10:31
In the UN Human Rights Council, several of the world’s worst dictatorships sit, Pakistan, Cuba, and Uzbekistan for example.
In the Security Council, we have Russia, which is anything but secure, and China blocks everything reasonable.
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Since 2013, the UN has had as many as 45 resolutions against Israel but one month into this war, nothing directly forceful against Russia.
WHO helped China spread Covid through the whole “it is not airborne, do not close your flight routes” narrative the first month.
There is a clear indulgence with dictatorships in the UN and a USA/Israel hatred. The USA makes the free world safe and above all, we in the EU have a very comfortable life thanks to them.
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The EU should make common cause with the USA and join NATO as one (as Paul has pointed out is basically the case). Then we join forces with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan and run our own race. The sh*tdictators can have the UN, WHO as much as they want and have their BRIICS councils while EUUSAANZJP can guarantee security and prosperity in their countries for another hundred years and we drop the fear of contact and “colonial guilt” or whatever it is. We all basically have the same goal, functioning democracies, and there will be no real internal conflicts in this bloc, and if China or Russia stick their heads up, it will be a Ukraine.
There are decent countries in Asia, Africa, and South America and you connect with them through honest trade agreements if they promote democracy, roughly.
10:37
Well, the above is not really one of my top-list topics to feel strongly about, it was probably just some thoughts that flew down into a post, so if anyone feels this must be settled in a duel, I will probably slip away 🙂
11:02
A couple of thoughts regarding Ukraine’s numbers, Zelensky informed us yesterday that Russia is trying to encircle “45,000 men on the Donbass ceasefire line” (if I remember correctly, it flew by a bit fast). Simply put, Ukraine has 12 brigades in this potential encirclement and that makes just over 4,000 men per brigade.
If you take that as a baseline (I know the number should be 6,000/brigade and varies for different brigades but just for the sake of exercise) then there are 25 more brigades east of the Dnipro with 25×4000 = 100,000 men.
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Many different estimates on the Russians’ numbers but hard to believe they can top 140,000 men here in their BTGs.
Add to that all the brigades Ukraine has west of the Dnipro, I don’t even want to count, Kiev and Kherson are probably about 20 in number and then some 20 more so at least another 150,000 men at a low estimate.
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Now over to tanks, Ukrainian losses were according to the blog above 112 and the figure 100 has been circulating for a while. Say Ukraine is a bit secretive about losses and counts low. T72 deliveries from Slovakia and Poland are higher than that and we have seen more than one example of abandoned Russian T72s in Ukrainian service so they should almost have full armored and mechanic battalions, I think?
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I wonder how the Russian military leadership thinks here, they probably know roughly how the Ukrainian lineup looks and know better than us how sh*tty their own team is. My guess is that it is the Bunker dwarf forcing this for his victory day parade and that the military leadership knows exactly how this will end but they do what they are told to do. Then I think we will have to count off at least 25% of the Russian side who will refuse to advance when this ridiculous excuse for a spring offensive eventually starts far too late.
11:09
I know you can’t count like this but just because it is the first sharp figure we have and to try to clarify the balance of power and the impossibility of Russia going on the offensive.
12:33
Yes exactly, and the question is, as TANKFRI and MAGNUS REDIN are getting at, why continue with the same cut-off club for dictators when you can simply start EUUSAANZJP and start over.
Now these countries are quite democratic in the sense that we will not try to suck the rest of the world dry of raw materials and start colonial wars so it could be quite a pleasant world to live in if EUUSAANZJP is the top of the pyramid.
We have, in some kind of colonial guilt, let various sh*tdictators ravage their countries and populations because an intervention would be morally worse, “it is not for us to decide how Zimbabweans should live their lives,” so they starve instead. If we can start looking out for the best interests of the countries’ populations instead, it could probably get a lot better.
20:59
Posting below is a pro-Russian estimate of the numbers on the Ukrainian side in Mariupol at the start of the fighting.
“In Mariupol at the time of its encirclement on March 11, there were: 36th separate brigade of marines, 109th brigade of territorial defense, 503rd separate battalion of marines, a company of the 53rd separate mechanized brigade, units of the 17th anti-tank brigade, Nazi formations “Azov”*, “Aidar”*, “Right Sector”*, police and state border service units, as well as foreign mercenaries – RF Ministry of Defense”
The total number of this group was about 8,100 people
23:21
Very interesting, and highly likely that it is “martial law”, probably a declaration of war against Ukraine for their aggression against Russia, maybe Moscow, within a week.
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One thing bothers me a bit, the guy is not most upset about all the civilian Ukrainians who die, it is unclear if he has seen combat or not but a fully functioning Western soldier would probably have highlighted that as the main argument. This guy wants to live, which is also a very good argument but number two, I think.
23:55
19:17 update, Russia has run an Afghanistan with its entire defense force, navy, army, air force and probably the nuclear troops. ALL have been updated and should be in good condition but it is really damn bad.
After a month we see T72s in almost original condition in combat and old decommissioned Grad rockets that were taken out of service in the early 2000s.
The official figures are nowhere near correct here and one begins to understand why the oligarchs have at least one yacht worth a billion dollars per person.
10:20
Regarding Mariupol, ISW wrote a few days ago, I don’t remember exactly, that the fall of Mariupol was days or hours away, I am still quite annoyed at their negative view of Ukraine’s ability to defend… As we wrote yesterday, the southern pocket with the port is getting smaller, if you look at Militaryland’s map, half of the port is red.
Pro-Russian forums are peddling that they have taken the barracks of the National Guard 12th Brigade and the entire port, which as usual is a half-truth and a lot of hot air 🙂
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It can probably be assumed that the 12th National Guards brigade is conducting a tactical retreat into Azovstal with a few hundred captured losses. Somewhat poor terrain to retreat through and worse terrain to hold in the northern port, but the Marines had a longer stretch to cover than that.