Ukraine war mega thread

[Troy]

Myth One: Ukraine Cannot Win

Hate to break it to you, but without Western support this is not a myth.

As Norton has told you many times, Russia wins the numbers gain and the war is playing into their hands without internal intervention. That, is the Russian people protesting against the losses to the point the Putin administration is replaced, and replaced with one that prefers not to continue this SMO.

I can see Russia taking more territory this year, not sure if it will be enough to declare some sort of victory, but it's inevitable.

[Neverna]

Who gives a fuck what ruzzia thinks.

"Know the enemy and know yourself in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."

Sun Tzu in The Art of War

[Norton]

https://youtu.be/xADUWZeXFbg?si=5bHnkMtFjdyUAUQs

[Norton]

Fuck. Hate this dog house no edit crap. Come mods, please move to speakers.

[helge]

https://youtu.be/xADUWZeXFbg?si=5bHnkMtFjdyUAUQs

[Hugh Cow]

Who gives a fuck what ruzzia thinks.



They won't, it is just the boogie man in the room. If they did, they would be facing total destruction as there will be a full scale response and pootin knows this. So it is a waste of time to even mention yet vatniks persist with it.

Again Putin using the Bogeyman to frighten the children and it must be worrying for Europeans concerned about Russias gradual invasion when the supposed leader of Europe has been shown to be a paper tiger. The disastrous domestic and foreign policies of its former chancellor Merkel importing the enemy within and supporting their biggest foreign threat by making them their biggest energy supplier. Then to compound the problem by replacing her with Olaf who has more in common with his namesake in the movie Frozen than he does as any sort of leader, hiding under Putins bed at every oportunity and continually knobbling Ukraine (who could forget sending Helmets FFS). The UK at least on this one shows that the EU is missing it's leadership in this area although it has been far from perfect. The USA has again had to step up in the early stages to save the Europeans from themselves but also is increasingly looking like its "Protection" has time limits and is increasingly looked on by its allies as a less than steadfast partner that cannot go the distance, a result of their increasingly moribund self serving political system and a poorly educated on foreign affairs domestic audience, many of whom do not give a flying fuck what happens outside of USA borders as long as there is no direct effect on them. This of course is not lost on either totalitarian Russia or China with no such political or domestic impediments.... They play the long game, knowing that the comfortable western (so called) democracies do not like being out of their comfort zone for too long.

[Troy]

^ Olaf Scholz has history with the Soviet Union and is still reluctant to piss off the Russians. He's fronting a weak coalition and is far from popular in Germany. The policies of his, and the last, governments have stifled industry and put Germany in decline.

His comments about UK and French troops in Ukraine were shameful and shows his lack of tact. He's responsible for the coninued growth of support for the far right.

Nationalism throughout Europe is the surest way to destabilise the region and play into Putin's gameplan.

[bsnub]

Footage leaked today of German generals discussing the possible strike of the Kerch Bridge with Taurus missile...

https://twitter.com/jurgen_nauditt/s...74203407622509

The German government is riddled with pro-ruzzian moles.

[Troy]

^ For those that spreche kein deutsch, there is a transcript here:

https://twitter.com/amborin/status/1763592170089664595

[helge]

spreche kein deutsch,

Is your mission here to destroy the only charm, that the german language has ?

In german you'll never know if "the young man fucked or killed his girlfriend" until the fat lady has spoken the last word (verbum) of the sentence.

Pure suspense, that is !

[OhOh]

Europe is Fearful and Desperate

Alastair CrookeAlastair Crooke

Source: Al Mayadeen English

Today 00:37

Events in Gaza and in Ukraine are unravelling long-standing political power control structures in the EU, in Europe and in the US.

"A leading Establishment newspaper in Europe says that “what is driving European politics at present - is fear”. The headlines ring out with apprehension: “Germany’s élites run scared, as Putin rains down death on Ukraine”. The British Prime Minister calls an emergency press conference to warns of ‘democracy at risk’ from ‘extremism’ on the eve of a by-election win by George Galloway, an articulate, if somewhat unruly, ‘thorn’ in the side of conventional politics (but hardly any ‘extremist’).

In the US too the liberal sphere is in meltdown over the publication of a just-released book: White Rural Rage: The Threat To American Democracy, in which “rural whites are [described as] the most racist; xenophobic; anti-immigrant; anti-gay; and conspiracy-minded, anti-democratic” demography in America. They “don’t believe in an independent press or free speech”, and are “most likely to accept or excuse violence”.

Of course, the fear is being -- in the first instance -- diverted outwards towards the claim that this is somehow Russia’s ‘doing’ -- a looming ‘menace’ further stoked by claims of President Putin’s ‘imperial aspirations’, way beyond Ukraine. There is however (to invert the usual MSM meme), absolutely no evidence for these claims (from anything Putin has said over the years).

What is spooking the West more immediately is the cascading defeats inflicted on Ukrainian forces, after the Avdeevka rout. The new Ukrainian commander, General Syrski, in the wake of the flight, announced a retreat to new defence lines, but as some had predicted, it turned out that the ‘more favourable lines’ Syrski promoted did not exist.

Ukrainian photographers Konstantin and Vlada Liberov who document the war from the ground demanded from Syrski: “So what is the next “fortetsia” - Pokrovsk? Or just Konstantinovka?”

“Where is this second line of defence?” Yuri Butusov, editor-in-chief of Censor-- following his trip to this area – asks: “There are no words. Gap: here in Kiev - the supreme commander-in-chief says one thing, but at the front something completely different is happening. I want to say that no field lines of fortifications have been built beyond Avdeevka so far. I saw Russian drones attacking our soldiers in their burrows - in the middle of a field”.

There are no constructed defence lines – only hurried improvisations - whilst Ukraine resorts to simply throwing its reserves at the deficiency – so to prop up the incremental retreat. Did NATO leaders not spot this defence-line lacuna? Apparently not …

And so one leg to the current panic is just this: The EU has heavily over-invested in its Ukraine project, and now sees it fast crumbling. Hence President Macron’s hasty summons of EU states (at 24 hours’ notice) to the Elysée Palace to hear him warn that the situation on the ground in Ukraine was so critical, and the stakes for Europe so high, that: “We’re at a critical point in the conflict where we need to take the initiative: We’re determined to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes”.

What Macron in fact proposed however, shocked the gathered leaders. He advocated committing detachments of European special forces to Ukraine, not so much directly to fight the Russian forces, but to act as vulnerable strategic ‘tripwire’ deterrents to Russia – which, were they attacked, would ‘trip’ a full-throated NATO retaliation down onto the head of Russia.

These tripwire forces, Macron claimed, would form strategic deterrents to Moscow’s military room for manoeuvre -- oases of ‘untouchable’ NATO, scattered through Ukraine. His colleagues, horrified, demurred; they saw the emplaced tripwires as the conveyor belt leading to WWIII: ‘Madness’, and ‘no thank you’.

The ‘other leg’ to European desperation was given away by PM Sunak’s rush to the microphone in the wake of the Rochdale by-election outcome to warn that democracy is in peril from extremism.

One commentator opined: ‘Rishi Sunak was right’: “This is not politics, not even of the radical kind … It is inchoate, incoherent rage which is ready to make common cause with anyone else, who is enraged even on contradictory grounds”.

If this reaction sounds a bit over the top – just because George Galloway overwhelmingly won in Rochdale – let us ‘join up the dots’ for you:

The same commentator (Janet Daley in the Telegraph) avers: “To bring this right up to date, we now have an entity called the Workers Party – a name that summons up traditional Left-wing dedication to the interests of working class people – winning a by-election in Rochdale by somehow conflating the Palestinian cause in Gaza with local working class needs”.

Ouch! That is what hurts. Echoes here from the Michigan primary in the US, where a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups who had set a modest target of 10,000 ‘uncommitted’ votes -- Trump’s margin of victory in Michigan in 2016 -- to send a message to President Biden that voter frustration over the Gaza war could cost him dearly in the November election. In the event, however, the pro-Palestinian support blew past the 10,000 target and clocked in at nearly 101,400 votes.

Message sent -- and as the electoral desperation in Democratic circles, indicates, ‘message received’.

Just to be plain: Events in Gaza and in Ukraine are unravelling long-standing political power control structures in the EU, in Europe and in the US. This is why there is panic and double-down."

Europe is Fearful and Desperate | Al Mayadeen English

[Neverna]

And so one leg to the current panic is just this: The EU has heavily over-invested in its Ukraine project, and now sees it fast crumbling. Hence President Macron’s hasty summons of EU states (at 24 hours’ notice) to the Elysée Palace to hear him warn that the situation on the ground in Ukraine was so critical, and the stakes for Europe so high, that: “We’re at a critical point in the conflict where we need to take the initiative: We’re determined to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes”.

I understand why Macron might the situation on the ground in Ukraine is critical at the moment but I don't understand why he thinks the stakes for Europe are "so high".

Is it just financial? That they've spend so much money on the war that they don't want to see it wasted?
Or is it that having backed Ukraine politically and financially for so long that they will somehow lose face?

Why does he think the stakes are "so high" for Europe? Any ideas?

[helge]

Why does he think the stakes are "so high" for Europe? Any ideas?

This:

they will somehow lose face?

Doesn't look good in the history books

Some might even have to retire on the taxpayer's expense

Is it just financial? That they've spend so much money on the war that they don't want to see it wasted?

Good one

[bsnub]

but I don't understand why he thinks the stakes for Europe are "so high".

You have got to be kidding? How can someone be so ignorant of history, especially at your age.

Is it just financial?

Good god, the ignorance is astounding. Chalk nev up into the vatnik clown car.

Doesn't look good in the history books

Backslapping your new buddy. The clown car has a new addition.

[helge]

Chalk nev up into the vatnik clown car.

Such tolerance

Any ideas?

No ?

[bsnub]

Such tolerance

You are an oxygen thief in this thread and nothing more you drunk dimwit.

[helge]

Neverna raised a few questions and you explode, poor thing.

You are an oxygen thief in this thread

But you are...."the very well vetted millitary historian"

you drunk dimwit.

Not today or yesterday..or tomorrow.

(I mean 'drunk'; I'm always a dimwit)

[bsnub]

Neverna raised a few questions and you explode, poor thing.

Questions based in remarkable ignorance, but ones that align with your vatnik narratives, so no wonder you were quick to jump on his bandwagon. The idea that the war will stop at Ukraine's borders is a vatnik fallacy.

[helge]

The idea that the war will stop at Ukraine's borders is a vatnik fallacy.

Eh ?

Do you now subscribe to the fantasy, that your "gas station" is capable of invading NATO ?

But you said that.......and I agreed with you on that.

Someone in Europe should invest in a calculator

[Neverna]

You have got to be kidding?

Please enlighten us with your wisdom/opinion, snubby.
What is at stake for Europe?

[Neverna]

The idea that the war will stop at Ukraine's borders is a vatnik fallacy.

Oh, that nonsense.

[Norton]

What is at stake for Europe?

An interesting question of which the Ukraine war is a significant factor.
Excerpt of a long read but IMO worth the time.
"In short, between American unilateralism, its internal divisions and increasingly difficult relations with a global south more inclined to turn to Russia and China, it is hard to see how Europe could truly become the ‘third pole’ between China and the US for which Macron has called."
Europe facing three threats to its future

[david44]

I think ssome Europeans are afraid the Russians may arrive before the French and Italians have time to surrender or switch sides?

[david44]

Wonder if having a navy is now a liability as Ukraine a country with no navy decimates the Russian marine using drones.

[PlanK]

Please enlighten us with your wisdom/opinion, snubby.
What is at stake for Europe?

Maybe look at the recent history of Europe and what happens when you don't stop expansionist regimes.
You don't need to have a long memory.