Ukraine Conflict - Das Himmelfahrtskommando

[Totally not Gorgon]

Putin is doing a deep cleansing. You don't want to be any of those *toxins* leaving the body

He'll feel better once he has wrapped it up with a coffee enema.

 

[Mamoulian War]

Another theory on shortcomings or Russia in Ukraine. On one hand, my brain is just unable to acknowledge, how someone could be so shortsighted to do that on purpose, on the other hand, it's directly from Stalin's workbook and it is fully in context with Putin's words, that the war is going on according to plan...

 

[Mamoulian War]

The full Twitter thread upon which was made the above video.
 

 

[BruceVC]

Im glad you raised this point because generally most people on this forum consider both Assange and Snowden to have done the correct thing and I have always battled to understand that 

But on the Snowden case, I consider the work that security institutions like the CIA, MI6 and NSA do to be about the real security of any country and people  that work in these institutions really have almost additional responsibilities to not reveal what they do. 

As we know the UK and USA were involved since 2001 with the war of terror and apart from that their are real threats from countries that use cyber-espionage

What the NSA does really matters and Snowden revealed several confidential programs utilized by the NSA,  what do you think he should be charged with?

I didnt know you worked with Greenwald, I always felt he worked with Assange and Snowden to undermine the US but I dont have real evidence, whats your view on him?

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by BruceVC

[Agiel]

I haven't responded to these topics at length for a couple of reasons, chief of which is that it's hard to write coherently when you're watching a human nightmare unfold in close to real time and it feels like you need a close to daily Johnny Walker nightcap to help sleep at night, as I have friends and acquaintances from Ukraine who have thankfully managed to flee to Poland or Moldova (for those interested, here's where I go for my doomscrolling).

-To start I can't help but observe just how astoundingly prescient former Russian GenStab member Mikhail Khodarenok was at the beginning of February on outcome of the "Special Operation". Translation provided by the excellent <<Russian Defense Policy>> blog and excerpts provided for emphasis: 

"To assert that no one in Ukraine will defend the regime signifies practically a complete lack of knowledge about the military-political situation and moods of the broad masses in the neighboring state. And the degree of hatred (which, as is well-known, is the most effective fuel for armed conflict) in the neighboring republic toward Moscow is plainly underestimated. No one in Ukraine will meet the Russian army with bread, salt and flowers.

It seems events in south-east Ukraine in 2014 didn’t teach anyone anything. Then they also figured that the entire left-bank Ukraine in one fell swoop and ticked-off seconds would turn into Novorossiya. They already drew the maps, thought out the personnel contingent for the future city and regional administrations, worked out state flags.

But even the Russian-speaking population of this part of Ukraine (including also cities like Kharkov, Zaporozhe, Dnepropetrovsk, Mariupol) didn’t support similar thoughts by a huge majority. The “Novorossiya” project somehow imperceptibly deflated and quietly died.

In a word, a liberation crusade in 2022 in the form and likeness of 1939 won’t work in any way. In this instance the words of Soviet literature classic Arkadiy Gaydar are true as never before: “It’s obvious that now we won’t have an easy battle, but a hard campaign.”

...

To this it’s certainly necessary to add that supplies of prospective and highly-accurate weapons in the VS RF don’t bear any kind of unlimited character. “Tsirkon” hypersonic missiles still aren’t in the armory. And the quantity of “Kalibrs” (sea-based cruise missiles), “Kinzhals,” Kh-101 (air-launched cruise missiles) and missiles for “Iskanders” in the very best case number in the hundreds (dozens in the case of “Kinzhals”). This arsenal is completely insufficient to wipe a state on the scale of France with a population of more than 40 million from the face of the earth. And Ukraine is characterized by exactly these parameters."

-Ever since the lines seemingly ossified in at the end of 2014 I had deep suspicions that the Russian armed forces were going to have a substantially harder time moving beyond the Donbass due to the potential morale problems we are seeing now; the Russian armed forces would be invading a fellow Slavic country with a shared cultural and religious background and most Ukrainians are able to speak Russian, fluently in fact. In spite of a painful history between Ukraine and Russia a conflict was as unthinkable for most westerners as the state of Iowa invading Minnesota (I'm reminded of this poignant exchange between Simon Ostrovsky and Ukrainian Naval Infantry from back in 2014). What's more I had believed the addition of the FGM-148 Javelin to the Ukrainian arsenal (which in retrospect should have happened in the direct aftermath of the MH-17 shootdown, not in 2018 when Ukraine had long since ramped up production of domestic ATGMs, which made up for their lack of sophistication in comparison to the Javelin with sheer numbers) was going to be something that would give Russian armour pause due to how devious the thermal imaging mode of the CLU and its launch-and-leave features were going to be on top of the fact that current hard-kill APS measure cannot account for top attack projectiles.

-The seemingly derelict Russian Air Force can in part be attributed to the fact that the Russian armed forces tend to treat air power more as "extended range artillery" which drops ordinance no more than 100-150km behind enemy lines, and not as a means of conducting deep battlefield  interdiction as western Allied air forces pioneered in Europe in 1943-1945 and the US codified into doctrine with AirLand Battle in the 1980s. For this the Russian Armed Forces would have left the task to breakthrough exploitation force (not happening now, for obvious reasons) or to their missile artillery and cruise missile bombers (both only effective against stationary targets). What has not helped is the severe lack of PGMs and advanced imaging infrared targeting pods in the Russian inventory (the most advanced targeting system in use is the Su-34's targeting system which only has an LLTV mode, which doesn't compare favourably to western IIR-capable offerings like Sniper XR or the ATFLIR) which has limited their ability to engage pop-up targets from a safe enough altitude (most Russian aircraft losses were from MANPADS, as they had to fly low in order to hit targets with any meaningful accuracy, which was fine in Syria, where the MANPADS inventory of rebels quickly dwindled to nothing).

-All these factors lead to what is seemingly the only viable strategy left in the minds of the Kremlin, which is to follow the formula they used in Syria, which is to savage Eastern Ukraine and bomb all the civilian infrastructure that makes it possible for the remaining population to make the call that they're better off sitting tight. After all no population left = no partisans or potential troublemakers for the now evidently woefully-inadequate invasion force to deal with (some folks who like living inside their tanks insist that the Russians are making real progress in terms of territory, to which I say: "So, what? They haven't even gotten to what was supposed to be the actual _hard part_ yet, which is installing their Quisling and rebuilding a country while everyone is shooting at them). The message is this: "You want liberal democracy? A small/Mittelstand business climate that isn't (as) racked by corruption and cronyism? Go move to the EU for that, because here it's 'Putin or we burn the country.'"

Will add more tomorrow night.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Agiel

[Malcador]

7 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

The full Twitter thread upon which was made the above video.
 

 

Not really sure why the experts thought that, given the arms given and cities being what they are to capture.  I do see a lot of talking heads referencing Iraq, but not sure what value is in that comparison.

Galeev has interesting tweets.  One funny thing, every time I read someone saying the VDV are inept or what have you, their source is always him, hah.

[Sarex]

22 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I do see a lot of talking heads referencing Iraq, but not sure what value is in that comparison.

I only heard about the Iraq comparison when people are talking about how long it took the US to finish the invasion (around 50 days I think). The trouble is Ukraine has a much more difficult environment to traverse, it's cities are denser and taller and the US carpet bombed ahead of it's troops.

[Mamoulian War]

34 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Not really sure why the experts thought that, given the arms given and cities being what they are to capture.  I do see a lot of talking heads referencing Iraq, but not sure what value is in that comparison.

Galeev has interesting tweets.  One funny thing, every time I read someone saying the VDV are inept or what have you, their source is always him, hah.

One of our investigative journalists have some similar articles why there might be some ineptitude. Some are about similar points, and some are completely different. But the Mafia and purges is the first time I've heard it. Knowing a little bit what were soviets, which occupied Czechoslovakia, talking about, it might be based on something real. Many soviets here were almost all the time talking about how they are happy in Czechoslovakia, because compared to being in army at home it was like "heaven".

[Mamoulian War]

8 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I only heard about the Iraq comparison when people are talking about how long it took the US to finish the invasion (around 50 days I think). The trouble is Ukraine has a much more difficult environment to traverse, it's cities are denser and taller and the US carpet bombed ahead of it's troops.

A lot of people were comparing it to Crimea annexation. It went very smooth, and locals kind of welcomed them. Nowadays, even before the invasion, even the ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, mostly did not wanted to have anything to do with Russia, and now are also protesting against them in occupied cities in the south.

[Malcador]

38 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I only heard about the Iraq comparison when people are talking about how long it took the US to finish the invasion (around 50 days I think). The trouble is Ukraine has a much more difficult environment to traverse, it's cities are denser and taller and the US carpet bombed ahead of it's troops.

Yep, is regarding the timeline.  But mostly was thinking about the equipment, the US wasn't up against as recent air defenses, nor facing AT weaponry or drones (as they weren't a thing back then).   Is interesting thought experiment to see how the US would have handled this, I'm sure I can find some MIC wanker doing so in a couple months

[Sarex]

30 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Yep, is regarding the timeline.  But mostly was thinking about the equipment, the US wasn't up against as recent air defenses, nor facing AT weaponry or drones (as they weren't a thing back then).   Is interesting thought experiment to see how the US would have handled this, I'm sure I can find some MIC wanker doing so in a couple months

Iraq had decent weaponry. They were missing some serious AAs in the rank of S300. I think the bigger issue is that they were constantly being depleted by previous wars.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Sarex

[Malcador]

Will have to double check, but recall them not having systems posing much of a threat, after war, sanctions and the NFZs.

Russia banned Facebook and Instagram, so hey, can't say they are all that bad.

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Malcador

[ComradeYellow]

12 hours ago, Agiel said:

A small/Mittelstand business climate that isn't (as) racked by corruption and cronyism? Go move to the EU for that, because here it's 'Putin or we burn the country.'"

I'd rather move to Shanghai than the 4th Reich for that. (Though honestly the U.S. has been good to me lately, there's a labor shortage so I was able to bargain a bangin' wage at my new job).

Also this war is pleasing the right people.

Much more info out there but it'll take some time to prepare and I can't be bothered right now but let's just say that I'm liking this conflict because bringing the theory of unipolarity down to earth and I'm noticing a bit less ego and pride in West which is a breath of fresh air.  Pride always comes before the fall.

[Zoraptor]

The US never stopped bombing Iraqi anti air systems, so they only had what had been missed previously, which wasn't very much except for AAA. They (allegedly) got some up to date stuff like GPS jammers though.

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Not really sure why the experts thought that..

The usual question to ask whenever anyone cites 'experts' is 'which experts'. In this case, I've never seen that claim from anyone other than western intelligence sources (citation of) claiming it's what the Russians thought.

[rjshae]

15 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

The full Twitter thread upon which was made the above video.
 

 

Yes, the Russian power image is being badly damaged by this conflict. They are starting to look like a paper tiger, and Putin is likely to act increasingly rash.

[Malcador]

Claims it was a hack though

Edited March 21, 2022 by Malcador

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

Claims it was a hack though

There is one more claim, allegedly from intercepted communication.

 

[Gorth]

9 hours ago, Sarex said:

I only heard about the Iraq comparison when people are talking about how long it took the US to finish the invasion (around 50 days I think). The trouble is Ukraine has a much more difficult environment to traverse, it's cities are denser and taller and the US carpet bombed ahead of it's troops.

No, Ukraine is not difficult to traverse. Quite the opposite. It's big, flat, open land. Only obstacles are rivers and cities (and the weather, although the roads don't turn into mud like in WWII). There was a reason the Germans advanced so fast until the rain set in.

Cities can be ignored if you have them surrounded and occupy the area around them. Deny them supplies and access to the air and they are just as much prisons as strongholds. Even medieval generals sometimes just put up enough siege to contain the defenders while ravaging the country side.

No offense to the Iraqi's but the army was very much sub par quality (even the much reported on guard was little better than most western countries draftee's when it comes to training and equipment).

Two main differences. Ukraine uses a lot of western technology. They have the local population on their side (well, western Ukraine anyway). Saddam Hussein inspired fear in his subjects, not loyalty. Ukrainians will actually grab guns and Molotov c0cktails and put up a fight. Iraqi's lined up in nice, orderly queues to surrender as fast as possible. Anything, for most of them, was better than Saddam.

The US got it's strategic (military, not civilian... definitely not civilian) priorities right and focused on first knocking out anything that could pose a threat. Radar, SAM, Airports, supply lines (anyone remember those pictures of endless columns of burned out vehicles on the road?), meaning they could move unopposed in the air and use air power as interdiction and disruption rather than just very expensive long range cannons.

 

It really looks like Putin thinks like a KGB agent, not an army general. Except, his assumptions are so wrong, he would make a very poor KGB agent.

[Mamoulian War]

Local population is on their side in the whole Ukraine, even the ethnic Russians. Because Putin is currently shelling the cities with the highest ratio of ethnic Russians. Kyiv is the sole exception.

[Agiel]

31 minutes ago, Gorth said:

 

It really looks like Putin thinks like a KGB agent, not an army general. Except, his assumptions are so wrong, he would make a very poor KGB agent.

"We only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."

Edited March 22, 2022 by Agiel

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

There is one more claim, allegedly from intercepted communication.

 

4000 Wagner mercenaries killed? Funnily enough, Ukraine itself reported a grand total of 1000 Wagner troops in Ukraine last week. So they've killed each of them 4+ times.

To be blunt, that's all about the Ukrainians saying they had 15k troops in Mariupol and wanting to stay ahead (well, behind) in the casualty race.

3 hours ago, Gorth said:

No, Ukraine is not difficult to traverse. Quite the opposite. It's big, flat, open land. Only obstacles are rivers and cities (and the weather, although the roads don't turn into mud like in WWII).

There's a decent amount of forest and swamps too, especially in some inconvenient places for the Russians like north of Kiev.

(Comparison to WW2 is a bit fraught though, as the scale is completely different. Look at a relatively minor battle like the 2nd Battle of Kharkov which took place more or less from Lugansk to Kharkov, ie over maybe a third (to be generous) of the current frontage. Number of men involved? ~1.2 million, or around 3 times the number involved in the entire current war. Lasted two weeks, number of casualties, ~300k)

Quote

Cities can be ignored if you have them surrounded and occupy the area around them. Deny them supplies and access to the air and they are just as much prisons as strongholds. Even medieval generals sometimes just put up enough siege to contain the defenders while ravaging the country side.

Yep, and if the defenders don't want to 'starve' they have to either be relieved, or break out. And that means lots of troops out in the open, vulnerable to artillery and the like, and a reversal of the usual defensive advantage.

The question is whether Russia has enough troops deployed for this to actually work. On Mariupol, sure, it'll work eventually. But they also have Sumy (kind of? there's been some sort of ceasefire there for 2 weeks supposedly) and Chernigov too which are definitely behind the front lines, and others which are sort of invested like Mykolaev or Kharkov (plus a bunch of others like Severodonetsk or Izium which are smaller). At some point you run out of troops able to do anything other than guard the cities, and it certainly appears that that point has largely been reached. Which is, presumably, why the Ukrainians are so keen for Mariupol to keep fighting despite it pretty obviously being hopeless.

[pmp10]

With this attitude this war isn't going to end soon.
Not only is good part of the country occupied but almost 10% of population has fled.
No referendum can have validity in these conditions, the whole idea must be just a stalling tactic 

Besides that, polls showed 80% of Ukrainians were unwilling to even give-up on Crimea.
He likely knows they will outright reject any Russian demands for stripping Ukraine of more territory. 

[BruceVC]

@Malcador @majestic @Pidesco

Guys I wanted to confirm why I created that wrong impression around the Putin rant and before I checked I did think it was more because you guys were making assumptions. But I reread my post and I did make several  errors and I left out a final comment which was a negative comment of Putin 

Thanks for commenting because I will be more careful next time. And why this matters is I could be one another forum chatting for example to my sisters liberal friends and I make a similar post in the wrong way. And they wont be very impressed 

@majestic and again your comments matter because no one will ever admit they are a fascist or white supremacist so even though  I am surprised you ask me I would rather know whats the impression I am creating. 

But just to be clear you were suggesting my ideological views are like Putins or do you mean something else by fascist. I am interested in what you mean ?

 

[xzar_monty]

7 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Local population is on their side in the whole Ukraine, even the ethnic Russians. Because Putin is currently shelling the cities with the highest ratio of ethnic Russians. Kyiv is the sole exception.

This is a fascinating and terrifying point by the way. Mariupol is the city that has been shelled the most. According to its most recent census, 44% of the population are ethnic Russians.

This reveals an attitude: Putin is neither concerned about getting his own people killed (i.e. soldiers doing strategically foolish things), nor about killing his own people (see above).

[213374U]

9 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Local population is on their side in the whole Ukraine, even the ethnic Russians. Because Putin is currently shelling the cities with the highest ratio of ethnic Russians. Kyiv is the sole exception.

That's a bit of an assumption. The city council or local military command decides whether the city surrenders, not the average Ivan on the street. If the mayor of a city insisted in holding out as long as possible in a hopeless situation to for political reasons or w/e, regardless of the cost, he could do it against Ivan's wishes. And subsequent deaths could be pinned on "reckless" local authorities by propaganda.

It all depends on the spin.