xzar_monty

Hard to know. There have also been reports of the offensive already going on, but that's obviously debatable (personally, I doubt it). "What makes most sense" is often difficult to say in war, because if your enemy also knows "what makes most sense", then that option may start to make less sense, and so on.

Just read about this, too. How often, if ever, does this happen in Serbia? I don't remember any other news about stuff like this from Serbia, so it would be very interesting to know. Finland, unfortunately, has had three or four.

British General Jack Keane points out that Ukraine was right to ignore US advice to retreat from Bakhmut, the reasoning being that since Bakhmut provides Ukraine with an advantageous defensive position and Russians keep attacking it in droves, Ukraine can continue destroying Russian troops there, so that there are fewer of them left for the forthcoming Ukrainian counter-offensive. Of course this reasoning only holds as long as Bakhmut doesn't get completely circled, which I don't think has happened. Anyway, good point, if that indeed was how Ukraine reasoned it. For how many months has Russia been attacking Bakhmut now? Astonishing that the battle is still going on.

Seems to me that this is a phenomenon characterizing all media everywhere (that I know of): far too many pertinent questions remain unasked. It's annoying. It is partly because of what the job is like. When you read or watch an interview, you're always in a better position than the person conducting it, because you have all the time in the world to think, whereas when you're in the moment doing it, you absolutely don't. I've done dozens of interviews myself, mostly with more or less famous rock musicians, and I have had enough l'esprit de l'escalier experiences to last a lifetime. But the word partly needs to emphasized in what I just wrote. There are also ideological and other reasons for not asking certain questions. It's especially this side of it that makes it annoying.

In the 1920s and 1930s, plenty of people from America (and other places, too, of course) either visited or went to live in the Soviet Union in search of a new kind of paradise. It turned out to be an unintentional experiment in self-deception and disillusion: while some were utterly horrified by what they saw, others were unable to let go of the idea of utopia, because (apparently) that would have represented a much too painful shattering of a world-view, or something. The book EIMI by the American poet e e cummings is hard to read[*], but it works very well as a description of the misguided idealism of the time, and the breaking down of it, in cummings' own case. There is not going to be a repeat of this phenomenon: idealistic Americans and Europeans will not flock into Putin's Russia in search of a better world, at least not in any numbers worth mentioning. [*] I believe it's precisely this book and cummings' idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation that Ayn Rand tries to parody in either The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, unfortunately I can't remember which one. But it's a hopeless parody: she doesn't have the skills for that at all -- I believe it's safe to say that nothing related to humour was anywhere near her forte.

I think there's ample reason to regard Prigozhin as a worthless source, so I think the ridicule stemmed from that. However, it also appears to me that some of the ridicule may have been slightly misguided, because no matter how worthless a source it is, content is also important: if he talks about losses, it just might be worth listening, or at least it might be a lot more credible than what he says about gains. (In any case, I almost certainly wouldn't use Prigozhin as a source for anything.) The situation in Bakhmut makes me think of Italy attacking some place in North Africa, possibly in the 1920s or earlier. I'm sorry I'm so hazy about the details. Anyway, they ended up making three ridiculous and costly attacks and losing an awful lot of young men because it would have been just too humiliating to stop, and so they humiliated themselves even worse.

Thanks! Indeed: part of the reason for the invasion was the fact that Russia is in dire need of more people, at least in Putin's opinion. It's a dwindling nation.

There's this (Northern?) European joke that whatever craziness you can come up with, there's bound to be an organization both in support of and opposition to it in the US. Commienazism may be an exception.

This looks like the start of something significant. The weakening of Russia forces it to allow China into its arctic areas, which it has previously refused. Russia may increasingly be dancing to China's tune. https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2023/04/russias-arctic-coast-guard-cooperation-china-big-step-expert

Add to this the old Russian saying about how there are always women to breed more children, and you've pretty much nailed it. I don't remember the wording, especially in Russian (which I don't speak), but my understanding is that the words for "women" and "children" in the saying are not particularly nice. Perhaps @Mamoulian War or someone can help?

My phrasing of "no logic" was probably not the best. It would be more accurate to say that there can be a logic of "this outcome must be reached regardless of the consequences", or, as a more specific variation of that, a logic of "this thing must be destroyed regardless of the consequences". This doesn't necessarily imply insanity, although it might.[*] I would go so far as to assume that you would agree that this happens in private life, between two people or inside families. (In fact, I am currently reading the biography of a fairly famous modern composer who was whipped and hit by an axe by his wife, among all other sorts of unpleasantries, yet it still took the guy years and years to get out, because -- among some other considerations -- there was a facade to be maintained.) Now, this doesn't ordinarily happen in politics because there tend to be all sorts of checks in place, but Russia is becoming more and more of a country where there are few, if any, if you're the boss. I don't want any particular perpetrator to be guilty here. I don't know who it is, and I see no point in making guesses. But given what Russia is and does, I don't disregard Russia as one of the reasonable [sic] possibilities, even if it in many ways makes little sense. Didn't Putin's Russia refuse help from other countries in the Kursk disaster, because there was a face to be maintained? Killing their own didn't matter. [*] An awful lot of things don't imply insanity. It's an unpleasant fact, for example, that most terrorists are just as sane as the average person.

The differences in how these things are portrayed in the media are interesting. Remember the explosion on the Kerch Bridge and how you pointed out that the media was deliberately avoiding the possibility that it was a suicide mission? Well, over here, our main newspaper wrote that it was likely to be just that, a suicide mission. Seems that there was/is a similar difference with this question. I think you may be mistaken in your approach to the whole pipeline question because you make a persistent effort to find a reasonable logic for doing it -- for there may be none. This is what we often do: we analyse a situation by looking at costs, benefits, all that, and then deduce from that. But costs, benefits and logic may have nothing to do with it at all; surely the history of humanity has shown that plenty of times. (After all, these is ample reason to look at this was and say that no one in their right might would have started it in the first place, given all that was at stake.) Again, note that in saying this I am not saying that it was Russia who blew up the pipe.

Not sure who you mean by "everyone", here. The supply via Ukraine has been working since the war began, I understand it's still working (unless it's been cut very, very recently), and this is the first time I hear any mention of "everyone" insisting it was going to be cut. I have, for example, never once read that suggestion in the press over here.

This, incidentally, is the kind of stuff that is likely to hurt Russia in a big way, in the years to come. The current leadership won't care one bit, but the country is going to be so much worse off.

All hail the beauty of numbers. There must have been a period of time, no matter how short, when Russia made gains, no matter how small, without losses, no matter how insignificant. Therefore, let us extrapolate from that that Russians now have free entry to Kiev. So yeah, I agree the original point should be regarded as a joke.

My biggest d'oh moment so far: was in the Ineluctable Prison, got hit by a Curse of Idiocy and happened to have no one and no item with me for removing it. Luckily the sufferer was Regill who doesn't need a brain anyway, but it was annoying, I have to say. And poor preparation on my part.

I think that everything that has to do with contractual obligations can be ignored in this discussion: from Russia's point of view, none of it has any relevance whatsoever. Look at how Russia repossessed (i.e. stole) 400+ Western airplanes after the war began. Look at how Russia has altered the deals with various Western banks & companies after the war began ("I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further") to either prevent them from leaving Russia, or to steal their assets, or both. And so on. Now, please note that this is all I'm saying. I haven't read enough on the topic to have an informed opinion on who blew up the pipes. What I have read has led me to think that some scenarios do indeed look fishy [sic], as you point out. But I think it's also worth pointing out that contractual obligations wouldn't be a concern for Russia; they have demonstrated this repeatedly and reliably. After all, fairly early on in the war, one of the more inglorious things that Russia did was to negotiate, with the International Red Cross, an evacuation route for fleeing Ukrainians -- and it just so happened that the route was also mined, either before, during or after the negotiations.

I would argue that the "extreme reaction" you alluded to is not a solution, either. While it is a question of education, as you point out, it is not only that: it is also a question of psychology, personal grievances and so on. All in all, it's quite complex and I certainly don't know how it could or should be solved.

Those two questions are worlds apart from each other. As for how to fix that, I don't know. It's a really good question. I think the US is going to have a lot more trouble than it already has, on the basis of this problem alone. As for your second question: how would your extreme reaction help the situation? Seriously. What good would it do? But for me to answer your question in more detail, I would have to know what you actually mean by "extreme reaction".

Precisely. For this reason alone, "woke" is not a very good term to be used by anyone, as it's likely to mess things up. Above, @Chairchucker gave one example of what "woke" may mean. It may mean that, indeed. But when it is used pejoratively, it doesn't often refer to that definition at all -- it is more likely to refer to people who would go to war over pronouns, demand safe spaces and trigger warnings, argue that it's perfectly reasonable to retrospectively censor Agatha Christie's works, and so on. For a lot of people, this epitomizes "woke".

I was not talking about that at all, not even a little bit, which should be obvious if you read what I wrote. What I was talking about was that the disdain that these sides hold for each other appears identical. And that, in itself, quite apart from all other considerations, is a huge problem. That, in itself, is going to prevent both sides from even attempting to solve the other problems with any proper co-operation.

Well it might be a good idea to leave it out, right? Describing an entire group of people as "worthless" on the basis of how they use one single word is not very mature, nor does it represent good thinking. I'm pretty sure that you actually agree with this statement.

Looking at it from the outside, what I find especially interesting about the US political culture is the utter and complete disregard for even the idea of any kind of consensus or compromise. Both sides hate and despise each other in similar ways and with identical amounts of vitriol, to the extent that it really doesn't matter which side you're on, the very fact that a side has been chosen, out of two, appears in itself to be a huge problem already. For instance, when you said that "people who use 'woke' as a pejorative are worthless", there is no difference in that to how a Republican may condemn liberals as softies who ought to just píss off or whatever. It's the exact same game. (Btw, I don't know if you're American, so this may not necessarily pertain to you.) It's astonishing to see how the culture has changed. Here's Nixon talking about some of his political enemies. You don't get this anymore!

Wow. Apparently there are very few depths to which Russia won't sink:

For me, "patriarchy" is another word like that, except in strictly historical contexts. Modern buzzwords [sic] are often just like that: unnecessary and ill-defined, and often, as you say, an indication in themselves that the discussion is probably not going to be very good. EDIT: Also, whenever someone says "radical left", it's almost guaranteed they have nothing worthwhile to say and probably don't even know what they're talking about.