kanisatha

Hell yeah! I LOVE her. Always used to marvel at how so much sound and energy could come from such a small body!!

I recall reading that the actor who played MacGyver was a complete ass on and off the set and everyone working on the show hated working with him.

I couldn't defeat any of the major bosses in either DLC, even on the lowest difficulty setting, and so had to give up on playing them. Just not good with Witcher-style combat using keyboard and mouse (as someone who's never played console games of any kind).

Battle for Kharkiv seems to be over: https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/05/putins-problem-russia-is-blowing-up-bridges-to-stop-ukraines-counterattack/ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/07/world/europe/russia-ukraine-kharkiv-victory-day.html

100% correct.

I would be surprised if he goes ahead with two of the most widely talked-about predictions: officially declaring war on Ukraine, and ordering a general mobilization involving drafting all military-age males. These actions would make it very hard for him to continue to deny that he started this unprovoked war and that the war is not going well for Russia. My expectations are that Putin will call for a societal mobilization ... for Russia's civilian society to rise up in support of the country, which is to say him and his regime, in the face of those horrible and evil nazi states in the West, led by the imperialist Americans, trying to destroy Russia. And then he may also declare the annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk, and then claim that Russia is merely fighting to eject Ukrainian nazis from Russian soil.

Yes this is something I too have wondered about. Zelenskiy even kept rejecting US and Western intel about Russia's invasion plans almost to the very end. And so I wondered if this was also affecting Ukraine's military preparations, because to me it was crazy that Ukraine did not mobilize its reserves until two days after the war began. And then, when it became clear mobilizing reserves as cohesive combat units was no longer realistic, Zelenskiy issues his order for all fighting age males to sign up for military duty.

Oh man, I really like that site and browse it often. Well that sucks.

Today seems to be a really good day for some very insightful and informational articles on Ukraine. Here are three that are especially great reads: https://cepa.org/us-lend-lease-russia-gets-nervous/ https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/blog/ukraine-putins-war-change-world (on Putin's state of mind) https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/05/05/a-heart-to-heart-with-russias-elites-a77587

Yeah as I said in a post a long while back, Putin, Lavrov and co. have literally taken themselves back mentally and emotionally to 1940, and seem to now actually believe they're living in that timeframe. I'm sure there is some psychological term for this sort of detachment from reality.

Details of the current versions are of course classified but the US feels comfortable it remains superior to Russia's S-400 and even S-500 systems. The main issues in the context of this war are that (a) it has long range, enough to target Russian aircraft well within Russian airspace, and (b) is reasonably resistent to Russian jamming.

Yeah this is the true goal of Russia's strategy and policy in Europe: to try and push the US out of Europe. Everything else is merely an extension of this, including this war. Putin's powerplays in the months before his invasion were all about trying to drive a wedge between Europe and the US, and only when all of that failed did he feel forced to carry out his invasion because the only other alternative was to look foolish and weak and to lose face. What Putin truly hoped for with his invasion threat was to have Europe break from the US and cut some sort of separate deal with him that left out the US and aligned Europe with Russia, even if only symbolically at first. And given the extensive pro-Russia ties that already existed between Germany and Russia (and ditto for Italy), Macron's ego-fueled desire to be viewed as some great European statesman, and Britain--the only major European power refusing to play footsie with Russia--now out of the EU and politically isolated in Europe, Putin can't be blamed for believing the time was finally right to make his powerplay to push the US out of Europe. The US presence in Europe is the only real obstacle to Russia (in its perception) dominating Europe. And so, if not for the US presence in Europe, even Ukraine wouldn't matter to Russia (other than in the whole cultural and sociological sphere of "the Ukrainians are not their own separate people from Russians" nonsense).

Latest on Finland, Sweden, and NATO (including that it could all be finalized within two weeks): https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-sweden-could-deepen-military-cooperation-if-situation-worsens-2022-04-29/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/04/28/nato-could-provide-arrangements-for-sweden-and-finland-during-membership-process-secretary-general-says/?sh=30620df77e11 https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-finland-nato-membership-two-weeks-russia-ukraine-invasion-1703349

Yes definitely one of the better options. And Isreal has now lifted its earlier block on Baltic states and other NATO states transferring Israeli military hardware to Ukraine, which is what prompted the latest crazy out of Lavrov that Israel was helping neo-nazis in Ukraine. I'm still holding out hope that the US will transfer Patriot to Ukraine. It's been the Administration's pattern thus far to initially wring their hands and whine about something but then eventually cave to pressure and change their mind.

Well, Pentiment is going to be an historical game. Just not an Ubisoft-style game, with which I am perfectly happy.

Yeah the artillery being delivered is a big deal, per a wide range of military experts. And since their range and targeting accuracy is far superior to Russian systems they can be used quite effectively for counter-battery fire against Russian artillery. But as you correctly point out, protecting them from Russian air strikes is critical. And for the US at least, we don't have any systems we can give them for air defence other than old Stingers because apparently providing systems such as Patriot makes the squishies inside the Administration nervous. What would truly be a game-changer is if someone is able and willing to provide the Ukrainians with an AD system that can take out Russian aircraft and cruise missiles while they are still inside Russian airspace so Russia can't sit back within their own space and bombard Ukraine at will.

Here's a good summary analysis on where things currently stand in the Donbas and overall for Russia's military efforts: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-donbas-offensive-faltering-analysis/31832683.html

I personally like Palputin.

Would love to be able to give a dozen 'hearts' for this post.

Yes, or it could go the way of the other earlier war, leading to the military abandoning the regime thus facilitating revolt.

Re. a need for general mobilization in Russia, the consensus among Western military experts appears to be that a week into the Donbas offensive Russia is again performing poorly and way behind schedule, and is continuing to suffer a staggering number of casualties. Their battlefield gains are minimal and incremental, with the Ukrainians often taking back lost territory at a later point in time. The UK MoD even assesses that 25% of Russia's 93 tactical battle groups in the fight are 'combat ineffective' now. So taking and then holding these territories is going to require a lot of manpower, but even then will still only come at a very heavy price in losses. Can Putin's regime sustain those losses politically? I wonder.

From a purely military standpoint, yes, A) would be problematic and B) would be strongly preferred, not because Sweden brings anything militarily significant to NATO but because of geography and logistics for NATO defending Finland. This is why NATO itself plus military analysts are in favor of B). But politically, because NATO has that stupid rule of 'everyone must agree' for anything to happen, I am quite sure Sweden will be a constant thorn in the side of NATO decisionmaking, especially from one government configuration to another, which makes it even worse because there will be no consistency or predictability to how Sweden will respond to any given crisis.

It's because in Yemen there are no major geopolitical interests at stake. It's very much a local situation. By contrast in Ukraine there are enormous geopolitical stakes, including especially the return to our world of Great Power War which we have not had since 1945, the longest streak in the Modern Era without a Great Power War.

Well this is what Putin has come up with as his endgame. We've all been asking that big question: how does this all end? For Putin, his endgame options are all not very good. So this is what he sees as his best option: annex these territories, then claim that now that these territories are "Russian" any further Ukrainian attacks on these territories are "attacks on Russia," and Russia per its standing policy can and will use nuclear weapons if necessary to defend Russian territory (with the expectation that in such a game of nuclear blackmail the West will blink and back down, and demand that the Ukrainians back down as well, giving Russia its "win"). This is how I see things playing out starting with Putin's expected big announcement on May 9 where he will say that the nazi Ukrainians and the West/NATO have launched an unjustified war against Russia, where Russia is the victim, and Russia needs to now come together as a country (so mass mobilization) to defend itself against this attack from the West (like how it had to defend itself against an attack from the West by nazis 80 years ago).

Yes indeed. Johnson's declaration that the UK considers it acceptable for Ukraine to strike inside Russia is a huge deal. I am hopeful Biden will be making a similar declarion soon. Even after Russia annexes Ukrainian territory and declares that Ukraine and the West must accept this "new geopolitical reality" (Lavrov's recent words), Ukraine has the right to continue to fight, and we in the West should continue to help them. And in that fight, Ukraine will have to strike inside Russia, because Russia's strategy is going to be to set up artillery and rocket launchers inside the Russian side of the border from where they fire at Ukrainian forces attempting to take back Russian controlled territory while insisting the Ukrainians cannot target those Russian weapons inside the Russian side of the border (and threatening nuclear escalation if such attacks happen).