Ukraine Conflict - The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his

[Mamoulian War]

Looks like a lot of fire safety protocols have been violated yesterday by Russian personel

 

[xzar_monty]

On 4/29/2023 at 3:31 AM, Zoraptor said:

I kind of can't believe it has to be said again, but Russia blowing the pipe up does not get Russia out of their contractual obligations, it makes it worse.

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.

[Mamoulian War]

If anyone still thinks, that Russian casualties and UA:RU KIA ratios might be overinflated. By the words of Prigozhin himself, each meter of progress in Bakhmut is made at the cost of 1.25 soldier.  

 

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

If anyone still thinks, that Russian casualties and UA:RU KIA ratios might be overinflated. By the words of Prigozhin himself, each meter of progress in Bakhmut is made at the cost of 1.25 soldier.  

 

Hmmm... so if they throw a million man at it, they would end up somewhere 300km west of Kyiv?

[xzar_monty]

38 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Hmmm... so if they throw a million man at it, they would end up somewhere 300km west of Kyiv?

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.

[BruceVC]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023...enary-force-boss-threatens-bakhmut-withdrawal 

This is probably been posted already but Prigozhin is threatening to withdrawal from Bakhmut because he is not getting the necessary aid from the Russian military

Also mentions the high number of Russian casualties in the Russian meat-grinder known as the battle for  Bakhmut

[pmp10]

Leaks continue:
Russia is planning to recruit another 400k for the war this year.

Preferably quietly with the help of regional authorities, but I wouldn't exclude another draft if they think it necessary.

 

[Malcador]

6 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

If anyone still thinks, that Russian casualties and UA:RU KIA ratios might be overinflated. By the words of Prigozhin himself, each meter of progress in Bakhmut is made at the cost of 1.25 soldier.  

 

Is funny when Prigozhin or Girkin suddenly become credible or not.

[xzar_monty]

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.

 

[Zoraptor]

Their unemployment rate is the same as ours in NZ, and they still have 2.635 mn unemployed. I think they'll be fine- though I'm sure they appreciate the western concern.

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Is funny when Prigozhin or Girkin suddenly become credible or not.

Though to be fair, it's also funny when, say, Arestovich or von der Leyen becomes credible or not.

10 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

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.

I don't think it has anything to do with 'contractual obligations' for that exact reason. It's not me arguing that they did it to get out of a contract, I'm just pointing out that that theory requires more mental gymnastics than doing a killer seppuku while practicing dismounts on the parallel bars and indeed, requires Russia to care deeply about something they patently don't in pretty much every other circumstance.

(I mean honestly, it's like everyone has forgotten about the first 6 months where everyone was insisting that Russia was going to cut supply via Ukraine in order to force NS2's opening. Then, when those lines go boom... suddenly the master plan was for them to only be delivering sea water instead? Patently a theory that works back from the assumption that anything 'bad' had to be done by Russia, whether it benefited them or not)

Edited April 30, 2023 by Zoraptor

[xzar_monty]

18 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

(I mean honestly, it's like everyone has forgotten about the first 6 months where everyone was insisting that Russia was going to cut supply via Ukraine in order to force NS2's opening.

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.

[Zoraptor]

It's still working, and has been consistently. One outage of 8% supply in May 2022 that I could find, though I didn't spend long.

Everyone is of course an exaggeration. It was however an extremely popular opinion that Russia would weaponise gas deliveries from Ukraine in order to force Europe to open NS2 to make up the deficit. Something they're obviously unable to do in its current state, as with NS1.

The general gist, per Zelensky from late 2021 so not polluted by post Feb22 propaganda (only pre Feb22 propaganda, heh) and via DW:

Quote

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday labeled the soon-to-be-completed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany "a dangerous geopolitical weapon."

Zelenskyy was speaking at a joint press conference in Kyiv with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has spearheaded the pipeline fiercely opposed by Russian neighbors Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states.

"We view this project exclusively through the prism of security and consider it a dangerous geopolitical weapon of the Kremlin," Zelenskyy said.

He added that the main risks will be "borne by Ukraine" but that the pipeline will also be dangerous "for all of Europe" as it will "play into the hands of the Russian Federation," he said.

The $12-billion pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea is set to double Russian natural gas shipments to Germany, Europe's largest economy. It avoids Ukraine, depriving Kyiv of essential gas transit fees.

 

Of course when the pipeline went boom suddenly it was no longer a Russian geopolitical weapon, but it was actually in Russia's best interest to destroy their own $12bn project! You'd have to ask someone who actually believes that how they reconcile those two positions, as previous I'm near literally unable to come up with an answer, even a sarcastic one, except the one in the previous post about working back from the belief that anything bad has to be done by Russians.

[Gfted1]

 

[xzar_monty]

7 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Everyone is of course an exaggeration. It was however an extremely popular opinion that Russia would weaponise gas deliveries from Ukraine in order to force Europe to open NS2 to make up the deficit. Something they're obviously unable to do in its current state, as with NS1.

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.

Edited May 1, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Zoraptor]

There isn't really any point thinking about the possibility that decisions are made with no logical process behind them because in reality that happens almost never and it's almost always only considered when someone desperately wants a particular perpetrator but cannot come up with a reason for them doing it except "well they're evil/ mad, so their decisions don't have to be logical". There are of course plenty of decisions made with faulty logic or wishful thinking- best example is probably the whole idea of the invasion- or out and out mistakes, but zero logic decisions? Not many, if any.

The context in which they do make sense can be countered very easily: if there's no logic to decisions and they're made on the basis of cackling insanity and paramount desire to hurt others no matter the consequence then why don't they simply, well, use nukes?

[xzar_monty]

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.

Edited May 1, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Gorth]

18 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

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.

The sad thing is, at the moment, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that is the current Russian way of thinking. Throw more bodies at the problem and the problem goes away.

[xzar_monty]

28 minutes ago, Gorth said:

The sad thing is, at the moment, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that is the current Russian way of thinking. Throw more bodies at the problem and the problem goes away.

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?

Edited May 1, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Mamoulian War]

Sorry, I do not know/remember that saying. It is pretty long time since I last learned Russian at school.

[Mamoulian War]

Fresh officer meat to the front.

[xzar_monty]

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

[bugarup]

21 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

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?

Бабы нарожают. Translates roughly, like, "Broads gonna spawn" and whoever is using this now should take a good look at russia's birth & death statistics. 

[xzar_monty]

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.

[BruceVC]

https://news.yahoo.com/china-backs-un-resolution-mentioning-203500758.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

Interesting UN resolution the last few days with China voting to support the resolution despite it mentioning Russian aggression. China has always abstained from votes that mention Russian aggression. To quote 

" In particular, the document refers to the “unprecedented challenges” facing Europe after Russian aggression against Ukraine, and before that against Georgia, and calls for “compensation” of the damage sustained by the victims of Moscow’s aggression " 

[Mamoulian War]

Worth to mention, that Brasil and IIRC India voted for it as well. Do not recall how SA voted.