11:20
I can understand that Ukraine sees this as an existential war and that this is their chance to give Russia none for hundreds of years of injustices.
Much has been read over the years but what Sofia Hoas wrote hit right in, there’s probably something with being Swedish-Ukrainian that makes you take it in a different way. Over 200 years of hard times that sometimes became an existential threat and sometimes they managed okay. My God, what a life and all evil came from Moscow except when Germany had ambitions for power.
11:29
Now there has been signal politics at the highest level – American aircraft carrier group (thought it would take a week), US strategic bombers are training, 101st in Romania and extensive military exercises up to the Belarus border.
NATO is also moving mainly aircraft, Spain has moved forward some squadron and then F35 from whichever country it was I thought flew past.
All this comes after Ukraine’s autumn offensive, if it had been a defeated Russian in full retreat this escalation would not have happened.
What are the Russians doing, they continue offensive operations at the Siversk – Bakhmut line, they are doing something from Belarus, they have no intention to abandon northern Luhansk and they appear to be preparing for a siege of the city of Kherson but to abandon east of Inhulets if necessary.
I’m starting to wonder if a dark horse is starting to rise here, that Russia will try to withdraw somehow?
Why then?
Now they have run their bombing campaign and it failed, the mobilization did not go as planned and mobilized troops are not suitable for offensive operations (we know).
They haven’t run out of materiel but they have run out of competent crews – riflemen, drivers, gunners, loaders, pilots, co-pilots, platoon leaders, company commanders, battalion commanders. It will be difficult with offensive operations going forward.
They are now using up their last offensive capacity in an attempt to break Ukraine’s back but I still believe the critical mass is in Ukraine’s favor here.
There are probably two goals, one is a long low-intensity war that is manageable and the other is an out, and that is probably why Erdogan has started probing.
I can’t really see that Ukraine is prepared to give up land to Russia, or offer them a low-intensity war, so the reasonable negotiation tactic here is probably to make it attractive enough for Russia to negotiate a full withdrawal from Ukraine?
11:40
Over battalion commanders no longer dare to lead from the front after all the HIMARS strikes on staff positions so they sit far away from the contact line and draw up their plans. To avoid Russian chaos, battalion commanders have orders to follow commands to the last letter and if they don’t, there will be desecration by Kadyrov Chechens. To ensure everything goes correctly, there is a line of Kadyrov Chechens, FSB, Rosgvardia, OMON and whatever else that controls that the joy of dying in a hole does not falter.
Then when the first shot falls and the planes go down, battalion commanders have no choice but to continue with the idiot order because the higher commander sits in a bunker 200 km away.
-what a mess, world-class combat leadership and on the other side we have the all-seeing eye that knows when a colonel is in a mobile staff position that moves every day and when the briefing has started so you can HIMARS.
What will bother me for the rest of the war is that the West failed to seize this opportunity and send offensive weapons, then Ukraine could have delivered its chess move at the low point and the war would probably soon have been over, or Russia already forced to the negotiating table.
There are many question marks ahead but first and foremost we must hope that Ukraine is not forced to negotiate away territory. A single square meter of land to the Russian side gives an opening for continued conflict, then it becomes a low-intensity forever war and something the Russian dictatorship would welcome.
The country Russia is probably the really big nut to crack – if you give the administration an out it will be more of the same, if Putin falls it will be worse, if you totally break Russia it will be chaos and China will tie Russia to itself. Trying to stroke Russia gently has already been done and it brought us to today.
I want nothing more than a democratized Russia but I don’t think it’s possible, I think the best outcome is a Russia behind a hard NATO wall and sanctions to control the country and that one manages to prevent China from tying Russia to itself – then we can count that as a win, unfortunately.
12:23
I don’t think so, the USA/West has done endless preparations and has a ready ladder.
So far everything comes as a response to Russian actions, if the Russians had retreated across all of Ukraine today we would not have seen the article about the aircraft carrier or the strategic bombers – then the USA/West would have escalated when Russia de-escalated.
Now the Russians escalate so the next step is activated and so on.
Yes, the purpose is to make the Russians not escalate more, no one else has said anything?
17:05
No, you are just really unpleasant Tankfri, but now it has been calm in the thread for a while so no point biting on your baits 🙂
You have in a week called me all sorts of invectives, Russian troll was probably one of the highlights.
You have lowered yourself to worse Flashback level.
Why you feel the need to provoke and try to insult others only you know, you manage to keep calm at times but when I think about it you were probably at it quite quickly after the thread started.
I can’t see any value in communication with you and mostly choose not to respond, if you feel like having a discussion that’s great but skip the invectives?
11:16
Here comes a tin foil hat –
I haven’t quite understood how large all these “intelligence agencies” are, I’ve just skimmed past that Putin has a private army of 40,000, Shoigu 27,000, and now this one with 50,000 men.
There are probably six of them, I googled –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_agencies_of_Russia
To sum up, they have more than enough to control the country of Russia domestically.
What is being drained now in Ukraine is the Russian army which historically has been a third leg that needed to be kept short or else there is a risk of revolution.
Whether consciously or not, the threat from the Russian army is probably at a low point and they haven’t exhausted the above-mentioned sextet.
There is thus no breeding ground for a military revolt for the simple reason that the military is shattered and civilians should be controllable with some half a million in the agencies above?