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

[Mamoulian War]

3 hours ago, Lexx said:

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.

There is Absolutely no way Ukraine did it, unless they wanted to turn their own southern lands into desert and incur billions more of damage on themselves, which is as stupid reason as it sounds. But for some reason, some people still choose to believe that bull****

UA was hammering Antonovskyi bridge with HIMARS for two months and all they achieved was few holes in it to hinder Russian logistics. There are dozens over dozens of photos of HIMARS strikes against the dam during Kherson offensive, and even the explosion fromRussian retreat over the dam, which Russia has shared to the world, but not a single photo from June 6 explosion. If they would exist, they will be already all over internet by Russian propaganda. 

Russia is controlling the Dam since spring 2022. Zelenskyi was asking international community to inspect the Dam since October as UA had intel about the dam being mined. Russian propaganda was bragging about laying mines inside of the Dam, one Russian propaganda channel has even published an interview with drunken Russian soldier, who was gloating how he was part of the mining team, and cheering that they will blow it up during winter.

After the collapse of the dam, Russia has not made a single attempt on rescuing civilians on the left bank of Dnipro, and are continuously shelling the Ukraininas volunteers during their rescue operations. There is already an intercepted call of Russian soldiers speaking that Russian sabotage group was involved in this, because they wanted to blackmail UA again, but as always, they ****ed up, and caused bigger explosion as planned and caused havoc…

It’s unbelievable, that after so much of evidence, some people are trying to perform all kind of mental gymnastics, to convince themselves, that it was Ukraine, who blew the dam up

 

edit: not to mention, that Russia spent whole winter destroying heating and electricity to make whole country freeze, but NO, Russia would never attack the Dame to hurt civilians on such a large scale, right?

[BruceVC]

49 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

 

It’s unbelievable, that after so much of evidence, some people are trying to perform all kind of mental gymnastics, to convince themselves, that it was Ukraine, who blew the dam up

 

 

Zora will tell you there is NO logical reason for the Russians to blow up the dam, the same as there NO logical reason to blow up the Nord  pipe or invade Ukraine 

Russian and Vatnik cope never ceases to amaze 

[Mamoulian War]

Of course. And nothing reinforces your narrative of innocence as your state TV suggesting, that you should blow up Kyiv HPP as well

 

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

There is Absolutely no way Ukraine did it, unless they wanted to turn their own southern lands into desert and incur billions more of damage on themselves,

1) The loss of the canals/ drinking water and irrigation effects pretty much only areas held by Russia. Once again, Russia brutalises Ukraine by... punching itself in the face, eh?

2) The Russians  evacuated all the civilians on their side earlier once they made the banks a closed military zone, so they don't have (m)any to evacuate.

2a) Which might look suspicious, except they built their defences in those areas, and those defences now don't exist and a lot of their soldiers got caught in the flooding. You'd think they'd build their defences back a bit, eh.

3) Empty canals are a lot easier to bridge for Ukraine, should their offensive go well, and indeed may not even need bridging at all once empty.

4) The drained reservoir will be easier for Ukraine to cross to the north, after a while

5) The lower Dniepr will be safer to cross too, since it cannot be flooded again with the dam gone. And very much unlike if the dam was still there

There are plenty of reasons for Ukraine to do it, though I do not think personally they did it deliberately, on balance of evidence. There is however no reason for Russia to have done it beyond this is bad, Russia is bad therefore this <--> Russia. Everything about it is a net negative, for Russia. Hence the requirement for yet more OMG but Sauron.

Still actually kind of glad we got another 'orc' post. Not because I get to ask (rhetorically, back seat moderation is at best tiresome) again if the boards would tolerate the use of the racial slurs used against Arabs or Vietnamese* when they were fighting the west. The thing about orcs is, they're fantasy and don't exist. If you have to justify something using fantasy and racist epithets you're fundamentally not on solid ground.

*answer: no, at least for the Vietnamese, since that term is on the naughty list.

As for the HiMARS

1) it was a Ukrainian official saying they used them to attack the floodgates and why- to show that they could destroy the floodgates, a test which was successful- and I quoted him from a impeccably western and pro Ukrainian source.

2) The section they attacked most had the roadway collapse the day before the dam did, and was the clear point of failure.

3) They don't have to have hit the dam on Jun 5/6 to have caused the collapse, they don't need to have done it deliberately in the sense that they intended the dam to fail; all they have to have done is do enough damage that it failed, eventually.

4) Despite knowing of the potential damage they released more water upstream than usual

5) The Antonovsky bridge doesn't have billions of tons of water behind it

3 also has the advantage of not requiring anyone to be a cartoon villain to make sense.

3 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Zora will tell you there is NO logical reason for the Russians to blow up the dam, the same as there NO logical reason to blow up the Nord  pipe or invade Ukraine 

Nah, I didn't think the invasion would happen, but I've always said there was a logical reason for it. Not one I personally agree with, but you don't have to agree with reasons to recognise that they exist.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Malcador]

13 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

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

Russians need to understand the power of war porn, for sure. 

Well ok, NATO gear around so offensive is definitely on.  Hm, will have to check around on Reddit more, is always funny to see them react when US stuff gets destroyed

Edited June 9, 2023 by Malcador

[HoonDing]

There'll be a lot of copium overdosing in the upcoming days/weeks

[pmp10]

Discussions about future Ukrainian security continue.
Seems there is still no consensus in the West.

[Zoraptor]

A decent amount of destroyed equipment on the Ukrainian side is to be expected given they're attacking, the style in which it was lost and it being far enough behind Russian lines now that they can pose casually with the wreckage would be a lot more worrying. Strangely enough (not really), the tactics used by Ukraine seem to be exactly the same as those used by Russia at Vugledar, with the same result. Attacking fixed defences is hard, and you don't have that many options of how to do it.

[xzar_monty]

On 6/9/2023 at 3:27 PM, Zoraptor said:

Nah, I didn't think the invasion would happen, but I've always said there was a logical reason for it. Not one I personally agree with, but you don't have to agree with reasons to recognise that they exist.

Now, this interests me quite a bit. What was the logical reason?

The sense I get is that previous experience with the West had lulled Putin into thinking he can essentially act with impunity because the West are sissies (which I partly agree with). This, compounded with him being surrounded by yes men and poor intelligence, increased the likelihood of the invasion. And then, finally, Covid isolation combined with his essentially paranoid world-view probably tipped the scales. And much of the impetus comes from the fact that he views the fall of the SU as a great geopolitical disaster and he has no regard for the Ukrainians whatsoever, as an independent people. Whether this qualifies as logical I'm not sure, but this is pretty much how I see it, although there are some other, smaller factors, too.

Edited June 11, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Zoraptor]

Ultimately the logical reason was the same as the US one for invading Iraq- they could, they thought it would be successful and the benefits would outweigh any risks. Everything else is detail. There is rather a lot of detail in both cases, but it's also been a bit done to death.

[xzar_monty]

2 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Ultimately the logical reason was the same as the US one for invading Iraq- they could, they thought it would be successful and the benefits would outweigh any risks. Everything else is detail. There is rather a lot of detail in both cases, but it's also been a bit done to death.

Fair enough. There is, of course, a massive difference as well: the invasion of Iraq was never intended to either wipe Iraq off the map or obliterate the Iraqis, whereas this current invasion was intended both to end Ukraine as a country and the Ukrainians as a people (either through assimilation or outright genocide). This isn't to say that there was ever anything glorious about the Iraq campaign, but I certainly wouldn't gloss over this difference, either.

[BruceVC]

11 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Fair enough. There is, of course, a massive difference as well: the invasion of Iraq was never intended to either wipe Iraq off the map or obliterate the Iraqis, whereas this current invasion was intended both to end Ukraine as a country and the Ukrainians as a people (either through assimilation or outright genocide). This isn't to say that there was ever anything glorious about the Iraq campaign, but I certainly wouldn't gloss over this difference, either.

There are other real differences between the invasion of Iraq and Ukraine. The US and its allies spent months  trying to motivate and  justify  the invasion in the UN, they never once said " we dont want to invade  Iraq "

Russia built up its troops  on the border and claimed  " its just a training exercise, EVERYONE knows you cant trust US\Western intelligence. " 

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/19/russian-military-build-up-continues-despite-moscows-promises-of-a-drawdown-00010372

So like everything else in this war it was just more Russian lies and doublespeak because they were expecting a quick and decisive victory

 

 

[Malcador]

On 6/9/2023 at 5:11 PM, Zoraptor said:

A decent amount of destroyed equipment on the Ukrainian side is to be expected given they're attacking, the style in which it was lost and it being far enough behind Russian lines now that they can pose casually with the wreckage would be a lot more worrying. Strangely enough (not really), the tactics used by Ukraine seem to be exactly the same as those used by Russia at Vugledar, with the same result. Attacking fixed defences is hard, and you don't have that many options of how to do it.

Yup, but it's just funny to see people saying this kind of thing when it's their team but the other team is just incompetent.

Seems the offensive is going well, haven't hit the main Russian line yet, but that should not be a problem, the free intelligence and stuff like Storm Shadow and HIMARS will pay dividends.

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

There are other real differences between the invasion of Iraq and Ukraine. The US and its allies spent months  trying to motivate and  justify  the invasion in the UN, they never once said " we dont want to invade  Iraq "

Russia built up its troops  on the border and claimed  " its just a training exercise, EVERYONE knows you cant trust US\Western intelligence. " 

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/19/russian-military-build-up-continues-despite-moscows-promises-of-a-drawdown-00010372

So like everything else in this war it was just more Russian lies and doublespeak because they were expecting a quick and decisive victory

 

 

You're ignoring one giant US lie there.

Rules bases international order indeed. Why I detest Blinken and his ****ing moralizing here.

[Zoraptor]

I mean, they said they didn't want to invade Iraq all the time; they were being forced- forced I say!- to do so by the presence of wmd. By the same token Russia didn't want to invade Ukraine either, they were forced- forced I say!- to.

Dunno how well the offensive is going, Petraeus made a bunch of predictions none of which have been borne out- mostly combined arms from the Ukrainians which we haven't seen at all, and that they'd break through in 2-3 days, which hasn't happened- and they've lost a lot of documented hardware let alone what hasn't been documented. Not as well as hoped, one suspects, but certainly not over yet.

[Gorth]

12 hours ago, BruceVC said:

 The US and its allies spent months  trying to motivate and  justify  the invasion in the UN, they never once said " we dont want to invade  Iraq "

 

Which of course was a blatant lie.  It will take more than that to convince me that Bush Jr. didn't have his mind set in stone avenging Bush Sr.'s failed war adventures in the first gulf war. Payback time... or how would you else explain the lies and outright fabricated "evidence" used to justify the invasion? But that's a discussion for another thread

 

[BruceVC]

10 hours ago, Malcador said:

 

You're ignoring one giant US lie there.

Rules bases international order indeed. Why I detest Blinken and his ****ing moralizing here.

I dont want to hijack this thread with an Iraq debate  as @Gorth mentioned but I do think its related to Ukraine because its about the integrity of Russia and then its about the justification of an invasion, is it ever justified for example? And this is a debatable topic so I appreciate peoples opinions even if I already know what most peoples views on this  are

So going back to Iraq, I dont think  anyone would argue the reasons for the invasion was valid, they werent and they were a combination of misinformation and lies. I did believe them at the time but from about 2004 onwards it was clear they werent true 

But I was talking more about the nature of the invasion and  how the US conducted  themselves within Iraq compared to the Russia invasion of Ukraine, they not the the same at all if you think of the military strategy and decisions the Ruskies have made and  things they doing like the illegal annexations of parts of the Donbas

My point being not all invasions are the same because a big part of how we reflect on invasions is how the invading army conducts themselves and what they do within the country they invaded 

Im sure  we would all agree on that?

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Im sure  we would all agree on that?

Much better...

My jab was at the justification, not the conduct. Counter argument to conduct of the war in Iraq would be the strategic objective... what did they do with the country after Saddam was toppled? Save the oil fields of course, but the thing about inherently unstable autocracies is, when you cut off the head of the snake, you have an incomprehensible mess on your hands. The world is still feeling the aftershock from the rise of various fundamentalist groups who rose to power during and after the war. No plans were in place how to deal with the country once defeated. Heck, they might even have done the world a favour if they had split it up there and then. At least the Kurds would've had a place to call home (and a new country for Turkey to invade)....

Yes, I know, by comparison, the Russian objective (despite whatever Moscow claims) seems to be to just depopulate the area. Ship kids and women of child bearing age to Russia proper and kill the rest, it can be resettled in two or three generations (not unheard of during Soviet rule). No wonder Armenia and Azerbaijan are new best friends and Kazakhstan is rethinking its international relations in general.

[xzar_monty]

31 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Yes, I know, by comparison, the Russian objective (despite whatever Moscow claims) seems to be to just depopulate the area. Ship kids and women of child bearing age to Russia proper and kill the rest, it can be resettled in two or three generations (not unheard of during Soviet rule). No wonder Armenia and Azerbaijan are new best friends and Kazakhstan is rethinking its international relations in general.

There are also some extremely interesting separatist movements either budding or gaining more foothold inside Russia. Of course it is impossible to tell whether these will ever amount to anything, but I find these processes very heartening: ethnic Russians appear to exist, politically speaking, at a level of inactivity somewhere between Stoicism and catatonia, but non-ethnic Russians seem to be recognizing in ever-increasing numbers that they are used as cannon fodder and that Russia really has and never had any respect for them whatsoever, as human beings. (There is a saying in Finland that the imperialist Russia is nothing but a huge "prison of the peoples", but that may be an international saying and everyone else may well know it, too; I just haven't heard it in international contexts.)

Potentially, areas like the rich Sakha, maybe, and definitely whole hosts of various peoples are looking at themselves and Russia(ns) and thinking that we want to get out of here ASAP. This is part of the same process that you describe in relation to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Of course it poses huge geopolitical problems, too (nukes), but it is also one of the best things ever to happen inside Russia... should it ever amount to anything serious. We shall see.

As for your question related to "what did they do with the country after Saddam was toppled?", that's the classic problem that all revolutionaries also have to face. It's much, much easier to bring the reigning regime down than to create something stable afterwards. Interestingly, by the way, from a psychological point of view it does appear that the people who are particularly good at bringing about revolutionary measures and processes are most definitely not the people you should trust with the construction of a stable new nation. Which makes sense, when you think about the characteristics required. Of course it's different with multinational entities like Nato or the coalition that invaded Iraq, but the problem still remains -- as was amply demonstrated.

Edited June 12, 2023 by xzar_monty

[Malcador]

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I dont want to hijack this thread with an Iraq debate  as @Gorth mentioned but I do think its related to Ukraine because its about the integrity of Russia and then its about the justification of an invasion, is it ever justified for example? And this is a debatable topic so I appreciate peoples opinions even if I already know what most peoples views on this  are

So going back to Iraq, I dont think  anyone would argue the reasons for the invasion was valid, they werent and they were a combination of misinformation and lies. I did believe them at the time but from about 2004 onwards it was clear they werent true 

But I was talking more about the nature of the invasion and  how the US conducted  themselves within Iraq compared to the Russia invasion of Ukraine, they not the the same at all if you think of the military strategy and decisions the Ruskies have made and  things they doing like the illegal annexations of parts of the Donbas

My point being not all invasions are the same because a big part of how we reflect on invasions is how the invading army conducts themselves and what they do within the country they invaded 

Im sure  we would all agree on that?

They do share some similarities, but not sure you're really on the mark commenting on the US' honesty before they decided to set Iraq, and a lot of the region, on fire. I find it interesting how people comment that "at least the US wasn't trying to erase Iraq off the map" though, heh.

But yes, the execution differs greatly.

 

[pmp10]

Biden just approved another weaponry package for Ukraine.
Included are 15 Bradleys - almost exactly the amount Ukraine was supposed to lose during a recent assault. 

Almost certainly a message meant for Russia.

[Keyrock]

The US recently raised the debt ceiling just short of defaulting. As part of the deal the government will be cutting spending almost across the board except... Wait for it... Wait for it... Military budget.

Our infrastructure is crumbling, our education system is woefully underfunded, the opioid crisis ain't getting any better, inflation is out of control, the mental health crisis is at an all-time alarming high, often manifesting itself in mass shootings (but let's just say "guns bad", blaming a symptom rather than addressing the root cause). Maybe we should spend more of the budget to address some (preferably all) of those issues at home? No. Slash the budget on all of that and funnel more money into the pockets of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc. The Imperial States of America already spends more money on its military than the next 10 countries COMBINED. Apparently that's not enough. MORE MORE MORE!

Edited June 13, 2023 by Keyrock

[Gfted1]

^We need to be prepared for potential nazi invasion. Theyre literally everywhere.

Interesting (to me), we only lost a total of 20 Bradleys (17 to friendly fire!) in the entire Gulf war (Bradley Fighting Vehicle - Wikipedia), and here theve lost 16 in a couple of days. Guess it shows the difference in tactics and training.

[Keyrock]

Let's just call it what it is, Imperial America is the world's foremost arms dealer.

[Malcador]

33 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

^We need to be prepared for potential nazi invasion. Theyre literally everywhere.

Interesting (to me), we only lost a total of 20 Bradleys (17 to friendly fire!) in the entire Gulf war (Bradley Fighting Vehicle - Wikipedia), and here theve lost 16 in a couple of days. Guess it shows the difference in tactics and training.

Terrain and equipment as well, trees are great cover for a Metis/Kornet team.  And UAVs as well I guess, artillery still is killing a huge chunk of stuff in Ukraine.   I am curious how much friendly fire is going on in this war, though, and how it compares to others.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Malcador

[Zoraptor]

Pretty sure the Big Bradley Pile Up was due to artillery, and if 16 is the total losses that alone accounts for roughly half of them. Kind of funny seeing western experts criticise the Ukrainians for sending in more Bradleys to rescue the crews of the first lot as if the west wouldn't do that, but apparently that's soviet doctrine and the west would dispassionately write them off. Guess anything that works is going to be due to glorious NATO tactics, anything that doesn't will be due to them not unlearning peasant soviet doctrine.