kanisatha

I consider the news that Putin has upped his nuclear forces alert status to be more evidence that things are not going so rosily for them on the ground. Plus, now some of those sanctions measures are actually beginning to bite. Backlash against Russia around the world is growing. Even China is now softening its pro-Russia statements. Putin is beginning to feel like a cornered animal, and to be frank that is the most frightening scenario of all: that Putin starts to feel like he's losing, and given that the one thing he will never accept is losing face, he does something truly psychotic like shooting off a couple of tactical nukes.

I think Russia using Kadyrov's thugs is itself a very good indicator that things are not going well with their own forces. It is entirely possible that the Russian conscripts, and yes they are conscripts, are suffering low morale, from having had to sit in makeshift camps waiting for this invasion for several months to now fighting Ukrainians who they were told/promised would not fight back or would join the Russians against Zelenskiy. These conscripts were expecting to be greeted by Ukrainians as liberators, but instead they are fighting them tooth and nail, including even civilians taking up arms against them. So the Chechens are being sent in with the hope they will be more tenacious in the fight. Reports are quoting Pentagon sources as saying the Russians have already suffered up to 3,000 dead, and lots of armored vehicles, helicopters and aircraft lost. And that this is why now US and European governments are becoming enthusiastic about finding creative ways to really help the Ukrainians, because they believe we have a real chance at delivering a bloody nose to Putin.

An excellent article, mostly echoing my own analysis and conclusions: https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-war-russia-vladimir-putin-miscalculation/

Yup, I've seen multiple stories on this, that the SWIFT cutoff, with some caveats, is coming. Also, even Germany has now approved the transfer of lethal military aid (along with non-lethal supplies and humanitarian aid) alongside similar declarations from several NATO states. They are sending 500 Stingers among other things. The US is also looking into how we can provide lethal aid. And amazingly, even Orban in Hungary has declared that he will fully support everything the other NATO and EU states agree on.

I think there is a danger of going too far in the other direction, of seeing everything as "fake." Some of these claims, such as the claim the Russians are struggling on the battlefield and behind their own schedule, that they still don't have air dominance over Ukraine, and that the Ukrainians are putting up a surprisingly strong resistance, have come from multiple sources including defense sources who are very credible to me.

There's a part of me that feels sorry for Belarus. For the people of Belarus, they are just as much victims here as the Ukrainians. They too have essentially lost their country to Russia and now face, effectively, a Russian occupation.

They've also been booted from FIFA and the Grand Prix.

Incredible watching foreign news media interviewing people all over Moscow today. So many people talking about how ashamed they are of their country and how shocked they are by the images they are seeing from Ukraine, because their government has been telling them there is no war, no invasion, and the Ukrainian people are just as much against Zelenskiy as Putin. I see potential for a grassroots movement rising up against Putin, especially with 60% of the army deployed to Ukraine.

Did any of you see Putin's statement addressed to the Ukrainian military, telling them to stop fighting his troops and to defect to his side and fight alongside his troops against the Ukrainian government? I honestly believe Putin has completely lost touch with reality and is now believing his own propaganda as being real. You add in his performance and physical appearance in that speech earlier in the week (which showed clear signs of psychosis), and all the stories about him in recent years about how he spends all of his time in isolation, is fearful of being close to other people because they will poison him or give him a disease, only talks to a very small group of advisors, etc., and I honestly think he's lost his marbles.

What I read was that Putin has offered talks but only if Ukraine surrenders first. I would guess that's a non-starter for the Ukrainians.

Sadly, my personal gut feeling is that it won't really matter in the end. Here's how I see things playing out. With a solid majority of Democrats not wanting to see Biden run for reelection, he will be forced into retirement by his own party. That will make him the worst of all lame-duck presidents, completely paralyzed and ignored in his last several months in office. His VP is even more disliked by voters, again including even just Democrats. This will provide the opening for the two worst people in America with ambition that knows no bounds. The presidential election will be a rerun of 2016: Clinton v. Trump. The American people, in turn, will be back to being viciously at each others' throats, torn into two camps that hate each other. Nobody in America will care about anything other than ensuring their side wins in November. If you were Putin or Xi, what would you do? Fall of 2024 will be the perfect time for Xi and Putin to make their big move to take down America and the West. It will also have the benefit of giving time for governments in London, Paris, and Berlin to also have steadily lost public faith and support, especially in the face of the vicious fallout and recriminations from Ukraine that already appear to have begun among European states. So I'm betting on September-October 2024 for the big explosion. Heck even the Iranians and North Koreans may be ready to join in at that point.

Raises some very uncomfortable questions for Western feminists, doesn't it? Shouldn't the women also be staying behind to fight and to die?

Heartbreaking to see those videos of Ukrainian dads saying goodbye to their kids as they stay behind to fight. God be with them all.

Yes looking out for yourself when your very survival/existence is on the line, which is not at all the same as looking out for yourself in the case of profits or expedience. Sorry, maybe I'm just not explaining myself well.

Not surprised at all. It would be downright stupid for both these states to not immediately apply for NATO membership (even though, and especially in Finland's case, NATO membership won't truly protect them). The main problem here is that the two big European powers, France and Germany, simply don't believe they should fight for the security/territorial integrity of anyone but themselves. This has always been the huge weakness of the concept of collective security, and NATO is collective security.

Yes a few, in comparison with the vast majority who have consistently been wrong with everything they've ever said. And those few are exactly the ones who are now saying the West's weakness on display this week will surely result in catastrophic wars a few short years from now in the Baltics and in Taiwan, as I have gone on the record to say as well. The Baltic states being NATO members will not protect them. Putin is surely coming for them, and sooner than you may think.

Not really. There are degrees of difference involved. True survival versus simply comfort or convenience or expedience.

Agree with so many of you guys' posts. I'll try to catch as many as I can remember. Yes, totally agree, the West's response thus far has been a complete disgrace. I am ashamed as an American. Everything is calculated in the context of "how is thyis action going to affect my country's profits bottom-line?" Germany led the charge to block action of SWIFT because they would stand to lose billions in energy investments they have made in Russia, in fossil-fuel investments even while talking big about how much they're into fighting climate change blah blah blah. Here in the US, having canceled Keystone which would just have brought Canadian oil into the US, we are now this year importing oil from Russia!! So Canadian oil bad for the climate; Russian oil magically okay. And this is directly why we have refused to go for a cutoff of Russia's oil and gas exports. But of course the worst of this is sitting pretty in our safe homes and shrugging off the Ukrainians' suffering and oppression by saying it is not our fight, just like a previous generation of feckless Western leaders said it was not our fight in Spain, Ethiopia, and Czechoslovakia. We in the West deserve to have all of this blow up in our faces down the road. I have zero doubt we will come to regret looking the other way this week, but only when it is too late for us. As for the story of Zelensky willing to negotiate, don't know if that is true, but I actually hope so. The Ukrainians have already demonstrated that they are plucky and courageous, way more so than NATO, in standing up to Putin. On three of Russia's four fronts yesterday, they managed to hold or significantly delay the Russian advance to where the Russsians ended up missing their Day 1 objectives. They have already damaged Russia and Putin far more than any NATO country. So no need for them to be martyrs, especially sacrificing themselves for the benefit of the useless Western states. Best for them to cut a deal with Russia and make it that much easier for Russia and Putin to go after Western interests and target NATO in the future. No need for Ukraine to pull a Melos and die for some silly principles and the false hope that the West will ever help them. Survival (and looking out for yourself) is the only thing that matters in the world.

Settled for now. I'm sure they'll be back. The Soviets are like a bad rash that never truly goes away.

Yes they are NATO members, which is why the test-run is using Ukraine. It's always the temptation to believe that if you can go so far and get away with it, then maybe you can go a little further. It doesn't really matter that Article 5 guarantees extend to those states. What matters is whether Putin is convinced the other NATO members will suffer sacrifices to ensure those guarantees for three tiny states with limited strategic value on the fringe of NATO territory, and also whether other NATO countries will truly go beyond lip-service vis-a-vis those guarantees. It is always about perceptions. And I can see Putin coming away with the perception that given how timid the West has been thus far, their claims of NATO solidarity and Article 5 are all bark and no bite.

The Ukrainians successfully counterattacked and destroyed a Soviet (that's what I'm calling them from now on to distinguish Putin and his backers from good Russians) air-mobile landing force at an air base near Kyiv. Way to go, Ukraine! Bleed the Soviets dry for every inch of Ukrainian territory and every Ukrainian life. 10,000 rifles handed out to civilians in Kyiv today. Beautiful! Saw actual footage of some Soviet T-90 tanks burning. Thank you Eastern European NATO countries that sent those Javelin ATGMs to Ukraine recently. 1,700 honorable and decent Russian anti-war protesters beaten up and arrested in Moscow.

And it's not gonna' happen that easily. Even if somehow Putin gets those "surrender" documents, nobody in the world will see them as legitimate and so they won't carry any weight in international law. So the physical implementation of any such agreements will still have to rely on the presence of significant Russian occupation forces long-term.

Heh you beat me to it. Was gonna' say this. And from their early January stream, the DLC is coming in "a few months." Looks like their approach to this game will be to release new standalone campaigns for the game as DLCs every so many months. Sounds really good to me, as my only major complaint about the base game so far is that it is too short/would've liked more places and content to explore.

Hadn't seen these posts earlier. Don't know how I missed this discussion. Russia's war in Ukraine falls squarely within my academic area of specialty. I've been giving news media interviews all morning, then talking with my students about it all afternoon. Will be discussing it on a panel of experts at my university next week. Everything that has happened has happened exactly as I've been predicting for a couple of months now. I even predicted the invasion would happen this very week, that it would be preceded by a Russian false-flag operation in the Donbas, and that the invasion would be full-on invasion and not some minor operation. I also predicted that the US response would be rather weak, and thus far have been proven right on that too. I fully expect the Ukrainians will put up a good fight and won't go down easily. Yes their navy and air force will get destroyed quickly, but on the ground they will fight for every inch of their country. Putin's goal is to completely take over the country, impose his puppet government in Kiev, and then have that government sign treaties giving Russia everything it wants. It won't work. The Russians are going to be bogged down in an insurgency everywhere within the country except the Donbas, and amazing right now are being supported by only a handful of other countries with the overwhelming majority being against them. The real question is exactly how far are Western countires willing to go to stand up to the madman in Moscow? Thus far only Boris Johnson has showed any real strength. Biden's feckless responses are especially puzzling as he has a long record of bombastic talk against Putin, about how he knows how to handle Putin and the like. And right now he has everyone in the political establishment, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats, all on the same page of doing everything short of joining the war to cripple the Russian economy. So why isn't he pulling that trigger? Should be the easiest decision ever. But mark my words. Ukraine is merely a test-run for Russia, China, and other aggressors in the world to guage how far the West will go to try and stop them. If Putin gets away with his naked aggression in Ukraine, in the very near future we will see China invading Taiwan and Russia invading the Baltic states, and very likely simultaneously in coordination.

Re. Elden Ring, it's my understanding the game does not have difficulty settings. Is this true? This worries me because I am very much a casual player when it comes to combat in my video games, and actively avoid hardcore hack and slash type combat-based games. What should I expect in this game?