Ukraine war mega thread

[David48atTD]

The US and its media corporations are silencing independent journalists who are exposing the true reasons for the Ukraine crisis. Washington’s anti-Russian propaganda has reached a fever pitch, according to American political analyst Charles Dunaway.

Who is the 'American political analyst Charles Dunaway'

Well, to be honest ... he's a nobody ...


A Google search of his name reveals that he doesn't even appear on the first two pages of a Google search.

How low is the bar set?

Well, the fourth entry for is ...

Charles Dunaway (1962) was a three-year letterwinner in football and four-year award winner and captain of The Rock tennis team.

---

But, don't write him off too quickly.

The 'American political analyst Charles Dunaway' has penned to articles of note over the years ...

The world is fortunate that Iran is dominated by clear-headed thinkers, says American analyst
and
US ‘democracy’ is run by and for the oligarchs: Analyst


... next please

[harrybarracuda]

No problem to get the Web sites. PressTv too (online).

We know that, you'd be whining like a stuck pig if there was.

[harrybarracuda]

[QUOTE=David48atTD;4377983]Who is the 'American political analyst Charles Dunaway'[/QUOTE]

According to the mad mullahs:

Charles Dunaway is an American radio host and journalist who runs an online political forum.

So another blogger on the payroll.

[OhOh]

A Google search of his name reveals that he doesn't even appear on the first two pages of a Google search

One wonders who decides a search engine's placement criteria?

[David48atTD]

One wonders who decides a search engine's placement criteria?

Well, do a Russian search engine request and let us know where he ranks.

[sabang]

Why doesn't anyone pay me to blog?

[bsnub]

It has been a little over three weeks since Russia initially invaded Ukraine. And by most accounts, the Russian war effort has been a disaster.

The initial Russian invasion plan, a lightning march aimed at conquering Kyiv, collapsed within days. Since then, the Russians have adjusted to a more gradual advance backed by heavy artillery fire, an approach that has allowed them to make some noticeable territorial gains.

But these advances appear to have been halted, at least temporarily. On Thursday, the UK Defense Intelligence Agency assessed that Russia’s offensive “has largely stalled on all fronts,” a judgment echoed by open source analysts tracking developments on the ground. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces have even managed to mount a counteroffensive around Kyiv.

Russian casualties have been horrifically high. It’s hard to get accurate information in a war zone, but one of the more authoritative estimates of Russian war dead — from the US Defense Department — finds that over 7,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the first three weeks of fighting, a figure about three times as large as the total US service members dead in all 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan.

“We’re seeing a country militarily implode,” says Robert Farley, a professor at the University of Kentucky who studies air power.

This is not how the war was supposed to go. On virtually any quantifiable metric of military strength, from defense spending to the size of the respective air forces, Russia’s forces vastly outnumber and outgun Ukraine’s. In early February, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley told members of Congress that Kyiv could fall within 72 hours of a Russian invasion.

But Russia’s military has proven more incompetent, and Ukraine’s more capable, than nearly anyone anticipated.

“Having spent a chunk of my professional career [working] with the Ukrainians: Nobody, myself included and themselves included, had all that high an estimation of their military capacity,” says Olga Oliker, the program director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Crisis Group.

There are many reasons things have turned out this way. Generally speaking, it appears that pre-war analyses overrated Russia’s hardware advantage and underrated less tangible factors — including logistical capacity and the morale of the front-line combat troops on both sides.

Morale in particular “is a very significant factor in Russian combat effectiveness, and one that’s being ignored by many military observers,” argues Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at the CNA think tank.

All that said, it is still far too early to conclude that Ukraine is going to win the war. Ukrainians have suffered significant losses, too; Russia’s numerical and technological advantages remain and could yet prove decisive, allowing the Russians to besiege Ukraine’s major cities and starve them into submission.

But right now, based on the publicly available evidence we have, the momentum is clearly going the other way. An unqualified Russian victory, which once seemed almost inevitable, is looking increasingly less likely.

Russia’s gains have been real — but are stalling out

On paper, Russia’s military vastly outstrips Ukraine’s. Russia spends over 10 times as much on defense annually as Ukraine; the Russian military has a little under three times as much artillery as Ukraine and roughly 10 times as many fixed-wing aircraft.

Given this disparity, Russia was bound to be able to make some inroads into Ukrainian territory. And as you can see on the following map from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russia had seized control of notable chunks of Ukrainian territory by March 9 — especially in the south, where it controls the cities of Melitopol and Kherson:




But these advances were not necessarily the sole result of Russian battlefield supremacy. Ukraine, Kofman explains, made the tactical decision to trade “space for time”: to withdraw strategically rather than fight for every inch of Ukrainian land, fighting the Russians on the territory and at the time of their choosing.

As the fighting continued, the nature of the Ukrainian choice became clearer. Instead of getting into pitched large-scale battles with Russians on open terrain, where Russia’s numerical advantages would prove decisive, the Ukrainians instead decided to engage in a series of smaller-scale clashes.

Ukrainian forces have bogged down Russian units in towns and smaller cities; street-to-street combat favors defenders who can use their superior knowledge of the city’s geography to hide and conduct ambushes. They have attacked isolated and exposed Russian units traveling on open roads, which make for easy targets. They have repeatedly raided poorly protected supply lines with an eye toward denying Russians necessary materials like fuel.

A recent Washington Post account of a battle near the Kyiv suburb of Brovary, based on Ukrainian military videos and interviews with witnesses, paints a clear picture of how this has played out:

A column of tanks moved down a main highway toward the town of Brovary. As they passed a cluster of houses, the Ukrainian forces saw an opportunity. They pummeled the convoy with artillery shells and antitank missiles, destroying or disabling several tanks and armored personnel carriers. Russian soldiers fled their vehicles and ran into the woods, according to videos posted on social media by Ukraine’s military. One tank slowly rolled to a halt, engulfed in flames.

The Ukrainian defensive strategy has not fully thrown Russia’s advance back, but it has slowed it to a near halt. ISW’s updated March 17 map shows that Russian forces have barely moved forward from their positions about a week earlier — a reflection of Ukrainian success:





Again, the Russian advancement mostly came in the south, where they continue to besiege the port city of Mariupol. Their current aim appears to be to do the same to Kyiv in the north, cutting it off from food and water and bombarding it with artillery.

In theory, this is something their vastly superior military forces should be able to accomplish. In practice, the Ukrainians have successfully stopped Russia from encircling their capital and may even be able to push Russian forces back.

And Russian casualties are taking their toll on the invasion. A recent US intelligence assessment found that Russia had lost over 10 percent of its initial invasion force due to a combination of factors like battlefield deaths, injuries, capture, illness, and desertion. According to Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, this is a very ominous sign for the future of its campaign.

“Once they get below 75% their overall effectiveness should plummet,” he writes. “If the Russians don’t send fresh well-trained troops (and this will not be mercenaries or people impressed off the streets in Crimea) very soon, their whole strategy seems pointless.”

What is wrong with the Russian military?

To understand why the war has gone in such a surprising direction, we can first look at some of the Russian side’s problems. They started with Putin himself.

The initial invasion plan was reportedly put together in secret by a handful of his top military and intelligence advisers; it reflected the Russian strongman’s seemingly sincere belief that Ukraine was a fake country and they could achieve regime change with limited resistance.

“He actually really thought this would be a ‘special military operation’: They would be done in a few days, and it wouldn’t be a real war,” Kofman says.

You can see this assumption at work in the structure of the early offensive. Instead of a methodical advance characterized by “combined arms” — the use of multiple forms of military power, like infantry and artillery, in mutually supportive fashion — Russian tanks and elite paratroopers were sent pell-mell toward Kyiv with little support. This kind of rapid advance might have worked if it had faced token resistance, but it opened up Russian forces to devastating Ukrainian counterattacks.

Once Putin’s strategy failed in the first few days of fighting, Russian generals had to develop a new one on the fly. What they came up with — massive artillery bombardments and attempts to encircle and besiege Ukraine’s major cities — was more effective (and more brutal). But the initial Russian failures gave Ukraine crucial time to entrench and receive external supplies from NATO forces, stiffening their defenses.

Even after this strategic shift, Russian forces have continued to suffer from a series of problems that have kneecapped their ability to execute the plan.

“If the point is just to wreak havoc, then they’re doing fine. But if the point is to wreak havoc and thus advance further — be able to hold more territory — they’re not doing fine,” Oliker tells me.

One of the biggest and most noticeable issues has been rickety logistics. The most famous images of this have been Russian armored vehicles parked on Ukrainian roads, seemingly out of gas and unable to advance any further. But on a whole range of issues, from secure communications to adequate tires, the Russian forces have proven to be underequipped and poorly supplied.
Part of the reason is a lack of adequate preparation. Per Kofman, the Russian military simply “wasn’t organized for this kind of war” — meaning, the conquest of Europe’s second-largest country by area.

Another big problem, experts say, is corruption in the Russian procurement system. Corruption in Russia is less a bug in its political system than a feature; one way that the Kremlin maintains the loyalty of its elite is by allowing them to profit off of government activity. Military procurement is no exception to this pattern of widespread corruption, and it has led to troops having substandard access to vital supplies.

“Ineffective control over fuel consumption in the Russian military actually long preceded the war in Ukraine and had historically created opportunities for embezzlement — that is why fuel is often called the Russian military’s ‘second currency,’” Polina Beliakova writes in Politico. “The quality of food and housing in the Russian military is reportedly worse than in its prisons, with unreasonably small meals and some carrying harmful Escherichia coli bacteria.”

Logistical problems also seem to be a factor in one of the war’s biggest and most important surprises: the shocking absence of Russia’s air force.

So far, Russia has struggled to establish air superiority despite massive numerical superiority. According to pre-invasion data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Russia’s aerospace forces include 1,172 fixed-wing aircraft; Ukraine has 124. Yet Ukraine’s planes are still flying and its air defenses mostly remain in place; as a result, the Ukrainian military has been able to use air power against the Russian attackers, including deploying Turkish-made TB2 drones against slow Russian armored columns to devastating effect.

According to Farley, the issues with Russia’s air force run even deeper than lack of maintenance and fuel: Russian pilots lack adequate experience with this kind of campaign and do not train very effectively, while the leadership seems afraid to risk jets over Ukrainian skies.

“There’s a big hangover from the 1990s and the early 2000s, when [Russia] literally didn’t have the money to pay for the gas to make the aircraft fly — so your pilots ended up not having many hours in the sky,” he explains. “Unlike the United States, which wages a massive air campaign every decade, the Russians really haven’t done stuff that require a lot of fixed-wing against any kind of prepared defense.”

Ukraine’s stiff resistance and the importance of morale

Perhaps the biggest single difference between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries, according to the experts I spoke with, has been morale: soldiers’ belief in their cause and willingness to fight for it.

“It’s the one thing that could be completely decisive” in Ukraine’s favor, says Farley. “Armies do just decide to stop fighting.”

Morale is, by its nature, a tricky thing to assess. But according to Dartmouth political scientist Jason Lyall, whose recent book Divided Armies examines the role of morale on battlefield performance, you can see its effects in dispatches from the Ukrainian front.

“Russian morale was incredibly low BEFORE the war broke out. Brutal hazing in the military, second-class (or worse) status by its conscript soldiers, ethnic divisions, corruption, you name it: the Russian Army was not prepared to fight this war,” he explains via email. “High rates of abandoned or captured equipment, reports of sabotaged equipment, and large numbers of soldiers deserting (or simply camping out in the forest) are all products of low morale.”

Putin kept the Russian invasion plan a secret from everyone but his inner circle; before the invasion, Russian diplomats and propaganda outlets were mocking the West for suggesting it might happen. The result is a Russian force that has little sense of what they’re fighting for or why, waging war against a country with which they have religious, ethnic, historical, and potentially even familial ties. That’s a recipe for low morale.

By contrast, the Ukrainians are defending their homes and their families from an unprovoked invasion. They have a charismatic leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has made a personal stand in Kyiv. Stories of heroism and defiance — like Ukrainian soldiers responding to a surrender request by saying “Russian warship, go fuck yourself” — have bolstered the defenders’ resolve.
The Ukrainian morale advantage is making a difference on the battlefield.

“High morale empowers units to take risks, adopt unpredictable tactics, and to endure hardships even when outnumbered,” Lyall tells me. “High Ukrainian morale, fueled by Zelenskky’s remarkable leadership and personal courage, has improved Ukrainian cohesion and the ability of its forces to impose significant casualties on Russian forces.”

Lyall cautions that morale can shift with battlefield developments: A major Russian breakthrough in one area could cheer up their troops while dispiriting Ukrainians. And low-morale armies can win wars, though they typically do so in brutally ugly fashion — including mass slaughter of civilians, which appears to be a significant part of Putin’s current strategy.

But right now, morale appears to be one of the most important factors in explaining the difference between the two militaries’ performance. It could end up playing a major role in determining the entire course of the war.

What does victory for either side look like now?

War is unpredictable. Any number of things, ranging from Russian reinforcements to greater deployment of its air force to the fall of besieged Mariupol, could give the Russian offensive new life.
But even if Russia begins to perform better on the battlefield, its initial objective — “a Ukraine that becomes entirely subservient to Russia,” as Oliker puts it — is looking increasingly out of reach. The inability to swiftly topple Kyiv, together with the strong resistance and rising nationalist sentiment among Ukrainians, makes it hard to imagine Russia successfully installing its own government in Kyiv.

“No matter how much military firepower they pour into it, they are not going to be able to achieve regime change or some of their maximalist aims,” Kofman declares.
This does not mean the Russian campaign will prove to be a total failure. Depending on how the rest of the military campaign goes, it is possible to imagine them extracting significant political concessions from Zelenskyy in ongoing peace negotiations.

If more major cities like Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa are put under the sort of horrible siege Mariupol is currently experiencing — starved and under constant artillery bombardment — the Russians will have a lot more negotiating leverage. They could use this to extract favorable terms, like Ukrainian recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and a neutrality pledge not to join NATO or the European Union.

But if current military trends hold, it’s the Ukrainians who have the cards — and you can imagine a deal that looks similar on paper actually favoring them significantly. According to Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press and the Financial Times, the country’s negotiating team in peace talks with Russia envisions a very specific version of “neutrality”: one that precludes formal NATO membership but nonetheless commits Western powers to providing weapons and air defense if Ukraine is attacked. This would put Ukraine in a far closer security relationship to the West than it was before the war, when NATO membership was already functionally out of reach — a victory for Kyiv and defeat for Moscow.

It is hard to say how these talks will go, or if and when they will be successful. But the fact that a negotiated end to the war is looking more likely than totalRussian victory reflects the success of Ukraine’s defense to date.

“Ukraine’s battle is really for time, an extent to which they can [degrade] Russian forces over time in order to steadily lead Russia to revise down their war aims. And we’ve already seen a change in Russian war aims over the course of the conflict,” Kofman says. “If the requirements of military success are the destruction of the Ukrainian capital and several other cities, the likelihood of achieving actual political aims is nil.”

https://www.vox.com/2022/3/18/229778...ssa-week-three

[panama hat]

RT and Google is working for me.

Maybe I'm special

Yup, same here . . . but then we're not totalitarian apologists with some bizarre hard-on for dictators

[Cujo]

The US and its media corporations are silencing independent journalists who are exposing the true reasons for the Ukraine crisis. Washington’s anti-Russian propaganda has reached a fever pitch, according to American political analyst Charles Dunaway.

“The US government has imposed harsh sanctions on a number of nations, among them Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, all of the major oil producers. As a result, gas prices are at an all-time high in the United States and that is politically toxic to Biden and the Democrats. While Biden tries to blame Putin for the high gas prices, it is entirely a result of the US trying desperately to retain its position as the sole superpower,” Dunaway said in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.

“The Saudi and UAE governments are well aware of Biden’s political situation and intend to take full advantage of it. Biden should, of course, not deal with these brutal regimes, but he has little choice. Continuing increases in the price of gasoline will cause voters to reject the Democrats in large numbers this fall. The Washington establishment and the oligarchs who financially support it will not tolerate a rational winding down of the policy of world domination, so the US is using the power of its formidable propaganda machine to whip up more anger at Russia and keep attention focused on the plight of the Ukrainian people,” he added.

“The US and its social media corporations are silencing all media outlets and independent journalists that might reveal the truth about Ukraine and undermine faith in the establishment narrative. Such moves make a mockery of the feigned concern for human rights and democracy, and this fact does not go noticed in the Global South. Should Russia successfully remove the US-supported Nazis in Ukraine, many more nations will join with Russia, China and Iran in opposition to US imperialism,” he noted.

“As for harming US interests in West Asia, what more harm remains to be done? Destroying Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and trying to destroy Syria and Iran, and supporting the brutal repression of the Palestinian people has already destroyed US interests in the region,” he stated.

“As an American, it is painful to watch my nation self-destruct, and even more painful to witness my fellow citizens’ unquestioning acceptance of the anti-Russian propaganda. As we receive even more urgent warnings about impending climate catastrophe, the US should be working together with the nations of the world to find solutions, not starting more wars in the vain attempt to dominate,” he concluded.US relations with the two Persian Gulf countries have soured over the Biden administration's dwindling support for the Saudi-led war on Yemen and the talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran deal, according to reports.

But now the Biden administration is reportedly reaching out to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to urge them to increase their oil output to counterbalance disruptions in the global market sparked by sanctions on Russia.The leaders of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, however, have reportedly declined calls from President Biden.According to The Wall Street Journal, both Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan have declined to speak by phone with President Biden in an attempt to draw American attention to the quid pro quo they are seeking — “more oil output for more arms and assistance in fighting” against the people of in Yemen.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24 ordered a “special military operation” in Ukraine’s Donbas region. Putin said his country was defending Russian-speaking communities through the "demilitarisation and de-Nazification" of Ukraine so that their neighbor became neutral and no longer threatened Russia.
US President Joe Biden, however, called the Russian action an "unprovoked and unjustified attack," and the mainstream American media described it as the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two attack by Russia.

Analyst: Washington’s anti-Russian propaganda has reached feverish pitch

What a load of utter Russian propoganda. Imagine an American castigating other Americans for being Anti Russian, it beggars belief. Russia is not nor has ever been The U.S.s friend or ally.
The whole Nazi thing is a total red herring thrown out to distract and eagerly swallowed by useful idiots like sabang and skidmark.

[Backspin]

Interesting discussion on the issues

[aging one]

Dang it Skiddy you found a doozy this time. Right wing to far right wing nut job.

Lots of political experience starting in 2014 as well.


Early content and awards (2014-2019)

Freiheit started his YouTube career in early 2014 by posting videos of him lip syncing to various pop songs while running obstacle courses dressed in a full suit. These videos were not receiving many views, so Freiheit decided to try another style; in late 2014, Freiheit started posting nature-related stunts. He gained popularity when he posted a video of a squirrel picking up his GoProaction camera and carrying it up a tree

[hallelujah]

Dang it Skiddy you found a doozy this time. Right wing to far right wing nut job.

Lots of political experience starting in 2014 as well.


Early content and awards (2014-2019)

Freiheit started his YouTube career in early 2014 by posting videos of him lip syncing to various pop songs while running obstacle courses dressed in a full suit. These videos were not receiving many views, so Freiheit decided to try another style; in late 2014, Freiheit started posting nature-related stunts. He gained popularity when he posted a video of a squirrel picking up his GoProaction camera and carrying it up a tree

Just 'this time' though?

[harrybarracuda]

Why doesn't anyone pay me to blog?

Go and ask on VK. it may require more than cut and paste though. Bit beyond your skill set.

[harrybarracuda]

Originally Posted by sabang (Ukraine war mega thread)
The US and its media corporations are silencing independent journalists

They don't need to silence them, only wankers take them seriously.

Because when you say "independent journalists" you mean witless bloggers posting propaganda.

[HermantheGerman]

Is there state sanctioned Nazi battalions in Ukrain ? Yes or no ?

Is there state Na z i battalions in Russia ? Yes

Z
Heil Putin!
Z

[HermantheGerman]

Who is the 'American political analyst Charles Dunaway'

Well, to be honest ... he's a nobody ...

Desperate times for Sabang and Co.

Hey David, do you mind if we call you World Political Analyst.

[HermantheGerman]

Oh my, it looks like one of the Three Stooges who bleated on and on for months about this war claiming it would never happen is shifting gears and trying to get out of the quagmire he dug himself into. This is what is coming to Sabangs Russians...



Eat a dick baby killers.

Why AeroVironment Shares Are Flying High Today

Why AeroVironment Shares Are Flying High Today


Thanks bsnubs

[HermantheGerman]

Reports of forced rally attendance

The show of support amid a burst of anti-war protests inside Russia led to allegations in some quarters that the rally was a manufactured display of patriotism.
Several Telegram channels critical of the Kremlin reported that students and employees of state institutions in a number of regions were ordered by their superiors to attend rallies and concerts marking the Crimea anniversary.

HERE


Russians ‘forced’ to attend Putin’s packed pro-war rally

Russian People Claiming They Were Bussed In And Forced To To Attend Putin Rally

Students file complaint over forced rally attendance


Backspin ... we 'get it'

There was a band/singer at that War Criminal show singing about Stalin and Lenin.
Did anyone get the name?
What exactly was the text these imbeciles where singing?

Reminded me a lot of a Adolf Hitler

The Z as a swastika etc.

[David48atTD]

Hey David, do you mind if we call you World Political Analyst.

Sure ... beats being called a Newbie

David ... World Political Analyst ... I'm liking that!

[HermantheGerman]

One wonders who decides a search engine's placement criteria?

Now that's a tough one to answer.
On the contrary to Chinastan, Russia, Venezuela and all your other beloved countries.

[HermantheGerman]

i wonder what a Palestinian might have to say about that? Or an.... or an ....... or....

Well, at least you now finally know that Israel and Russia * have been scratching each others backs for years.
Yes, I would be pissed if I was a Palestinian or better yet a Syrian War Criminal called Bashar Hafez al-Assad.

* (I have been posting it for years here on TD )

[HermantheGerman]

But as someone who is the son of political refugees from the Greek Junta . i can tell you that they were installed with America's blessing.
"London Paper Asserts C.I. A. Engineered the Coup in Greece "
London Paper Asserts C.I. A. Engineered the Coup in Greece - The New York Times
But that should come of no surprise to anyone, and if it is true it would not be the first country this has occurred in.

Now that explains and comes of no surprise why Greece is so utterly corrupt.
Don't bother to comment, I already know your reply .

[qwerty]

Why doesn't anyone pay me to blog?

Because Putin has set your payment rate at 1 ruble per 1000 views. Since there are only 20 posters on Teak Door, your blogging bonus always rounds down to zero!

[Troy]

On the bright side, there must be an awful lot of scrap metal that can be melted down and reused. It could be a booming industry for a few years after the war.

[David48atTD]

^ Or ...

FOR SALE

Russian Tank, working perfectly, found abandoned, 'Z' removed.

Plenty of ammo.

All offers please