Ukraine Conflict - "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

[Zoraptor]

Russia doesn't have 100k troops around Robotyne/ Rabotino*, nor does Ukraine have 65k. Maybe 15k each in the whole Vremetsky Ridge area, and that's pushing it.

Nobody forced Ukraine to make hopelessly overoptimistic estimates of progress, that they did to themselves.

*Robotyne had a population of 74 in 2015. No typo, miles of article space and prognostications of imminent success really was dedicated to taking a village of seventy four people...

3 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

And here you are wrong. Kilo submarines are carriers of Kalibr missiles, whith which Russia kills civilians, so destroying one, is pretty significant achievement for the defense of the country. Landing ships on other had, due to Kerch Bridge being closed every other day, are currently used for transporting military cargo to Crimea and Berdyansk. So this was again a blow against Russian logistic, although less significant. And with Valery Bykov ship damaged today again, having less drydocks available for Black Sea Fleet, will harm them even more. As they do have only one available outside of Sevastopol. In Novorossiysk. They have three more in Sevastopol, but yeah, good luck doing maintenance to your subs there now

Ukraine's managed to shut down the Kerch Bridge rail link even short term only once, when it blew up that Azeri truck driver. You remember, the one you insisted was a Russian false flag even after Ukraine admitted it was them. Every other time it hasn't been shut down at all, or only for a few hours.

The Kilo is literally a 43 year old design. With 63 other members of its class. They've no shortage of platforms to launch Kalibrs from and- at least according to Ukraine- most (and usually all or almost all) of them are shot down anyway. According to Ukraine itself it's militarily insignificant.

[Malcador]

Apparently they liberated Andriivka and encircled and wiped out a brigade. Well so says the Ukrainian MoD, for what that's worth. Liberation of the village seems to be correct, at least.

 

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Malcador

[Keyrock]

11 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Why do you think the US wants a traditional war with China? I hear this a lot on Codex but it never really makes sense

It doesn't have to be a traditional war it would ideally be a proxy war. The neocons would prefer to sucker some other country to do the dying instead of us, but only because that makes it much easier to sell the war to the public, they don't much care whether it's Americans, Ukranians, Iraqis, etc. that are doing the dying so that they can line their pockets.

To be clear, I'm pretty confident that China doesn't want a war (in the traditional sense) with the US, or Taiwan, for that matter. Frankly, they have no need to go to war. They spread their influence via economic means, much the same way Murica used to before the neocons took over and brought with them their foreign policy of military intervention solves all problems.

As for MAD, that's a deterrent for folks like you and me, well, I guess I can only say me for sure. I'd like to continue having a habitable planet to live on, I'd like to think you do to, but I shouldn't assume. Neocons don't care. I'm sure they have access to a bunker somewhere in the case they call what they think is a bluff and it turns out the other party was holding 4 aces. They can later emerge to rule over an irradiated dead rock floating through spacetime. But hey, they'll be COMPLETELY in charge of said dead rock, so there's that.

If it wasn't already clear, I have a STRONG disdain for neocons. It goes back to the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld days.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Keyrock

[Zoraptor]

8 hours ago, Malcador said:

Apparently they liberated Andriivka and encircled and wiped out a brigade. Well so says the Ukrainian MoD, for what that's worth. Liberation of the village seems to be correct, at least.

Andriivka is even smaller than Robotyne- population: 71 (2001, so very likely even less than given Robotyne's population dropped by 80% since 2001). Combining the Ukrainian and Russian numbers you'd be looking at having ~7000 soldiers there. Or to put it another way, at the same soldier density Bakhmut would have had seven million soldiers present instead of maybe 100k tops across the entire front.

It's also been recaptured multiple times before, starting back in July. Klishcheeva might be more significant and is a decent bit larger, but then that's also been recaptured multiple times too.

[Lexx]

The purge continues?

[Malcador]

He was rumoured to be ill last year or so, not quite a case of Shoigu dead.

[Zoraptor]

Looked pretty lively for a coma today.

(Both sides' prognostications on the others' health have been like a reverse Dead Parrot Sketch where Shoigu/ Gerasimov/ Kadyrov/ Putin/ Budanov really were just pining for the fjords. If only Monty Python did a sketch where someone wasn't actually dead, real missed opportunity as I could have used that instead.)

Edited September 17, 2023 by Zoraptor

[xzar_monty]

9 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Looked pretty lively for a coma today.

(Both sides' prognostications on the others' health have been like a reverse Dead Parrot Sketch where Shoigu/ Gerasimov/ Kadyrov/ Putin/ Budanov really were just pining for the fjords. If only Monty Python did a sketch where someone wasn't actually dead, real missed opportunity as I could have used that instead.)

Plenty of luxury cars driven by Chechens spotted at a major hospital in Moscow today. Whether that signifies coma, I don't know.

So what we apparently have here, in this war, is a dead parrot that only, really, has a flesh wound.

[Zoraptor]

There's a video of Kadyrov walking around on his tiktok telegram channel from today- or yesterday, Chechen time. It matches Grozny's weather since it's raining on the video, while Moscow had only scattered clouds.

As always it's possible it's faked in some way, but far more likely it isn't.

[Lexx]

Here's some more funny:

Obvious disclaimer, no idea how much truth is in it. This might as well all be BS, just like all the other "Putin is about to die"-reports.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Lexx

[xzar_monty]

"According to rumours", indeed.

This stuff always reminds me of an exchange in The Sandman, the best thing by far that Neil Gaiman's done so far.

"Only a fool listens to rumours", says someone.

"Only a fool ignores them", another replies. (Can't remember who either of them was, but could have been Morpheus and Odin, in that order.)

I believe both sides are equally true, as paradoxical as that is.

[Zoraptor]

Well, the best filter for rumours is the same as the best filter for facts: that which is asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. I'd say that the vast majority of those sort of rumours are just made up for clicks (and often circlejerked into 'facts').

In this case it doesn't even really need that filter. If Kadyrov isn't in a coma any rumours that rely on that as a basis aren't likely to be true either.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

Well, the best filter for rumours is the same as the best filter for facts: that which is asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

Oh, I fully agree, knowing that sometimes the dismissal will turn out to be the wrong choice. Which of course you knew.

I suppose one big thing about rumours is that the old idea of there not being smoke without a fire does not hold.

[Malcador]

Applies when the rumour is something you like, naturally.  I have RUMINT, you have propaganda.

[xzar_monty]

Chechen opposition (Abubakar Jangulbajev, to be precise) now reports that Kadyrov is dead. Well, let's see.

[HoonDing]

Today Avdiivka, tomorrow Mariupol, the day after that Moscow!

[Malcador]

And with Kadyrov dead, Chechnya will rise up and be free.

[BruceVC]

On 9/16/2023 at 9:44 AM, Lexx said:

The purge continues?

But he is an ally  of Putin so he wouldn't be targeted for assassination anyway 

[BruceVC]

34 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Chechen opposition (Abubakar Jangulbajev, to be precise) now reports that Kadyrov is dead. Well, let's see.

Hopefully, he is a brutal warlord with lots of blood on his hands. No loss whatsoever if another Putin ally dies 

[Gfted1]

Russian Submarine Shows Massive Damage After Ukrainian Strike (thedrive.com)

[xzar_monty]

The blurring / pixellation is strange. Anyone know the reason for that? Well, let's rephrase it: can anyone come up with a sensible explanation?

[Sarex]

To hide the location of the photo and any odds of identifying the person who took it.

[Zoraptor]

For some things that would definitely make sense, but everyone already knows where that sub is and you can easily infer where the picture was taken from by what isn't pixelated. That leaves metadata and you aren't going to last long if you're leaving that intact.

Could be for suppressing any damage to the dry dock itself, but that doesn't seem too likely.

[Sarex]

I wasn't talking about the pictures in the link above specifically, but I would still think the person is trying to hide anything that could help identify him. For an example, the picture shows a person standing on the dock, they could then ask that person who was on the other side of the dock, a long shot but why take the risk.

Or the picture is fake and they are trying to hide the surroundings to stop anyone from discrediting it.

[Gfted1]

The second outward facing explosion is interesting to me. If that was really a second Storm Shadow hit I would expect a 450kg warhead to do more damage. Not only to the entry point, but to the entire diameter of the sub. Like a can of pop you forgot in the freezer.