Ukraine war mega thread

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Before Putin’s War, many big western governments were cutting their defence budgets. Some were even suggesting realignment to high tech and cyber warfare.
Global military industry is the only group making big money out of this.

.

In January 17, 1961, in this farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a "military-industrial complex.".
Sense then it seems to me that conditions for conflict have been manufactured with constand regularity, to maintain a consistent state of "Perpetual war for perpetual peace " With the threat of the terrorism boogeyman diminishing , a new threat had to be manufactured. Prepare for a new cold war with Russia for the rest of our lives and the associated " Defence" spending nessacery to keep us safe from Putinism an the threat of the Russians menace
Be afraid! be very afraid.

[Norton]

President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a "military-industrial complex."

He did indeed but sure not just aimed at the US military-industrial complex. Russia's military-industrial complex makes a nice profit as well.

[sabang]

Sadly, it is easier to prey on peoples fear and insecurity than their logic and rationality. It seems to me the larger the 'Mass', the more that applies.

[baldrick]

Who are these fucking idiots fixating on the 'Nazi' Russian propaganda thing?

because the whole rus belief system is built on how great they are because they defeated the nazis in WW2 - generations of politicians have used this for their own benefit

[sabang]

True that baldrick- 'evil nazis' in russki plays just as well as 'evil commies' in the states. So an easy way to manipulate public opinion, via the old narrative.

[Backspin]

Before Putin’s War, many big western governments were cutting their defence budgets. Some were even suggesting realignment to high tech and cyber warfare.
Global military industry is the only group making big money out of this.

Putin has lost the plot and his much vaunted military have been found wanting. They are now engaging in a face saving withdrawal, to try and save Putin’s sorry reputation.

You are clueless. Russia said from day 1 that they weren't going to remove the govt in Kiev. Russia hasn't declared war on Ukraine, Ukraine hasn't declared war on Russia.

They sent units towards Kiev to prevent the resupply of the east while they encircled the east. Its very basic maneuver warfare doctrine. There are now 60-80,000 Ukraine troops completely encircled. Russia is slowly closing in on them now, offering as many of them a chance to surrender as they can. The ones who don't will have to be nihilated.

[sabang]

Russia said from day 1 that they weren't going to remove the govt in Kiev.

H'mmm- in the early days I thought Vlad was mouthing off that he wanted clownboysky out (he did have a point), but the turks announced after a joint peace negotiation that was no longer the case?


If it was all a clever trap to encircle them dumb ukies, I don't really see why the russkies needed to use the Kiev stockbroker belt as a parking lot.

[baldrick]

I think people are failing to understand backspits point

Ukraine needs to be destroyed in order to save it

[Buckaroo Banzai]

He did indeed but sure not just aimed at the US military-industrial complex. Russia's military-industrial complex makes a nice profit as well.

I am sure they do, but I think in Russia the goverment (Putin) runs the military-industrial complex, where in the US it's the other way around.
Either way its a hell of a way to govern this blue marble hurtling through space.
Insanity at its best.

[Switch]

Sadly, it is easier to prey on peoples fear and insecurity than their logic and rationality. It seems to me the larger the 'Mass', the more that applies.

Indeed. If only Putin’s behaviour was any where near rational or logic!

[Backspin]

Michael Tracy was in Poland recently

[David48atTD]

They sent units towards Kiev to prevent the resupply of the east while they encircled the east. Its very basic maneuver warfare doctrine.

You do understand that Russia, to stop resupply of the Ukraine troops in the East, Russia would have to have taken the supply routes from the SOUTH - SOUTH/EAST of Kiev ... which they never did.
Its very basic geography.

There are now 60-80,000 Ukraine troops completely encircled. Russia is slowly closing in on them now, offering as many of them a chance to surrender as they can. The ones who don't will have to be nihilated.

So, Russia invades Ukraine and the Forces and Citizens of Ukraine are trying to reply them ... so, in your mind, defending one's own Country is justification for being, as you put it ... 'nihilated'?

You are one sick puppy.

[David48atTD]

Michael Tracy was in Poland recently

BS ... I haven't got 1 1/2 hours of my life to watch that ... so, what is she trying to say?

Plus, what is unusual that there has been a bolstering of the NATO Borders with extra troopes considering that Russia has invaded Ukraine?

More Troops and a fucking lot more defensive hardware please!

[Switch]

In January 17, 1961, in this farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a "military-industrial complex.".
Sense then it seems to me that conditions for conflict have been manufactured with constand regularity, to maintain a consistent state of "Perpetual war for perpetual peace " With the threat of the terrorism boogeyman diminishing , a new threat had to be manufactured. Prepare for a new cold war with Russia for the rest of our lives and the associated " Defence" spending nessacery to keep us safe from Putinism an the threat of the Russians menace
Be afraid! be very afraid.

My point was that Putin’s invasion has massively increased European defence budgets, his irrational behaviour has them all running scared and increasing spending on military forces. That could mean manpower, technology and military hardware.

The lack of progress in Putin’s war could harm Russian military hardware sales, but the industry is global, and a great deal of it is illegal.

The UK is constantly trying to justify supplying stuff to Saudi Arabia, the French will sell anything to anyone, regardless of morality. Israel and South Africa have some very useful hardware that has battle tested provenance.
Basically, if anyone has enough dollars, they can get whatever they want.

[bsnub]

There are now 60-80,000 Ukraine troops completely encircled.

Still lying, I see. Almost every post you make is completely made up school boy fantasy. The posts should be removed. Ukraine is not encircled in the south, you idiot. Russia would have had to take Dnipro to do that, and that city is solidly for the time being in Ukrainian hands.

#stopskiddyslies

[pickel]

THESE NAZIS ARE FROM THE LITERAL FUCKING LINEAGE OF THE NAZIS FROM WW2 !!!! WTF DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ?

THE GRANDFATHER'S OF THESE WEST UKRAINE PARTISANS CARRIED OUT THE HOLOCAUST IN THE EAST

Lineage makes people Nazi's? Germans have more lineage to Nazi's than Ukrainians do. Do you consider Germany to be a country run by Nazi's?

[HermantheGerman]

Don't know if others have noticed, but:
The narrative in our media are changing.
The almost unanimous outcry/answer to the invasion of Ukraine has been an substantial increase in millitary spending.
At the same time the poor russian performance has been ridiculed(Bsnub is not alone )
It doesn't take much logic and "devil's advocacy" to question the further spending/wasting on arms spending to counter an
impotent opponent, does it ?
So the narrative is changing to "Russia might have had an idea with her failed Kiev attack to somehow succeed on the eastern front"
Cunning bastards
You can't have it both ways.
Let's see

I read it twice.

Your point is

[HermantheGerman]

Lineage makes people Nazi's? Germans have more lineage to Nazi's than Ukrainians do. Do you consider Germany to be a country run by Nazi's?

Modern definition of a Nazi = Backspin

The old Nazi Krauts didn't have as much media information about their beloved Fuehrer as Backshit had. Which makes him even worse.

We also have a self-hating Nazi jew here on this forum

Lets not forget our our communist pervert DingOhh DongOhh

[Buckaroo Banzai]

My point was that Putin’s invasion has massively increased European defence budgets, his irrational behaviour has them all running scared and increasing spending on military forces. That could mean manpower, technology and military hardware.

In my paranoid opinion , since there was ample warning from responsible agencies the if you continue to do X Russia will do Y and they continued to do " X" it might have been by design unless one believes that Ukraine was so strategically important to the west that the threat of a Russian invasion was worth the risk. And I believe along with many other experts that indeed it was by design to divert attention from American economic problems, and maintain the profitability of the military industrial complex.
I might be wrong , but even paranoids have real enemies
Good book to read on the subject by the great historical writer Gore Vidal .
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated
A bit dated but still relevant.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

A post so great , I post it twice LOL

[bsnub]

And I believe along with many other experts that indeed it was by design to divert attention from American economic problems, and maintain the profitability of the military industrial complex.

So you are still trying to insinuate that this war started by Russia was all deliberately "started" by America instead.

I have to say that since you started posting in this thread, your credibility in my eyes has dropped about as low as it can get. Because what you are insinuating is 1) based on conjecture 2) completely batshit crazy 3) about as wrong as a person could get.

Give it a rest. Russia started this war without provocation, and it is something that Putin had planned to do for a long time, and there is nothing the US could have done one way or other to stop it. This is a man who is hellbent to restore Russia to its Soviet days and a massive overreach by Putin who underestimated the combat effectiveness of his own army as well as the determination of the Ukrainian people.

[David48atTD]

Sort of related ...

UK looks to build eight more nuclear power plants as part of plan to cut dependence on Russian energy

Key points:

• The UK government said the plan aims to boost "long-term energy independence, security and prosperity"
• The strategy includes a plan to build eight new nuclear reactors by 2050, tripling the UK's nuclear energy production
• UK household gas and electricity prices have jumped 54 per cent this month

UK looks to build eight more nuclear power plants as part of plan to cut dependence on Russian energy - ABC News

[Norton]

military-industrial complex

Busy at work again. Gotta have stuff to maintain the peace.



Russia-Ukraine war creates halo effect for defense stocks

Raytheon, Lockheed get boost from Russia-Ukraine war

[misskit]

Russia’s war dead belie its slogan that no one is left behind

Soon after the invasion began, a hashtag war slogan popped up everywhere in Russia: “We don’t leave ours behind.” But many were.


In Irpin, on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, two Russian soldiers killed in battle lay on a street corner, covered with a sheet of metal, legs poking out. A third lay a few feet away near a burned-out armored personnel carrier, a lower leg gnawed by dogs. A fourth lay further along the road, the victim of a mine.


In Moshchun, a once-idyllic hamlet northwest of Kyiv, another Russian soldier died badly inside a dimly lit kitchen, lying on a bench with a gruesome groin wound. Ten others were scattered about, several on the fringes of a forest.


While countless bodies have been abandoned on the battlefield, many more have found their way back to their families, but Russia’s overall death toll, though staggering, remains elusive. At home, the Kremlin has clamped down on news of military casualties, apparently wary of how a nation’s grief could turn volatile. In 2015, Putin signed a decree declaring all military deaths a state secret, and last year Russia criminalized statements discrediting the military.

NATO estimates that Russia has lost 7,000 to 15,000 troops during the six-week war, a startling number, while Ukraine puts the toll at 18,600. Those figures rival, if not exceed, the 14,453 lost during the Soviet Union’s roughly 10-year war in Afghanistan and the 11,000 Russian service members who died in the two Chechen wars.

Russia puts the official military death toll of the Ukrainian campaign at 1,351, and state television does not dwell on this figure. With Russia now apparently girding for a grueling war of attrition and analysts predicting that Moscow will keep plowing in massive numbers of troops and material, the media in the Russian towns and cities that have lost the largest number of their sons are strangely quiet.

Dozens from the Russian town of Aleysk, in the Altai region, reportedly died in the first days of the war in fighting near the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. After news reached families, there was only one cryptic reference on the local community online news page: “Dear military family members! We kindly ask you not to allow people to gather in one place, not to succumb to provocative information.”


A similar notice on the eternal memory page for Chelyabinsk — another Russian city with significant casualties — warned against fake information “created with the aim of whipping up hysteria.” People must not share news of deaths, it added, claiming that “Nazis from Ukraine” were trying to “collect information about our soldiers for the subsequent development of fake information.”

‘The first week was like darkness’


Vadim Kolodiy, a 19-year-old gunner from the 136th Reconnaissance Battalion based in Naro-Fominsk outside Moscow, died after he was attacked and trapped in his armored personnel carrier, the Russian military told his mother, Tatyana, last month, but she never received his body.


“I am hysterical. Vadim didn’t even have a chance to escape. He burned inside,” she wrote on social media. “The first week was like darkness. Pain, tears. I could not sleep or eat.” She said she felt anger at men in their 30s and 40s out drinking beer, while “children” in their late teens and early 20s were dead.


A few weeks after Kolodiy’s reported death, charred remains thought to be his were analyzed in a laboratory in Rostov, but the DNA did not match.


“No one is looking for these children,” Tatyana said. “No one cares about them. How many of these children, husbands, are there? How much pain had this all brought?”


Nikita Deryabin’s widow, Anya Deryabina, buried her husband last month, but still does not have a feeling of closure. Deryabin, 25, of Chelyabinsk had adored his wife and three young children. A sniper who loved the military, he was sent on a “training exercise,” only to be killed in battle March 8.


“I still can’t realize or believe that this is true,” Deryabina said in written answers to questions because she said she could not speak without crying. At night, she dreams of him, feeling he is still with her. “Every day I talk to him. Every day I ask him what for and why.


“My brain refuses to accept the information that Nikitka is dead,” she said, using a diminutive nickname. “I am still waiting for him to call, to come back.”

Some bereaved family members want Russia to redouble its military campaign in Ukraine so, they say, that their boys will not have died in vain.


Gulnara Valiyeva, 43, whose son Yevgeny was killed with his German shepherd service dog in Hostomel, near Kyiv, called on social media for Russia to keep fighting “to the end.” She buried him, and is begging the military to let her have the female Belgian shepherd pup he was training before he left, so that she can keep part of him.


But there are also flashes of dissent. “People are saying that their relatives are sent (to Ukraine.) What the f--- is this about? For what?” commented Olga Filippova on March 11, under Valiyeva’s online post about her son’s memorial.

Trying to return the bodies


Ukraine has about 7,000 unclaimed Russian corpses in morgues and refrigerated rail cars, according to Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration. He said his government’s figure of 18,600 Russian dead was based on Ukrainian reports from the battlefield and intercepted Russian military communications.


Ukraine tried to return the bodies of 3,000 Russian service members on the third day of the war, he said. “They said, ‘We don’t believe in such quantities. We don’t have this number. We’re not ready to accept them.’ ” Ukraine proposed an exchange several times, he said, but “they won’t discuss this at all yet.”


So Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs set up a website and Telegram channel where Russians can search photos of the dead and prisoners of war, or fill out an online form seeking information about family members.


Russia’s Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.


Yevheni Velichko, the 32-year-old mayor of Voznesensk, a southern Ukrainian town, asked residents to collect Russian corpses after a two-day battle “so that we can send these guys back to their mothers and wives.”


“Russian or not Russian, we treated the bodies with dignity,” he said, adding that they were sent to Kyiv.


In nearby Bashtanka village, Mayor Oleksandr Beregovyi said dead Russians were buried in mass graves after their documents were collected.


Pivoting to brute force


Keir Giles of the London-based think tank Chatham House said the difference between Western and Russian military attitudes about their war dead was “night and day … in exactly the same way as their attitude to civilian casualties and collateral damage is utterly unrecognizable from how Western militaries operate.”


Russia had planned a swift operation in Ukraine, similar to what it had planned in its wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya, but then got bogged down. “And then Russia pivots from the clever way to the brute force way of winning wars,” Giles said, and casualties mount on both sides.


In Chechnya, Russian officials had expected swift triumph. The storming of the capital, Grozny, in 1994 was a catastrophe, with soldiers in armored vehicles getting lost and lacking air support and working radios. But Russia’s media at the time was free, and civil society was blossoming. News programs aired footage of Russian soldiers burning alive in armored vehicles. Horrified parents of soldiers simply went to Chechnya and took their sons home.

The Soldiers’ Mothers Committee, then led by Valentina Melnikova, was a focal point for protests and anger. In December last year, as Russia’s military massed near Ukraine, her phone was ringing off the hook again, although she is long retired, Melnikova recently told Russian YouTube interviewer Ekaterina Gordeyeva.


Melnikova declined interview requests from The Post, saying that it was dangerous for her or the organization to speak, because of the law against discrediting the military.

Before the Feb. 24 invasion, she gave parents the same advice as she did in the 1990s: Either go and collect their sons from the army and hide them somewhere safe, or tell them to run away, she said in the YouTube interview, the only one she has granted. Not one parent did so, she said.


After the invasion, “I felt like I was back in 1995. It was a terrible feeling,” she said. “It was like Grozny again, when around 2,500 dead soldiers lay on the streets for a month, half-eaten by animals.” She said she believes Ukraine’s list is fairly accurate because it lists names from identity documents.


“But since our army does not collect the bodies of the dead and don’t always pick up the wounded, there can be many discrepancies,” she said, referring to Russia’s figures. “It’s cheaper to report them as ‘missing in action.’”


Sergei Krivenko, director of the rights group “Citizen Army Law,” said Russians were sensitive about deaths of conscripts. Putin has said that conscripts have not been sent to Ukraine, but some have been. Losses among volunteers or “contract” soldiers in Ukraine, however, are less shocking.


“The mentality is that you’re paid for this and if you are sent to a military operation and you die, it’s your choice,” Krivenko said. “A soldier is just a tool to do a job. … The main task is to destroy the enemy, and how many losses we take is a secondary issue.”


Krivenko said he doubted the mounting Russian deaths would spark enough popular discontent to threaten Putin.


“Propaganda is shouting constantly that we are defeating fascists in Ukraine. So as long as the number of dead doesn’t increase one-hundred-fold, I do not think there will be any instability,” he said.

MSN

[helge]

” She said she felt anger at men in their 30s and 40s out drinking beer, while “children” in their late teens and early 20s were dead.

She's got a point.

The lust for armed conflicts would be limited, if it was men/women of age, who were called up.

Or better yet the president's daughters and "the senator's son".