11:17
The image is thus – Putin rides out to battle on a hummingbird like some little fairy in any animated fantasy.
I have figured out that I can avoid all no-go areas like body shaming and other things provided there isn’t a strong movement for fairy-shaming that I am not aware of (yet).
13:29
I don’t know Germany beyond absolutely adoring that country, but can someone explain why it was expected that die grune (sorry I couldn’t find the correct German letter) would support heavier weapons.
I live, after all, in a time when George Soros was pure evil and today he is apparently acceptable, but I have always believed that the Greens in all countries go hand in hand with the peace movement and have often been pro-Soviet back in the day?
It is entirely positive that they want to send heavier weapons, so I’m mostly after an explanation so I understand.
18:15
I’m trying to navigate the minefield.
Do you think Ukraine, for psyops purposes, shows elite specialists/infantry in the worst areas?
That it clashes with the masculine Russian image a bit like the Peshmerga women’s battalion was the unit ISIS feared the most of all in the entire war?
There are many hens now (unintentionally…).
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1611725107218776065?s=46&t=Y0EhOPvC9E3IybFpayEcXg
11:16
The Russians have pulled units from the southern front and sent them to the Siversk – Bakhmut line and also pushed VDV in there, according to the Twitter gods. This signals that they still plan to break through that line, which is quite excellent because then the VDV will die now.
Soledar became somewhat of a modern classic, in and out within a day. These counterattacks are somewhat brilliant, retreating to save lives and then when the invading flock has just sat down, taken a breather, and loosened the cap on the mash jug, they are thrown out immediately. They have been doing this for a year and it works every time.
The ceasefire came to nothing but what about Russian drunkenness, have we misunderstood the significance of their Christmas Day (I really don’t understand Russian drinking traditions)?
Anyway, the tape color is changing, the terrain is passable up in northern Luhansk, the cold is coming, we see videos of armor on the move again, the pressure on Kreminna is intense, Rybar worries about an offensive on the southern front, and Ukraine is definitely positioning itself for something across the Dnieper, big or small.
Still reasons to be positive-positive even if there wasn’t a New Year massacre on a self-igniting mash-soaked Russian soldier.
However, I wonder quietly if it could be a clever war trick to let the Russians get a whiff of victory at Bakhmut and Soledar before hitting hard?
I don’t know, and spontaneously these kinds of war tricks feel like things cooked up safely behind a keyboard, and in the real world they do the best they can.
https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1611490755998285825?s=20&t=I9sJy4OEbpKXD4jvIRzBlA
If one tries to speculate when the stagnation will lift in Russia, I think they can manage another mobilization if it’s done a bit more smoothly than last time. They are definitely preparing for a spring offensive in sight and are preparing logistics, materiel, and trained personnel for it. They probably intend to use the capable units they have left, I have guessed about 150,000, who are now behind the fronts + newly mobilized who are being trained. At the fronts, it is mostly newly mobilized and second-rate troops.
If Ukraine can reach the elite units already this winter, it forces a decision on whether Russia wants to keep Ukraine or not. If they manage to have a buffer of newly mobilized who hold the positions with their lives, we will have to endure a spring offensive.
The country Ukraine is not interesting for Russia and the war was a punitive expedition.
The only strategic thing I’ve seen with the country was the Dnieper River but taking all the terrain up to that river has never been a combat objective for the Russians, apparently, which is very strange really but we have the answer now.
They are still engaged in their oblast warfare believing that when they control the entire Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, they can freeze the conflict.
Since Ukraine has always said no, Putin must have felt he could get the West on board with this, the only miscalculation is that it has taken too long.
With some luck, our best friends Macron and Scholz’s total turnaround has worked and Putin understands it won’t be that simple.
Since this is the Russian dictatorship, they will try what they can – more violence.
The spring offensive will be as violent as they can manage and they will raise the heat considerably in the occupied areas. Above all, they will devastate everything they leave behind.
Ukraine is a province and not part of Muscovite Russia. During WW2 they were often and gladly sacrificed, Russia has zero interest in Ukrainians as a people and zero interest in the country Ukraine. It is their imperial ambitions that are at play again.
They want a buffer against the West and a pool of soldiers they can sacrifice.
Are they then prepared to sacrifice all elite units when it starts to get hot?
I don’t think so.
Now a lot has gone very wrong here, the Chechens are a blocking battalion which probably isn’t received very positively by Muscovite Russians, but they have let DPR and LPR go first with the worst materiel since day one which clearly shows how they think about the subhumans in the province of Ukraine.
When an inflated and outdated imperial ambition clashes with reality, one might call this a tragic artwork.
They have learned an infinite amount – how a fascist state is born, how a nation state is born, how a world war plays out, and how free West works.
Much depends on China going forward and what they think behind closed doors. They have an incredible ability to never reveal how they really think so that they have expressed support for Russia and threats against Taiwan is quite sensational but they are very much business and would probably rather take over the world economically than with weapons.
However, they are the same colonial state as Russia and ask Volvo’s management how fun it was to be bossed around by the Chinese (or do we have to say Sino-Asian now?).
What I have thought is that now the free West has woken up and the arms industry smells morning air. Every Western country with some self-awareness will switch to reasonably rearming and the countries bordering Russia will never take chances again. This will probably last 50-60 more years until most of us here have left the forum – there is a high probability that we will experience a life in relative peace after this provided we don’t totally mess it up with China. But that war will end the same way with the difference that it devastates more countries in Asia and takes a few years longer than this war did in Europe.
Two truths are often said by those who know – “if you want peace, prepare for war” and “hard times produce strong men, strong men produce good times, good times produce weak men, weak men produce bad times” (I have here followed the expression, it should naturally say hen here and I sincerely apologize for this).
The country Ukraine will probably start a cycle of first reconstruction but then a long journey towards greatly increased prosperity is my guess where they transfer this enterprise in figuring out ways to kill Russians into manufacturing and other industry. A future powerhouse.
I also hope that Russian subversive activities can be stamped out in the West, it is actually quite sad to sit here in the cold scraping ice off the screen just because the whole EU has shut down its electricity production just like in Sweden and made itself dependent on Russian gas (which apparently is more environmentally friendly than hydropower according to the environmental movement?)
After that, one should probably tackle China’s subversive activities which are probably quite large but without the free West going in an authoritarian direction. However, visas are never a right and the West’s big support has always been aimed at democratizing dictatorships and is not constitutionally protected either. We can send some signals that if you want to play fair and be with the West then you are welcome to be so but if you do subversive activities and plan to overthrow the West by any means available then you can sit in the freezer together with Rocket Man and Iran’s spiritual leader who just lost his childhood home?