xzar_monty

Fair point. The poster I was referring to did the same in the other direction, i.e. ignoring a truly remarkable failure. So we can probably conclude that Russia is capable of both efficiency and an almighty cóck-up. As for nukes and Kiev, whatever I think is meaningless, so I'll refrain from speculating on this, too.

Ok, good to know, thanks for that. This was precisely my impression, too: a person who makes a speech like that is likely to be clinically mad. It is not just fanaticism or propaganda anymore, it's something altogether more sinister and deranged. As for your Hitler comparison, Putin has "gone the Hitler way" in another sense, too, by taking command of at least some of the military decisions. That is almost certainly not a good idea, in the strategic sense. He is exceedingly unlikely to make good choices.

Some excellent writing there, under the heading "The Winter War". The writer points out that "Let’s make a brief note about combat in the cold. Russia is perfectly capable of waging effective operations in the snow." Indeed, in the Winter War against Finland, Russia's losses in manpower were only about five times greater than Finland's losses -- with Russia also entering the war with well over 2 000 tanks against Finland's 32, for example. (Russia ended up losing at least 1 200 of its tanks.) There is no question that Finland ended up losing the war, simply because it was against impossible odds, given the relative strengths of the two armies. But realistically speaking, Russia's operation really could not have been less effective.

That's true. However, even a logical escalation can lead to an utterly mad result, which in my view is the case. He most certainly did claim to be fighting the unipolar world order, and he has also made some other outrageous claims before, but the speech on Friday went further -- into what I would basically call madness. Going through the entire speech is not pleasant at all.

I understand where she's coming from, although I'd tend to disagree: I think it's better if people know how delusional Putin now is. Some of Putin's claims: The West is ruled by despotism and totalitarianism; Western schoolchildren are fed perversions leading to infertility and unnatural developments; the most central of these perversions is the idea that there is no mother or father, there are only "genders"; the US is currently occupying Germany, Japan and Korea (presumably South); all grain exported from Ukraine has gone to Europe; Russia is a free country, the West wants to enslave everyone; the gas pipes were destroyed by Anglo-Saxons (a peculiar term, this one, in this context); most countries are currently co-operating with Russia.

No, it wasn't. Many of the claims were much more extreme and far more out of touch with reality than the stuff he has previously said during this war. There was an interesting rhetorical point in the speech, by the way: Putin said that Russia are at war against the collective West. But remember, Russia is not at war with Ukraine. In fact, Russia is so much not at war against Ukraine that talking about any war may lead to a prison sentence.

By the way, have you good folks read the entirety of the speech that Putin gave on Friday? It's a remarkable document, because it is insane. And I do mean in the psychiatric sense, even though I am not qualified to do so. Putin's claims are so out of touch with any discernible reality that it is quite difficult to believe that he actually said all those things. Anyone interested in the matter should probably try to get a hold of either the Russian original (which I, for one, cannot read) or a good translation. The speech is replete with stuff like "To them [i.e. the West] our way of thinking and our philosophy is an immediate threat, which is why they attempt to assassinate our philosophers".

The same Dmitri reported an interesting criticism of Russian operations. The main accusation is lying from top to bottom, which I'm sure doesn't surprise anyone.

According to the Kremlin, there is NO postponement and the four new areas will be a part of Russia tomorrow. The Red Square is already being prepared for an announcement (rather shabbily, it looks like, but of course it's not ready yet).

Of course it is not the whole response. Interestingly, Russia appears to be postponing both the joining of the "four new areas" into Russia and the closing of its own borders. A Kremlin source is quoted as saying, "It is difficult to close the borders now. If it was done, thousands of security troops would be needed and frustrated people might try to get through, anyway. At the moment, we don't have enough security forces for this." (This from Meduza, reliability unknown -- but surely we'll see soon.) Btw, according to Russian propaganda, 99.92 percent of voters in Donetsk wanted to join Russia. Sure! EDIT, later: Very interesting new intelligence. 80% of Russian troops close to the Baltic countries and Finland have been taken to Ukraine. They're really going for it, and somewhat short on troops. And once again this demonstrates that outside propaganda, Russia has absolutely no fear of any NATO offensives.

I would vote for the second, given that I've been involved in journalism since the late 1980s and have seen an awful lot of very weird stuff(*). (Some of it is likely to make you suspicious of essentially the whole journalistic enterprise.) The first is a serious possibility, too, and your suspicion doesn't sound entirely unconvincing, either. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw his actual interview and heard him say, correctly, TNT, whereas CNN printed dynamite (I didn't go back and check but I think this was one of your corrections). Elsewhere: very interesting phone call intercepts. Not surprising, really, but definitely very interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/28/world/europe/russian-soldiers-phone-calls-ukraine.html?searchResultPosition=1 (*) At this point I dug out my Devil's Dictionary and checked whether Ambrose Bierce has a superb definition of journalism, underlining its inaccuracies. No he doesn't (have any).

But who has done this? If you are referring to me, I have done neither. I am making it quite clear that I am not making any strong claims, nor am I an expert on this. In terms of rhetoric, your comment falls flat on its face because of stuff "spend most of their time" (like, what?), "all Russia's equipment is a joke" and "suddenly deciding", because you're both being incredibly arrogant and referring to things that don't exist (at least not on this forum).

Leaving your snarky tone aside, there is a significant difference between something that was built about ten years ago and something that is mostly quite a bit older.

The Kremlin spokesman Peskov has just said that the war, I mean special operation, will continue at least until the whole of the Donetsk area has been "liberated". In one sense, this is an extremely interesting statement. The meetings in Samarkand were a humiliation for Putin, and not the first one. He doesn't exactly have real allies or even supporters anymore, outside of North Korea et al. I've already read speculation about how some of the recent moves, including the strike on the pipeline, seem to suggest that Russia is trying to do two things: 1) stop the war as soon as possible, 2) ensure as good a starting point for the following negotiations as possible. What Peskov just said is interesting in this light. Russia's objectives definitely appear to have changed, once again. Or, to express it in Russian terms: Russia's objectives have once again assumed the formulation that they have always had, right from the start. Whether Russia really intends to get out of the war ASAP is of course unknowable at this point, but there are some interesting things going on. EDIT: A Swedish military specialist called Patrik Hulterström has pointed out that the explosives may have been on the pipelines for years, and they have just been remotely activated. I really hadn't thought of that -- how many of you had? Honestly. Certainly sounds like something Russia might do, given its weaponization tendencies.

I wonder how many of you have heard this. Absolute gold. He starts messing around with the lyrics and then completely loses it.

Most of them, it appears. Everything is of course subject to change. EDIT: A bit of fun in the middle of all this dreadful warfare. Here's some prime loot the Russians have managed to get. It's not a Holy Avenger +5, it's not the Staff of the Magi and not even a Bag of Holding for puttin' Putin in, but it's wicked cool nevertheless.

Interesting take on the nuclear question in the war. I wonder what @kanisatha makes of this. This was particularly interesting: "I believe Putin’s tactical nuclear weapons are unusable. Even if their vehicles do work, the minute they turn their engines on to move they will be picked up by US and NATO intelligence." I would have thought that Russia was extremely keen to keep its weapons in prime condition, but that was before the war. The war has demonstrated how poorly managed most things are; it's actually been very hard to believe the stuff you see, when it comes to poor management. However, we obviously have no proof that what this guy says is correct (when it comes to the vehicles working or not). https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/28/opinions/how-close-putin-nuclear-war-de-bretton-gordon/index.html

I have made no comment on the situation itself, I have only pointed out that your sources are not trustworthy.

According to Der Spiegel, CIA warned Germany about possible strikes on the pipes several weeks ago. Also, unidentified drones spotted around Norwegian oil and gas infrastructure. Perhaps Russia has started a scorched-sea policy. @Gorgon: I'm sort of becoming interested in what you've been about to say.

Furnishing your predictions with zerohedge links is like basing your world history on von Däniken, though.

The Danish straits are fairly narrow, aren't they? This is one possible way of making them unusable or at least very difficult to use (for a while) and thus demonstrate who owns the Baltic. Maybe a sub from Kaliningrad has set sail underwater to show that there's plenty of non-nuclear nastiness that Russia is capable of, simply out of spite if nothing else. Conceivably, that's one reason to bother. Of course I don't know who did it.

So, outside of that evil turn-based DD thingie you mentioned some time ago, is there anything for a fantasy cRPG person who's pining for something after Deadfire? Obviously I know the Pathfinder games, but you appear to know this more obscure stuff that I'm completely ignorant about.

In order to be able to forcefully blame others for it. This is in line with old KGB of strategy of doing yourself what you accuse your enemy of doing.

OK. So, in this instance, it appears justified, possibly. But there are other instances of this and other related phenomena in the game. I'm sure you've done parts of Regill's quest by now, so you know the one where a group of people retreat into a cave to escape the gargoyles. Well, once you enter that cave, you are attacked by those very same gargoyles, some of whom appear to come through the roof. I was mightily annoyed by this. By all means have them enter the cave through the regular entrance (which they do), that makes perfect sense, but to have those creatures just suddenly come through the roof was so unfair. If there's a hole big enough to let such creatures in, knowledge of this should be relayed to the player (and at that point we might actually question whether the place qualifies as a "cave"). But don't just let them appear like that: the player has no way to prepare, and it's just unfair. I wonder if you agree. Even if we're in a fantasy world, certain principles of logic should apply, in my view. As for enemies respawning themselves, you've still got plenty of stuff to look forward to.

At least here in the Nordics, a well-known professor of Russian resource and energy policy has come out and said that "Everybody knows it's Russia". He regards it as one additional sign of escalation and further evidence of how Russia has weaponized all infrastructure it has at its disposal.