They likely were hoping for that, but I think this decision was tactical based on the frontline degrading over the past couple weeks, not reacting to the election.
They've been prepping defenses on the left bank for most of a month.
Yes they can, unfortunately. Much worse and slower that west would expect, but they can. They have a lot of broken soviet stuff in the storage, which can be somehow repaired at least to the drive and shoot condition, even without fancy active armor or heat optics. They have a capability to manufacture dozens of ballistic missiles per month, so each new month is another 2-3 days of new bombardments in the future. Iran and NK are supplying them with contraband chips and other small but hard to get stuff, while these sources are just a trickle in the active war, but during the peace time they can accumulate a lot of stuff such way. And humans - their mobilization capability is approximately idk 100k-150k of soldiers at one time, due to lack of equipment for them, officers to train them and locations to quarter them. That's why half of new mobilised soldiers recently were sent directly to the active army. But a peace time would afford them to a) train a lot of troops in a batches of 100k, and b) expand mobilisation capacity by a lot, maybe x2 times for example.
That's why Putin dropped all of his public demands recently and just about begs USA and Ukraine for the peace talks. ANd it's not because he will admit his defeat, it's to gain a tactical peace for his war.
> The memoranda, signed in Patria Hall at the Budapest Convention Center with US Ambassador Donald M. Blinken amongst others in attendance, prohibited the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons.
There's no reason to believe any new one would be better respected by Russia; it'd be just an opportunity for Russia to rest, rearm, and invest in propaganda efforts.
Ukraine was already being invaded and occupied while Trump was president and he did absolutely nothing about it. He praised Putin, he said Putin is a smart man. Worse, he tried to do a quid pro quo to get political ammo in exchange of support for Ukraine, for fucks sake. He was gonna throw Ukraine under the bus because they didn't give him some dirt on Biden's son. How does that not play in the hands of Putin, exactly?
Are you seriously stating that because Putin didn't further invade during Trump's presidency, a president who was keen on taking down NATO and the alliance between EUA-EU wasn't playing in the hands of Putin?
What exactly should have Putin done so you could see that? Just further invading Ukraine is the only point you can see for that?
It seriously tires me out to have to read this bullshit on Hacker News.
The only confirmation for that information I can find comes from Trump's own mouth, do you have a reliable source for that? Hope you really don't expect me to trust Trump's words.
Well he needed the Crimean bridge, which wasn't finished until 2019. Then he needed to ensure Syria wouldn't flare up. Then he had to ensure his ownership of his goon in Belarus, Lukashenko, by backing him up in 2020. Then there was covid, etc.
Lots of strategic reasons to wait until 2022, not factoring his suspected health issues.
Ukraine is perfectly invadeable without the Crimean Bridge. Syria is no less likely to flair up now than it was then. Belarus was never going to oppose Russia on this. Covid is not severe enough to impact military readiness. This is all cope.
If Putin had a puppet in the White house he would have invaded. The US could block all NATO support. No one in Europe is going to against the US on military matters. This is the biggest advantage he could possibly have.
It's not the first one I bumped into here on Hacker News, just a day or two ago I tried calling out a poster that they were repeating literal Russian propaganda lines [1].
It doesn't seem to matter, they'll keep repeating it, ad nauseam...
Really scary to see what should be intelligent and critical people falling for literal Russian propaganda.
From this comment on Hacker News [1]:
>> The Soviets brokered a deal with us. We agreed NATO would not expand eastwards.
> This is simply not true. It is a talking point developed for Putin's speech at 2007 Munich security conference to justify the shift to genocidal wars against its neighbors. It did not exist before 2007 and was not brought up when, for example, Poland joined NATO in 1999. There was an endless stream of whining and unspecified threats from Russian diplomats at the time, but not once do I remember talk about any deals.
> It's nothing more than a simple, yet effective hook for catching western self-flagellants into their net, while the truth is that western governments went above and beyond to accommodate Russia and build cooperation, and it still lead to a maniacal dictatorship carrying out genocide in Europe and threatening rest of the world with hunger and nuclear armageddon.
That sort of request works a bit better before the country gets invaded, first piecemeal, and then - here's the really important bit - in it's entirety.
If you think the statement is false, you could provide evidence-based arguments. For example, it should be possible to check whether NATO provided safety guarantees or not (it is an objective statement).
Obviously, given military, economic, media, etc superiority, NATO can do whatever to whomever with impunity.
If you think, there are no plans to dismantle Russia, why NATO refuses to make it official? (however little it might mean, given the history)
Look into who made a fat profit on all this tragedy. Cui bono. Make your own conclusions based on the facts.
That is technically correct but the RF elites have painted themselves into a corner such that if they were to withdraw, they would be elites no more and possibly not even alive.
An awful lot of oligarchs and other powerplayers, including a few who were affiliated with the Siloviki, have "committed suicide" or "had heart attacks" in recent months.
Honestly I think if Putin pulled out he'd be fine -- most of the opposition is dead, running scared, or on his team. A lot of Russian assets have been frozen, though, and if he wants to get those back he'd have to walk away from his 2014 gains, or else justify why all of that $$$ is gone.
The refusal of Russian leadership to withdraw their forces from Ukraine is a problem for Ukraine because it means Ukraine has to kick them out the hard way. Surely you've noticed there is a war.
I'm saying the world as a whole should not compromise (push Ukraine to go for peace) with a dictator just because that dictator doesn't want to do the right thing. That should generally be considered not a good move. We should continue not pushing Ukraine to compromise with said dictator even if it means a little pain (cold winter and a few billions of aid) for us.
As long as we keep sending bullets and shells and missiles and training new soldiers, Ukrainians seem willing to defend their sovereign rights. Anyone saying Ukraine should give up, in any way, is doing the kremlin's job, whether they realize it or not. Putin is the only one who benefits
The loss of the Russo-Japanese War was definitely a substantial contributor to the growing domestic unrest which would eventually unseat Nicholas II and get his family executed. Particularly it lead to the 1905 Russian revolution, which was brutally suppressed but that experience played a major role in the success of the October Revolution.
Finland was not a mistake*, they needed a strategic depth for the white sea and the goal was achieved(the cost was high and the was the single goal from many). If Stalin wouldn't get that, he would be removed.
Why would they want that? Mitch McConnell has been calling for sending weapons that Biden has denied. And in any event, new congress isn't seated until January.
Surely, then, you also call the president "Beijing Biden" for all the deals his family has done in China? Or maybe it's not a good idea to just believe whatever someone's political opponents and their propagandists come up with.
> RU was banking on a big GOP midterm win in the USA
How do we know there wasn't a big GOP win?
The election outcome of several Senate seats is still unknown at this moment, and at least one is going to a run-off, so I doubt this was central to their decision making.
Despite Russia's now openly admitted US election interference, I don't think they have more foresight into actual election outcomes than the US itself does.
I'm not discounting your logic, though. Clearly the GOP has expressed intent to reduce US support for Ukraine. It's just too early to apply the logic to the situation on the ground.
It's very clear there hasn't been a big GOP win; if they take the Senate, it's gonna be with a 1-2 person majority at most (the Dems have 48 confirmed seats as of this morning). They'd need unity on fucking Ukraine over; it seems unlikely all ~51 would be on board here given the popularity of the Ukranians in the war in the US.
I guess it depends on how you define "big". A supermajority in the Senate was never in the cards. A majority, however slim, would still be (per my own definition) a big win for the GOP.
> They'd need unity on fucking Ukraine over; it seems unlikely all ~51 would be on board here given the popularity of the Ukranians in the war in the US.
I think this is partially because Americans haven't felt the brunt of increased energy prices caused by the war to the degree that Europeans and others have.
If/when that impact hits, the fact that half the country listens to media personalities that are openly supportive of the Russian side and are happy to suggest that appeasing Russia would bring down energy prices, suggests to me that public opinion could change pretty quickly.
And I'll give the GOP credit for one thing: they have listened to what their base voters actually wanted (regardless of the morality of it) and they changed their tune.
I'd love to be wrong, but doubt many people are willing to put the Ukrainians rights to peoplehood over the price of gas at the pump.
A big win would've been what was predicted yesterday morning; the "red wave". Today it's quite clear that if they pulled it off, it was by the slimmest of margins.
> I think this is partially because Americans haven't felt the brunt of increased energy prices caused by the war to the degree that Europeans and others have.
> European polling remains very strongly pro-Ukraine, despite already massive hits to energy costs
I agree, but Europeans are willing to stand their ground despite high energy prices because an uncountered Russia is literally an existential issue for them. They will keep their thermostats at 18C this winter if that's what it takes, just like Americans sacrificed at home during WW2 after the war came to our territory.
But that's not the case in the US today. Biden knows this, which is why he went hat-in-hand to the Saudis asking them to increase oil production (only to get double-crossed shorty thereafter).
That was a bad bet, maybe as bad as invading Ukraine. The GOP is even more in the pocket of the defense industrial complex and would very quickly realize that they get to replace and update all kinds of weapon systems and create jobs back home.
> pointless bloodbath needs to end
Yes, it does, right after Ukraine's territory is restored and the 1M or so people that have been relocated to Russia are returned home.
Then identified war criminals must be surrendered as well, and very harsh sanctions must be imposed to Russian govt and its supporting oligarchs in order to force them to pay for the destruction they brought. To me, just returning land and prisoners then saying sorry isn't enough.
> To me, just returning land and prisoners then saying sorry isn't enough.
One of the lessons of WWI was heavy-handed reparations create more even larger problems. It took WWII to clean it up the mess, and while the de facto military dictatorship that emerged under the Kaiser was was bad, the Nazi replacement was far, far, far worse.
What is important is that whatever end this comes to puts an end to wars of territorial conquest like this. They make little sense in the modern world, and are an absurd waste of life and wealth. After the war, Ukraine will become a NATO country, and the west will invest heavily in rebuilding and GDP will grow. So long as the people of Russia tolerate totalitarian rule, they will live with stagnant growth and dim future. If the people of Russia can once again open up, maybe that future will be different.
You should probably educate yourself, this comment is plain stupid. Support for Ukraine is bi-partisan, and if you would spend 5 minutes out of the echo chamber and look at the facts and voting record, you would see how ignorant you are of reality.
Any of the debates have been on the _method_ and _extent_ of support, not _whether or not to support_. Both red and blue have had objections to types of aide being sent for legit national security concerns (for instance, classified fire control systems on 155mm artillery).
I think this is an overly ameri-centric take. There are a lot of factors impacting this war, and sure the composition of the US Congress is one of them, but it is fairly insignificant. A much bigger factor in deciding the war is how successful Russian mobilization is/was/will be, and the political costs to doing a partial mobilization. Another factor would be the sales of arms from Iran to Russia, and whether they can be used to real tactical effect beyond the terror-bombing we've seen thus far.
Sure, but the Russian media can have an overly ameri-centric take too. It's not like we trust the Russian media to fairly and accurately represent the factors impacting the war. And even if we did, they can still be wrong.
what are you talking about? This may have been small scale tactics, but abandoning the only regional capital they had managed to seize in 8 months of war is not a feint, it's a failure.
They haven't retaken any significant cities with this strategy (and please don't start telling me about some farming village like Makiivka with three houses and a barn).
Nobody is contesting anything on the RU side of the pre-war LOC. Obviously UA has not retaken Donetsk city, and obviously the DNR Makiivka has not been burned to the ground.
If this was an actual successfully deployed strategy, and not just cope, then they would have made it a lot farther, and destroyed a lot more of the UA than they have.
This might have worked in 1918 or 1948, but even in the 60s and 70s, satellite and aviation recon would find this kind of trap... It's an obsolete idea from a bygone era. What happens now is, your artillery is spotted by overflight (drone, satellite, plane) or ground asset and the trap is either destroyed or kept busy so it can't be moved while the attack takes another direction. What you are seeing is Russian assets being "fixed in place" thinking their trap is working while Ukraine is making the "real" attack somewhere else.
UAF can't exactly chase them all the way to the Dniepr can they? It seems quite obvious that they are trying to bait them to follow, and then blow the Kakhovka dam and wash them all away.
It seems like it would mostly flood the wrong side of the river to be useful to Russia.
> The flooding isn’t enough to push artillery out of range, so the damage would be to all the settlements on the south side (which are not minor, but are claimed by Russia) and to the nuclear plant up river that could loose cooling water. It would seem like more of an own goal, flooding the south side — the left bank — more than any damage to liberated Kherson.
Next Ukrainian deoccupation will likely happen directly south from Zaporizhzhia which would cut occupying forces in two halves. Then left bank Dnieper river forces can be attacked from the east, without crossing big rever (and right bank Ukrainian forces can meanwhile strategically blow up things with St. Himars and other artillery).
It seems that it would be more beneficial for them to split Russian-held territory in the south, since that would restrict one chunk to being supplied via Crimea and airdrops only.
It's a trap - while visibly talking about retreating from Kherson, according to Ukrainian intelligence they've actually boosted troop numbers in Kherson in the last 2 weeks (from ~20k to ~30k) and dug into the city very hard.
They want the Ukrainians fighting to take ground around Kherson and then spend months fighting street by street (as russians have failed to do in Bakhmut) all under pre-sighted Russian artillery sitting pretty on the south side of the Dniepr.
They don't want to blow the damn, they want to embroil the ukrainians in a grind like the ukrainians did to them in bakhmut, with a prize the ukrainians are unlikely to turn down.
I'm not sure why you think the UAF can't do that. They've taken other territory and have shown a capacity for offense.
A brief look at the map will show that holding Kherson is basically impossible and a huge risk for Russia. It has a single bridge across the Dneiper and it's on the outskirts of the city. That's the only supply/retreat line forces defending the city have.
There's no good options. Defend the city then Ukraine attacks the supply line. Defend the supply line then Ukraine attacks the city. Try to do both and risk losing everything.
The Russians are trying to entrap the Ukrainians so they are trying to look like they've run away like in other places, but they aren't running away because a city like Kherson would be a huge loss.
Also worth pointing out that Stremousov, Deputy Head of Kherson region, died today in a supposed car accident (it is told the driver survived). Here’s the acting governor of Kherson confirming it [1]. It smells like the Russians taking out one of their non-cooperating assets, they have done that post-2014 in Donetsk. I guess we’ll have to wait for more details.
I would have expected a bomb from the SBU. That’s what they did with Dugina and to some other officials working for the Russians in the contested territories.
Unlikely. The guy was nuts, talking about Andromeda galaxy, Ukrainian Wehrmacht, etc. Frankly he was giving so much bad PR for Russians, that it’s strange he wasn’t eliminated earlier.
You know that, and I know that, but given the performance of Russia thus far, I'm not certain that the Russians know that. You could have them staring at the map for hours and they'd still do something that stupid.
As a naturalized USA citizen with Russian citizenship, this war has been on my mind 100% of the time since it started.
My brother (in Russia) is as they say "Zed-turbo-patrioting" and I am (in USA) horrified at the elaborate seppuku my former country is committing, it's like a (not a very slow train wreck). And my cousin is trying to send me her teenage son so him the hell out of there. Challenging family dynamic to say the least.
The Russian army is a clay-legged colossus. All the money for it's weapons has been stolen and turned into fancy real estate and shiny yachts and parked offshore. Rusty AKs, WW2 era artillery, and purchases of Iranian (!?!) weapons? WTF!
If China wants to go help itself to a chunk of Siberia, nobody is going to be able to stop it.
Regardless of who controls the USA chambers of power, the support of Ukraine will continue, whether financial or via weapons. The money USA and the west has spent on this war is an INCREDIBLY GREAT bargain, I mean, it's f*ng cents on the dollar to utterly annihilate the historical strategic enemy AND! not spend a single soldier? It's brilliant. And the weapons are getting tested. It's like a public field test of superiority of western weapons, the world is watching, and there will not be any Russian weapon system sales anymore...
I think there's a not insignificant amount of the Russian population that has been fed, and thoroughly believes, this was something they had to do and Ukraine is full of literal Nazis.
The letter Z (pronounced like zed by some people) is used as a symbol of support for the war (a lot of Russian vehicles had a Z on them for some reason). Zed-turbo-patrioting is then probably the act of being extremely patriotic and in support of the war
Because Ukraine and Russia operate the same vehicles, friendly fire is an even greater danger than usual. Russia uses 3 different symbols on their vehicles depending which group they're from. Z is for the eastern front as I recall.
Ukraine, for their part, likes to just paint a simple Ukrainian flag.
We don't know exactly what the letters originally meant, but the most likely theory is that Z is for "zapad" meaning "west", and V is for "vostok", meaning "east", and they correspond to the Russian west and east military districts.
As for Ukrainian vehicles, they can be often seen adorned with white crosses in the more recent photos.
Z is the symbol (and V as well) used by the Russia army as marker on vehicles and has rapidly become a sign similar to Swastika of the Third Reich. It has a fairly interesting and mixed history of origin. The pro-war channels are called Z-channels, frequently using that letter in their name (and sometimes V)
Turbo-patriot is a term very frequently used to describe the people who are super extra patriotic in their support of the Putin and the war being prosecuted
- The vast majority of the US population (regardless of political affiliation) approves the government's support of Ukraine, thanks in part due to possibly the greatest wartime PR campaign in history
- Defense contractors are making a lot of money, again with full public approval
- USA is gaining a lot of influence in Europe through its actions
- Russia is being taken down a peg
It's really a very easy and obvious win for the US establishment from all sides
It's a clear and obvious win for the US, US goals in the area, and general US goodwill, after we lost so much. And yet still, there is a significant portion of the Republican party that is strictly and vocally against it.
Agreed, but it'd be a mistake to dismiss the value of good PR for Ukraine. Zelensky's "I need ammo, not a ride" and Kyiv residents making Molotov cocktails sort of stuff in the early days was critical to generating sympathy and support, and them holding the high moral ground in things like treatment of POWs continues to be important.
Syria received almost exclusive coverage when the war broke out and refugees started arriving to Europe. Everybody was sympathetic and thinking what they could do.* But the situation was very different from the one in Ukraine, more like an uprising against a dictator and not a full-scale invasion.
* Years passed, and it's still not clear to what the West could do (or have done).
> more like an uprising against a dictator and not a full-scale invasion.
that's depends how you define full-scale invasion.
Russia carries bombing campaign in Syria for 7 years already, with many iranian/turkish/hesbola troops on the ground.
You don't seem to realize the scale of a full blown war.
ruZZia throws at Ukraine everything it has except weapons of mass destruction i.e. nuclear, chemical and bio.
The number of ballistic and cruise missiles, including capable of carrying nuclear weapons, fighter jets, tanks, artillery (rocket and otherwise) in use is astounding.
This is a full scale war in invading other country not a "conflict".
Unfortunately the so-called "civil" wars are often much bloodier than external invasions. And in cases like Syria there is even no hope of resolving the conflict anytime soon. The only good thing is that the intensity of the war dwindled somehow.
Don't underestimate the significance of Ukrainians being white Europeans. I'm not saying it's right, but being what they are helps Ukrainians capture the attention of the Western world a lot more effectively than victims of wars in the Middle East. Absent any propaganda, I think this war would still get more attention from Western nations for this reason.
And besides the ethnic/race angle, it's also happening right on the doorstep of NATO, and is being perpetrated by the main adversary NATO exists to counter.
Unfortunately, I feel that may be an understatement. My fear is that the Russian Federation may not exist after ~April of next year. That it will splinter into many nuclear armed states.
There aren't really any states to splinter it into. Maybe if you count Crimea, Kaliningrad, Chechnya, Caucasus, Tatarstan, but those are all relatively powerless. Moscow has absolute control over the economy and military.
A more realistic (but still very unlikely) outcome is a power vacuum if Putin is deposed, which will be filled by another aspiring dictator just like him.
> That it will splinter into many nuclear armed states.
Definitely a serious cause for concern, but not uncharted territory. Remember this already happened to the Soviet Union, and ultimately things were arranged so only one nation inherited those nukes. It may happen like that again.
I agree generally, but the Iranian weapons are super cheap and have been battle tested against US air defences in Saudi Arabia and performed very well, so it makes a lot of sense to use them.
Incorrect. They have defeated Saudi Patriot systems in order to strike Aramco facilities and obviously they have defeated whatever Ukraine has at least to some level, which is currently unknown.
> The money USA and the west has spent on this war is an INCREDIBLY GREAT bargain
To be fair, it's a culmination of decades of NATO military R&D, planning, recon, etc. These weapons are finally being used for what they were created for, stopping a Russian invasion. It's just a shame MANPADS preclude A-10 tankbusting, considering all the Cold War era tanks Russia is using.
The former guy sitting in Mar-a-lago isn't a big fan of Ukraine, so if the republicans get enough seats in the house, support could turn to negotiation pretty quickly.
Edit: don't hate on me for stating the obvious. I'd like to see Putin tried in The Hague.
Lend-Lease basically guarantees Ukraine continues to get US support under Biden. Russia's spend on the GOP is a weak play with very little guaranteed benefits even if the GOP wins by a landslide.
It's also possible that they just like Putin on a personal level because he gets what he wants, doesn't afraid of anything, and nobody can tell him no, and they want that for themselves. If you look into Trump's cabinet, you find many people whose open goals and political ideology states that the president should be a top dog figure who doesn't have to answer to anyone and has supreme power. They are people who lived through the Nixon stupidity and decided "No, he should definitely be able to murder people and get away with it if he wants"
no politician gets what she/he wants. They can only go upwind. The structural forces - like strategic interests - are forcing the decisions on them. They can move one inch left or right, but that's about it. It doesn't matter if this is a democracy or regime. You can observe it now, when Biden is continuing Trump's policies like trade tariffs on China.
No one wants a war, but if the stability of the system depends on it you are forced to act. I think this war is similar to Opium Wars. Without the trade British Empire would have serious problems.
The world is decarbonising and more than half of RF income comes from natural resources. Putin needed a better position to secure the future of Russian Federation. He tried to use the argument of force in a 3 day war, but the gamble didn't work.
"The money USA and the west has spent on this war is an INCREDIBLY GREAT bargain, I mean, it's fng cents on the dollar to utterly annihilate the historical strategic enemy AND! not spend a single soldier? It's brilliant."*
Not sure why this is getting down voted. The war isn't over yet and nuclear war is still a possibility(albeit low). If Putin looses this, and it looks like he will the way things are going, there is a high chance he will be tried and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Wouldn't it be better for him to nuke the world and at least rule his bunker?
> Regardless of who controls the USA chambers of power, the support of Ukraine will continue,
Republicans (including McCarthy) were saying that if they win they were going to shut down (or at least greatly reduce) the funding. Maybe since they don't seem to be winning the Senate and their margin in the House will be thin they'll forget about that plan?
> If China wants to go help itself to a chunk of Siberia, nobody is going to be able to stop it.
As someone with north Chinese parents - this isn't as fantasy as you might think. We refer to eastern Siberia as "the lost country", and most Chinese believe China has a legitimate claim to it.
But beyond historical claims, there is a much much more compelling reason for Chinese expansion into a collapsed Russia, and that is easily visible on Google Maps.
The border is heavily developed on one side and completely undeveloped on the other. .....and China needs space to grow.
The only thing holding China back is the strategic anti-US alliance and Russian nuclear weapons.
None of which is lost on Russian leadership. Which is why they are the tail wagging the dog of their nominal allies, China and Iran.
Neither of these countries was really prepared for a showdown with the West, and all assumed the plan was to wait out the expected financial collapse of US dollar, using BRI and similar platforms and new organizations. This is still on-going, but RF has basically demonstrated that it sits along the BRI's end points in Europe (meaning it can trivially disrupt it), and has left 2 difficult choices for its allies, specially for China: to break from RF (which guarantees China will remain 2nd tier in global pecking order behind the "Anglo-Saxons" [1]), or, let its future be partly determined by the decisions of Putin's Russia. This is how Russia is addressing it's potential collapse [3]: if it happens, it will take down regional rivals [2] down with it. India may turn out to win big by default ..
[1]: basically, Russia's line to them is: if we go down, then you are completely defenseless against the West.
[2]: Russia's historic relations with Turkiye, Iran, and China were generally adversarial.
[3]: meaning the recent decisions of RF were imo forced escalations (under pretext of Ukraine) that address not only their western front but also their eastern front insecurities. If there had been no war but rather a period culminating in a victorious China (via economic means) then Russia would be completely at the mercy of China, and reduced to energy provider for the end points of BRI: China and EU.
To those of you that are interested in following the war in greater detail, check out the daily updates [1] from the Institute For The Study Of War [2]. There's even a map that updates daily [3].
For more macro level coverage, Perun[1] does a really good job at doing a deep dive into various strategic issues that affect the conflict.
For example, his first video: "All Bling, No Basics"[2] does a good job explaining why the Russian military had such a difficult time during the early part of the conflict compared to the predictions by most of the analysts at the time.
Just be aware that his shtick is hour long power point presentations.
The name was similar to this gaming channel I follow. Imagine my surprise when I realized its the same guy. His "Terra Invicta" playthroughs have been really good.
just also be aware Perun isn't an expert and doesn't appear to have any qualifications. He's just parsing public information like everyone else. Trust as much as you'd trust any other random youtuber.
Also highly recommend the writings and statements by Michael Kofman, director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA (the Center for Naval Analyses). Particularly his regular updates on the state of the war at the War on the Rocks podcast.
They've got some precedence in mining/sabotage operations. In WW2 the Soviets knew that the advancing Germans would basically re-use their own headquarters buildings, so they would rig up some pretty obvious trip-wires/mines that the unsuspecting Germans would clear out, not realizing some far more powerful booby trap was installed waiting a command signal.
It's a trap - while visibly talking about retreating from Kherson, according to Ukrainian intelligence they've actually boosted troop numbers in Kherson in the last 2 weeks (from ~20k to ~30k) and dug into the city very hard.
They want the Ukrainians fighting to take ground around Kherson and then spend months fighting street by street (as russians have failed to do in Bakhmut) all under pre-sighted Russian artillery sitting pretty on the south side of the Dniepr.
They don't want to blow the dam, or give up Kherson, they want to embroil the ukrainians in a grind like the ukrainians have done to them (and continue to do) in bakhmut, with a prize the ukrainians want (the liberation of Kherson the city and the region).
If you're not sure watch Shoigu's announcement of this - one of the most scripted and least convincing 'military' discussion the russians have publicized. The butchers sending drafted men to their death's as meat with nothing but AKs, no training or medicine, and who slaughtered civilians wholesale throughout ukraine are now talking about how much they care about their men and civilians.
It's a deadly joke, but some Western media outlets are too excited for a big headline and will print anything that they think people will click on. Asking the ukrainians matters less than getting the headline first. I've already seen headlines that say "RUSSIA RETREATING FROM KHERSON" which aren't true. Russia says they will retreat from kherson, but aside from stripping every washing machine and kiddy train in the region, they have not retreated.
Why is the media reporting like this is actually happening?
It’s like they’re naive children. And theres even have other articles talking about how misinformation, intentional confusion and bluffing has been a huge part of the war.
Anything the Russians proclaim can only sensibly be taken with extreme skepticism. This is most likely an attempt at a trap
> Why is the media reporting like this is actually happening?
Because the Ukranians have been running a fairly successful counter-offensive and pushing within artillery range of the city. It's quite clearly an untenable position for the current state of the Russian army.
They're not going to be dumb about it; any withdrawal will show up on satellite, and will take time. Ukraine isn't likely to rush on in recklessly.
It can't be a trap with the current intelligence capabilities.
It's just an informational warfare, psychological games. They say it loud to keep attention to them, not to Ukrainian officials. They say it to appear as those who control the situation, like it's their "goodwill gesture". They want to remove the idea that Ukrainian army controls the war from the informational space. It's them who must be in the center of attention of all media, not their enemies.
This. As a Ukrainian with relatives near Kherson, it is too early to judge. Russians have been changing their uniform to civil clothes and spreading through the city after semi-forcibly “evacuating” locals from their homes.
But its decision to pull back across the Dnipro river was treated with caution by Ukrainian officials.
"Actions speak louder than words," said presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.
"We see no signs that Russia is leaving Kherson without a fight... [Ukraine] is liberating territories based on intelligence data, not staged TV statements."
There has been intelligence reports of Russian soldiers taking on civilian clothes and occupying the houses. I think they would return to the same tactics like when they stepped back from Kyiv they mined everything including fridges in flats and even bodies of Ukrainians.
210 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 233 ms ] threadThey've been prepping defenses on the left bank for most of a month.
Can they afford fresh forces? Can they afford to replace the hardware they've already lost?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
> The memoranda, signed in Patria Hall at the Budapest Convention Center with US Ambassador Donald M. Blinken amongst others in attendance, prohibited the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons.
There's no reason to believe any new one would be better respected by Russia; it'd be just an opportunity for Russia to rest, rearm, and invest in propaganda efforts.
Are you seriously stating that because Putin didn't further invade during Trump's presidency, a president who was keen on taking down NATO and the alliance between EUA-EU wasn't playing in the hands of Putin?
What exactly should have Putin done so you could see that? Just further invading Ukraine is the only point you can see for that?
It seriously tires me out to have to read this bullshit on Hacker News.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Ukraine_scandal
Lots of strategic reasons to wait until 2022, not factoring his suspected health issues.
If Putin had a puppet in the White house he would have invaded. The US could block all NATO support. No one in Europe is going to against the US on military matters. This is the biggest advantage he could possibly have.
It doesn't seem to matter, they'll keep repeating it, ad nauseam...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33522269
From this comment on Hacker News [1]:
>> The Soviets brokered a deal with us. We agreed NATO would not expand eastwards.
> This is simply not true. It is a talking point developed for Putin's speech at 2007 Munich security conference to justify the shift to genocidal wars against its neighbors. It did not exist before 2007 and was not brought up when, for example, Poland joined NATO in 1999. There was an endless stream of whining and unspecified threats from Russian diplomats at the time, but not once do I remember talk about any deals.
> It's nothing more than a simple, yet effective hook for catching western self-flagellants into their net, while the truth is that western governments went above and beyond to accommodate Russia and build cooperation, and it still lead to a maniacal dictatorship carrying out genocide in Europe and threatening rest of the world with hunger and nuclear armageddon.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33524310
So at the very least there were promises.
What on earth makes you think that?
That doesn't seems to be right. Oryx lists 1450 lost Russian tanks, of which destroyed: 835, damaged: 62, abandoned: 53, captured: 500.
And these are only the visually confirmed losses.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...
The "this is all Ukraine's fault!" talking point has been around since before the war. Absurd, but definitely around.
If you think the statement is false, you could provide evidence-based arguments. For example, it should be possible to check whether NATO provided safety guarantees or not (it is an objective statement).
Obviously, given military, economic, media, etc superiority, NATO can do whatever to whomever with impunity.
If you think, there are no plans to dismantle Russia, why NATO refuses to make it official? (however little it might mean, given the history)
Look into who made a fat profit on all this tragedy. Cui bono. Make your own conclusions based on the facts.
Honestly I think if Putin pulled out he'd be fine -- most of the opposition is dead, running scared, or on his team. A lot of Russian assets have been frozen, though, and if he wants to get those back he'd have to walk away from his 2014 gains, or else justify why all of that $$$ is gone.
Win it, ideally.
> Ukraine's position is more righteous here.
No shit.
As long as we keep sending bullets and shells and missiles and training new soldiers, Ukrainians seem willing to defend their sovereign rights. Anyone saying Ukraine should give up, in any way, is doing the kremlin's job, whether they realize it or not. Putin is the only one who benefits
It's not just a smear, there's actual history behind the moniker (https://www.salon.com/2021/10/21/rachel-maddow-explains-orig...)
For sure. More revealing is what's said internally about their own.
"There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump." - Kevin McCarthy
McConnell's no MAGA, but he's not really in full control of the Party any longer.
How do we know there wasn't a big GOP win?
The election outcome of several Senate seats is still unknown at this moment, and at least one is going to a run-off, so I doubt this was central to their decision making.
Despite Russia's now openly admitted US election interference, I don't think they have more foresight into actual election outcomes than the US itself does.
I'm not discounting your logic, though. Clearly the GOP has expressed intent to reduce US support for Ukraine. It's just too early to apply the logic to the situation on the ground.
I guess it depends on how you define "big". A supermajority in the Senate was never in the cards. A majority, however slim, would still be (per my own definition) a big win for the GOP.
> They'd need unity on fucking Ukraine over; it seems unlikely all ~51 would be on board here given the popularity of the Ukranians in the war in the US.
I think this is partially because Americans haven't felt the brunt of increased energy prices caused by the war to the degree that Europeans and others have.
If/when that impact hits, the fact that half the country listens to media personalities that are openly supportive of the Russian side and are happy to suggest that appeasing Russia would bring down energy prices, suggests to me that public opinion could change pretty quickly.
And I'll give the GOP credit for one thing: they have listened to what their base voters actually wanted (regardless of the morality of it) and they changed their tune.
I'd love to be wrong, but doubt many people are willing to put the Ukrainians rights to peoplehood over the price of gas at the pump.
> I think this is partially because Americans haven't felt the brunt of increased energy prices caused by the war to the degree that Europeans and others have.
European polling remains very strongly pro-Ukraine, despite already massive hits to energy costs. 62-14 in the UK (https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/public-continues-support-britain...), 70-21 in Germany (https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/ger...). Those costs are easing now, as well, as Europe has successfully filled up significant reserves and had a very mild November.
I agree, but Europeans are willing to stand their ground despite high energy prices because an uncountered Russia is literally an existential issue for them. They will keep their thermostats at 18C this winter if that's what it takes, just like Americans sacrificed at home during WW2 after the war came to our territory.
But that's not the case in the US today. Biden knows this, which is why he went hat-in-hand to the Saudis asking them to increase oil production (only to get double-crossed shorty thereafter).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/US_oil_p...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/US_Natur...
> pointless bloodbath needs to end
Yes, it does, right after Ukraine's territory is restored and the 1M or so people that have been relocated to Russia are returned home.
One of the lessons of WWI was heavy-handed reparations create more even larger problems. It took WWII to clean it up the mess, and while the de facto military dictatorship that emerged under the Kaiser was was bad, the Nazi replacement was far, far, far worse.
What is important is that whatever end this comes to puts an end to wars of territorial conquest like this. They make little sense in the modern world, and are an absurd waste of life and wealth. After the war, Ukraine will become a NATO country, and the west will invest heavily in rebuilding and GDP will grow. So long as the people of Russia tolerate totalitarian rule, they will live with stagnant growth and dim future. If the people of Russia can once again open up, maybe that future will be different.
Any of the debates have been on the _method_ and _extent_ of support, not _whether or not to support_. Both red and blue have had objections to types of aide being sent for legit national security concerns (for instance, classified fire control systems on 155mm artillery).
More meat into the grinder.
Sure, this frees them to shell civilians but that’s hardly much of a victory
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russias-t...
Nice try.
Makiivka is an industrial city with a population of 345,685 as of 2017. Source: Wikipedia.
Nobody is contesting anything on the RU side of the pre-war LOC. Obviously UA has not retaken Donetsk city, and obviously the DNR Makiivka has not been burned to the ground.
Genius, i'm going to start putting this at the end of all my comments. An utterly unanswerable rhetorical move.
After the mid 70s. Until 1976, American recon satellites relied on dropping film canisters back to earth so they had limited tactical relevance.
> The flooding isn’t enough to push artillery out of range, so the damage would be to all the settlements on the south side (which are not minor, but are claimed by Russia) and to the nuclear plant up river that could loose cooling water. It would seem like more of an own goal, flooding the south side — the left bank — more than any damage to liberated Kherson.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/20/2130299/-A-3D-Lo...
They want the Ukrainians fighting to take ground around Kherson and then spend months fighting street by street (as russians have failed to do in Bakhmut) all under pre-sighted Russian artillery sitting pretty on the south side of the Dniepr.
They don't want to blow the damn, they want to embroil the ukrainians in a grind like the ukrainians did to them in bakhmut, with a prize the ukrainians are unlikely to turn down.
A brief look at the map will show that holding Kherson is basically impossible and a huge risk for Russia. It has a single bridge across the Dneiper and it's on the outskirts of the city. That's the only supply/retreat line forces defending the city have.
There's no good options. Defend the city then Ukraine attacks the supply line. Defend the supply line then Ukraine attacks the city. Try to do both and risk losing everything.
This will go sideways for them no matter if they are retreating or pretending
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1590549998894448640
[1] https://twitter.com/IntelRepublic/status/1590348327123845123
https://twitter.com/liveuamap/status/1582429514289643520
> Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it.
As a naturalized USA citizen with Russian citizenship, this war has been on my mind 100% of the time since it started.
My brother (in Russia) is as they say "Zed-turbo-patrioting" and I am (in USA) horrified at the elaborate seppuku my former country is committing, it's like a (not a very slow train wreck). And my cousin is trying to send me her teenage son so him the hell out of there. Challenging family dynamic to say the least.
The Russian army is a clay-legged colossus. All the money for it's weapons has been stolen and turned into fancy real estate and shiny yachts and parked offshore. Rusty AKs, WW2 era artillery, and purchases of Iranian (!?!) weapons? WTF!
If China wants to go help itself to a chunk of Siberia, nobody is going to be able to stop it.
Regardless of who controls the USA chambers of power, the support of Ukraine will continue, whether financial or via weapons. The money USA and the west has spent on this war is an INCREDIBLY GREAT bargain, I mean, it's f*ng cents on the dollar to utterly annihilate the historical strategic enemy AND! not spend a single soldier? It's brilliant. And the weapons are getting tested. It's like a public field test of superiority of western weapons, the world is watching, and there will not be any Russian weapon system sales anymore...
What does that mean?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60644832
Ukraine, for their part, likes to just paint a simple Ukrainian flag.
As for Ukrainian vehicles, they can be often seen adorned with white crosses in the more recent photos.
A tongue-in-cheek joke in Russia is that these aren't actually Z and V, but rather Ꙁ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ze_(Cyrillic)#History_and_shap...) and Ѵ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izhitsa), both a part of the historical early Cyrillic alphabet, symbolizing the return to "tradition".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr_Zelenskyy
Turbo-patriot is a term very frequently used to describe the people who are super extra patriotic in their support of the Putin and the war being prosecuted
In what sence?
- Defense contractors are making a lot of money, again with full public approval
- USA is gaining a lot of influence in Europe through its actions
- Russia is being taken down a peg
It's really a very easy and obvious win for the US establishment from all sides
It's thanks to Russia attacking another country and ruthlessly killing, raping, and torturing other people.
Russia also has state-backed PR but it doesn't work that well because it is them who invaded another country.
there are many ongoing conflicts in the world, Syria and Libya for example. They don't receive that much attention.
* Years passed, and it's still not clear to what the West could do (or have done).
that's depends how you define full-scale invasion. Russia carries bombing campaign in Syria for 7 years already, with many iranian/turkish/hesbola troops on the ground.
ruZZia throws at Ukraine everything it has except weapons of mass destruction i.e. nuclear, chemical and bio.
The number of ballistic and cruise missiles, including capable of carrying nuclear weapons, fighter jets, tanks, artillery (rocket and otherwise) in use is astounding.
This is a full scale war in invading other country not a "conflict".
so far both Libya and Syria received much more damage than Ukraine, where conflict is mostly localized on 20% of territory.
And besides the ethnic/race angle, it's also happening right on the doorstep of NATO, and is being perpetrated by the main adversary NATO exists to counter.
Unfortunately, I feel that may be an understatement. My fear is that the Russian Federation may not exist after ~April of next year. That it will splinter into many nuclear armed states.
A more realistic (but still very unlikely) outcome is a power vacuum if Putin is deposed, which will be filled by another aspiring dictator just like him.
Definitely a serious cause for concern, but not uncharted territory. Remember this already happened to the Soviet Union, and ultimately things were arranged so only one nation inherited those nukes. It may happen like that again.
To be fair, it's a culmination of decades of NATO military R&D, planning, recon, etc. These weapons are finally being used for what they were created for, stopping a Russian invasion. It's just a shame MANPADS preclude A-10 tankbusting, considering all the Cold War era tanks Russia is using.
Edit: don't hate on me for stating the obvious. I'd like to see Putin tried in The Hague.
no politician gets what she/he wants. They can only go upwind. The structural forces - like strategic interests - are forcing the decisions on them. They can move one inch left or right, but that's about it. It doesn't matter if this is a democracy or regime. You can observe it now, when Biden is continuing Trump's policies like trade tariffs on China.
No one wants a war, but if the stability of the system depends on it you are forced to act. I think this war is similar to Opium Wars. Without the trade British Empire would have serious problems.
The world is decarbonising and more than half of RF income comes from natural resources. Putin needed a better position to secure the future of Russian Federation. He tried to use the argument of force in a 3 day war, but the gamble didn't work.
If it doesn't lead to nuclear war...
Wouldn't it be better for him to nuke the world and at least rule his bunker?
Republicans (including McCarthy) were saying that if they win they were going to shut down (or at least greatly reduce) the funding. Maybe since they don't seem to be winning the Senate and their margin in the House will be thin they'll forget about that plan?
As someone with north Chinese parents - this isn't as fantasy as you might think. We refer to eastern Siberia as "the lost country", and most Chinese believe China has a legitimate claim to it.
But beyond historical claims, there is a much much more compelling reason for Chinese expansion into a collapsed Russia, and that is easily visible on Google Maps.
The border is heavily developed on one side and completely undeveloped on the other. .....and China needs space to grow.
The only thing holding China back is the strategic anti-US alliance and Russian nuclear weapons.
If Russia collapses and disarms...
Neither of these countries was really prepared for a showdown with the West, and all assumed the plan was to wait out the expected financial collapse of US dollar, using BRI and similar platforms and new organizations. This is still on-going, but RF has basically demonstrated that it sits along the BRI's end points in Europe (meaning it can trivially disrupt it), and has left 2 difficult choices for its allies, specially for China: to break from RF (which guarantees China will remain 2nd tier in global pecking order behind the "Anglo-Saxons" [1]), or, let its future be partly determined by the decisions of Putin's Russia. This is how Russia is addressing it's potential collapse [3]: if it happens, it will take down regional rivals [2] down with it. India may turn out to win big by default ..
[1]: basically, Russia's line to them is: if we go down, then you are completely defenseless against the West.
[2]: Russia's historic relations with Turkiye, Iran, and China were generally adversarial.
[3]: meaning the recent decisions of RF were imo forced escalations (under pretext of Ukraine) that address not only their western front but also their eastern front insecurities. If there had been no war but rather a period culminating in a victorious China (via economic means) then Russia would be completely at the mercy of China, and reduced to energy provider for the end points of BRI: China and EU.
OMG, you're right, I saw this:
https://goo.gl/maps/JMUwEHBixEgieHMb6
Zooming in the area reveals a thick pattern of cultivated fields in the China side, but far fewer in the Russia side.
[1]: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-confli...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Study_of_War
[3]: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36a7f6a6f5a9448496de641...
For example, his first video: "All Bling, No Basics"[2] does a good job explaining why the Russian military had such a difficult time during the early part of the conflict compared to the predictions by most of the analysts at the time.
Just be aware that his shtick is hour long power point presentations.
---
1. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC3ehuUksTyQ7bbjGntmx3Q
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJkmcNjh_bg
[0] https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone
As a man unfortunate to spend 13 years in the country, I can only confirm that Western Kremlinology has zero basis in reality.
https://www.standingwellback.com/russian-ww2-radio-controlle...
They want the Ukrainians fighting to take ground around Kherson and then spend months fighting street by street (as russians have failed to do in Bakhmut) all under pre-sighted Russian artillery sitting pretty on the south side of the Dniepr.
They don't want to blow the dam, or give up Kherson, they want to embroil the ukrainians in a grind like the ukrainians have done to them (and continue to do) in bakhmut, with a prize the ukrainians want (the liberation of Kherson the city and the region).
If you're not sure watch Shoigu's announcement of this - one of the most scripted and least convincing 'military' discussion the russians have publicized. The butchers sending drafted men to their death's as meat with nothing but AKs, no training or medicine, and who slaughtered civilians wholesale throughout ukraine are now talking about how much they care about their men and civilians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ZdW2lRq94
It's a deadly joke, but some Western media outlets are too excited for a big headline and will print anything that they think people will click on. Asking the ukrainians matters less than getting the headline first. I've already seen headlines that say "RUSSIA RETREATING FROM KHERSON" which aren't true. Russia says they will retreat from kherson, but aside from stripping every washing machine and kiddy train in the region, they have not retreated.
It’s like they’re naive children. And theres even have other articles talking about how misinformation, intentional confusion and bluffing has been a huge part of the war.
Anything the Russians proclaim can only sensibly be taken with extreme skepticism. This is most likely an attempt at a trap
Because the Ukranians have been running a fairly successful counter-offensive and pushing within artillery range of the city. It's quite clearly an untenable position for the current state of the Russian army.
They're not going to be dumb about it; any withdrawal will show up on satellite, and will take time. Ukraine isn't likely to rush on in recklessly.
It's just an informational warfare, psychological games. They say it loud to keep attention to them, not to Ukrainian officials. They say it to appear as those who control the situation, like it's their "goodwill gesture". They want to remove the idea that Ukrainian army controls the war from the informational space. It's them who must be in the center of attention of all media, not their enemies.
The Russian Government has made an announcement they are evacuating.
The Ukrainian military have stated they're not seeing it actually happen on the ground.
They have been saying for some days they suspect it's a trap, and Kherson has not really been evacuated.
This announcement could well be just more encouragement to dive in, from the Russians.
But its decision to pull back across the Dnipro river was treated with caution by Ukrainian officials.
"Actions speak louder than words," said presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.
"We see no signs that Russia is leaving Kherson without a fight... [Ukraine] is liberating territories based on intelligence data, not staged TV statements."