regiment had been used to wipe out the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade, HQ'd outside of Mariupol. Can't confirm that, but hope they got the job done!

Selenskyy and his Prime minister are jewish just like you.
Ukraine has no nationals in their government (did not make the 5%)

Why do you keep babbling about Azov?

Idiots and Nazis are in every country. One of them sits in Russia and is named Pig Face Putin

[Backspin]

^ & ^^ you two are a pair war glorifying idiots, the sad thing is that to you this is the best thing to happen to your lives in a decade. For most normal people the situation is horrific and a walk back to a time 60 or even 75 years ago.

Hey! I said Ukraine should sign a neutrality agreement to prevent this war. They should sign a neutrality agrement right now , to stop this war ! A neutrality agreement DOES NOT mean you are a subject of Russia. Finland is NOT a subject of Russia.

YOU are the one egging the war on. Over some obscure notion that Ukraine should be allowed to join NATO even though Mexico would be met with war if it tried to join the CSTO

[sabang]

you two are a pair war glorifying idiots

Absolutely not in my case- I am a Humanist and anti-war. Why do you think I am so appalled by US foreign policy? I am appalled too that this invasion of Ukraine seems open ended, and not the 'limited operation' that Putin first announced. I am as uncertain as anyone else what Russia's true objectives are. But I'm afraid when it come to ultra-Islamist terrorists (iSIS etc) and neo-Nazis (Azov etc) the milk of human kindness does not flow through my veins.

[helge]

I asked YOU to figure it out. Post it here on TD and I will try to help you.

Is it pretty much like in Thailand, where you feel so at home ?

* How come that almost 50% of your posts include a question mark

Because I do not pretend to be a "know it all" like you ?

BesserWisser

Why do you keep babbling about Azov?

Why do you trivialize it ?

[pickel]

Hey! I said Ukraine should sign a neutrality agreement to prevent this war. They should sign a neutrality agrement right now , to stop this war ! A neutrality agreement DOES NOT mean you are a subject of Russia. Finland is NOT a subject of Russia.

YOU are the one egging the war on. Over some obscure notion that Ukraine should be allowed to join NATO even though Mexico would be met with war if it tried to join the CSTO

Ukraine and Georgia were denied entry into NATO. Russia invaded both anyway.