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

[Malcador]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/nato-members-may-send-troops-to-ukraine-warns-former-alliance-chief

I am very skeptical this will come to pass.

[Sarex]

34 minutes ago, Malcador said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/nato-members-may-send-troops-to-ukraine-warns-former-alliance-chief

I am very skeptical this will come to pass.

I mean unofficially they are already there. Who do you think is operating the patriot systems.

[Malcador]

43 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I mean unofficially they are already there. Who do you think is operating the patriot systems.

Well okay, unofficially they are in that a lot of stuff the Ukrainaians act ****y with is donated kit, but a bit different than actually participating in combat.  Just the idea that Poland will go and risk it alone is a bit much.  Interesting bluster to force NATO to do something, I guess.

[Zoraptor]

The leaks had ~100 NATO SF on the ground. Just not officially, as soldiers. Indeed, technically, one of the New Zealanders killed there was an ~active NZ soldier too (Dominic Abelen; contracted to the army but 'on leave')

[Gorth]

I'm sure they're all volunteers doing this in their spare time out of the goodness of their hearts. Sorry, I no longer remember the usual Russian explanation for Russian service men helping the separatists, but it was something to that effect. No official participation for sure!

 

Edit: thinking about separatists (and Russians) fighting against the Ukrainian army in the east for years, I wonder how much that may have convinced Putin, that Ukraine would be a pushover if using enough numbers? The insurrection showed if anything, that the Ukrainian army was as badly trained and equipped as the Russian army. Antiquated doctrines and equipment and corruption being rampant made it a very similar level to the Russian army in "efficiency". If two poorly performing armies fight, I can see how the idea may form, that it's just a numbers game. I'm fairly sure without some quick western support (those first shipments of NLAW and Javelin sure came in handy in the first month or two of the war), Ukraine would have, not necessarily lost but a lot more ground to recover. The upgrade of the Ukrainian available hardware and better training seems to be the key differentiator in making the numbers less important.

[pmp10]

9 hours ago, Malcador said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/nato-members-may-send-troops-to-ukraine-warns-former-alliance-chief

I am very skeptical this will come to pass.

For now it's almost certainly a bluff.
In Poland no politician has even dared to publicly mention anything of the sort.

But that brings up the more interesting question of what the west is willing to offer Ukraine.
There has been some talk of the 'hedgehog' or 'Israel' model, but it sounds like just arming Ukraine and hoping for the best. 

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Gorth said:

I'm sure they're all volunteers doing this in their spare time out of the goodness of their hearts. Sorry, I no longer remember the usual Russian explanation for Russian service men helping the separatists, but it was something to that effect. No official participation for sure!

 

.

I agree and its not whataboutism because I agree that would be several hundred Western\NATO advisors on the ground helping the Ukrainians. I expect and support that

But there is also an official Ukrainian foreign fighters regiment in Ukraine, I have immense respect for anyone prepared to fight and die for the freedom of another country. They number in the lows thousands but I doubt anyone cares about foreign fighters in Ukraine considering the point you made about the  Donbas conflict and the reality of the Russian military involvement and  then you have  many examples of the Wagner group operating in Africa and how Wagner is closely associated with the Russian government 

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/23/europe/ukraine-foreign-fighters-vuhledar-donbas-intl/index.html

[Mamoulian War]

9 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

For now it's almost certainly a bluff.
In Poland no politician has even dared to publicly mention anything of the sort.

But that brings up the more interesting question of what the west is willing to offer Ukraine.
There has been some talk of the 'hedgehog' or 'Israel' model, but it sounds like just arming Ukraine and hoping for the best. 

Did not some Polish politicians made some harsh statement about the need of involvement in Belarus few weeks ago? Even Peskov has responded to them IIRC.

[BruceVC]

https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/da-to-challenge-ramaphosas-plans-to-classify-inquiry-findings-on-lady-r/

We our own worst enemy around our foreign policy decisions, the inquiry into the Russian ship outcome is now classified

This is being challenged but its incredibly frustrating because after the US ambassadors allegation there was this huge denial  and outrage and this inquiry was established. But now government wants to classify the findings. Why?

Make the findings public and  settle this thing once and for all

Edited June 8, 2023 by BruceVC

[Lexx]

Looks to me like the allegations were correct.

[BruceVC]

Just now, Lexx said:

Looks to me like the allegations were correct.

Well thats exactly what most South Africans are going to think and also what most international observers would think. Domestically this has become a very contentious point and the simplest way to settle this would have been to be open about the inquiry

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Well thats exactly what most South Africans are going to think and also what most international observers would think. Domestically this has become a very contentious point and the simplest way to settle this would have been to be open about the inquiry

Simplest way? Only if they have nothing to hide. If they do have something to hide, it doesn’t matter that you know it, I know it and the rest of the world knows it. There’s always that little niggly bit of plausible deniability without hard proof

 

edit: why take the blame today when you can make somebody else take the fall tomorrow?

[Zoraptor]

Very amusing, now Bruce is complaining about governments spuriously classifying things. All we need now is for Kobus van der Snowden to leak the report and for Bruce to think he's a hero for doing so...

[Mamoulian War]

Looks like Russia has decided to sacrifice even more young men as a first wave alert for attacks. In Belgorod, they are putting the young conscripts under the guise of training in between UA army and RU army.

 

[pmp10]

3 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Did not some Polish politicians made some harsh statement about the need of involvement in Belarus few weeks ago? Even Peskov has responded to them IIRC.

A very outspoken (and very retired) general suggested that Poland should intervene in case of uprising in Belarus.
Got him the same eyerolls as his earlier suggestions to attack Kaliningrad.

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Very amusing, now Bruce is complaining about governments spuriously classifying things. All we need now is for Kobus van der Snowden to leak the report and for Bruce to think he's a hero for doing so...

Im glad its amusing to you, at least someone finds these allegations funny. But a  person working for the NSA and having a signed NDA is not the same as the allegations of selling weapons to a country that invaded another country especially when there has been denialism from the government about those weapons sales and the country is claiming to be neutral 

Nice try but really weak equivalence 

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, pmp10 said:

A very outspoken (and very retired) general suggested that Poland should intervene in case of uprising in Belarus.
Got him the same eyerolls as his earlier suggestions to attack Kaliningrad.

Do they not respect the Rule Based International Order ?

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/da-to-challenge-ramaphosas-plans-to-classify-inquiry-findings-on-lady-r/

We our own worst enemy around our foreign policy decisions, the inquiry into the Russian ship outcome is now classified

This is being challenged but its incredibly frustrating because after the US ambassadors allegation there was this huge denial  and outrage and this inquiry was established. But now government wants to classify the findings. Why?

Make the findings public and  settle this thing once and for all

Just watch the real issue be some unrelated government crookedness, like smuggling jewels or something

[Elerond]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

Do they not respect the Rule Based International Order ?

Poland that is constantly under threat of getting sanctions from EU, because they don't follow the rules? 

[Mamoulian War]

Orcs continue to shell volunteers evacuating civilians from flooded towns…

 

[Mamoulian War]

Evidence by Norway about explosion at Nova Kakhovka dam before it collapsed.

 

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Do they not respect the Rule Based International Order ?

Just watch the real issue be some unrelated government crookedness, like smuggling jewels or something

Yes I dont think anyone senior in government  would be involved if its true

I mentioned before that during Covid the SANDF  ordered thousands of untested and unauthorized vaccines from Cuba using their own budget. So its definitely possible they acted unilaterally. But then they still need to make the inquiry public to settle this  and ensure accountability and consequence for whoever is involved 

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-01-26-back-to-cuba-sandf-returns-irregularly-procured-covid-drug-worth-r228m/

 

[Malcador]

Leopards in action, well, at least one got blown up.  Offensive seems to be going well, Ukrainians making advances near Tokmak.

[pmp10]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Do they not respect the Rule Based International Order ?

Pretty sure he'd say that order either just failed or was never there to begin with.

3 hours ago, Elerond said:

Poland that is constantly under threat of getting sanctions from EU, because they don't follow the rules? 

Long past that.
A milion Euro / day fine is accumulating for over an year now.

[Zoraptor]

5 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Evidence by Norway about explosion at Nova Kakhovka dam before it collapsed.

Even the extremely pro Uk ISW has the dam collapse starting at least 20 minutes before that and up to 50 minutes before. That's also a non determinative method- it doesn't say who did it, and isn't even determinative for it being due to explosives; they're just seismographs and pick up any ground disturbance such as volcanic activity and earthquakes. With 18bn tons of weight behind it- ie 100x more than the Mohne Dam blown up by the Bouncing Bombs in WW2- a dam failure is definitively not going to be trivial in terms of ground disturbance.

[belated edit: for reference purposes, 2 on the Richter scale is equivalent to the explosion of 56kg of TNT, per USGS. Which is utterly useless for determining anything]

 

 

My new favourite big brain take is that it couldn't have been an external attack, because Zelensky said that was impossible HiMARS and Storm Shadows aren't explosive enough. Which is incorrect, HiMARS are enough per the Ukrainians themselves, let alone Ukraine having other weapons with bigger warheads, but nevermind. The really funny thing is all the people saying that the Kerch Bridge attack was carried out by a boat- in order to avoid the homicide/ suicide bomb stigma- have suddenly forgotten about Ukraine having that capability, as soon as it became inconvenient...

The most damning (uh) evidence is the roadway collapse, at the point at which we know Ukraine was attacking the dam, happening the day previous. That certainly appears to have been the initial point of failure, and the only side we know damaged the structure there is Ukraine.

5 hours ago, Malcador said:

Leopards in action, well, at least one got blown up.  Offensive seems to be going well, Ukrainians making advances near Tokmak.

One other definitely didn't have a good time of it since it took a direct hit, just no aftermath footage since the drone decided to follow the moving vehicles. The Russians are really odd when it comes to footage though, they obviously have a lot and a lot of drones but insist on releasing it as if it were edited by a 5 year old who has raided the sweet jar.

Some of it you even wonder why they bothered, the Ka-52 gun cam footage has fewer pixels than Space Invaders.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Lexx]

Why would Ukraine want to destroy the dam? Because their counter-offensive was going so well, they thought, hey, why not make it a little harder for us? Makes no sense to me.