15 months of war so far.
Will be several years at this pace.
Will be several years at this pace.
Russia mobilizes
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Last: 1 yr ago by sombear
Neither of these countries can afford the loss of young men either.Doc Holliday said:
15 months of war so far.
Will be several years at this pace.
Russia fertiltiy rate: 1.50
Ukraine fertilty rate: 1.22
Obviously you have to have a fertility rate of 2.1 to keep the population from declining.
In Ukriane this is compounded by the fact that millions of poeple have fled.
"Over 8.2 million refugees fleeing Ukraine have been recorded across Europe, while an estimated 8 million others had been displaced within the country by late May 2022. Approximately one-quarter of the country's total population had left their homes in Ukraine by 20 March."
Its economy is in shambles and kept afloat only by injections of cash by the USA.
[The impact of the war is hard even to comprehend. According to our estimates, Ukraine will lose at least one-third of its GDP in 2022.] -IMF
'Why Are We In Ukraine?'
[Here's a link to a hell of an article in the prestigious liberal monthly Harpers. Authors Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne make a powerful argument against US involvement in Ukraine, explaining how America has broken its own promises, and behaves like a bully and a hypocrite on the world stage. They do this, by the way, not in defense of Russia's aggression, but to explain how the US's behavior provoked the Russians. They begin by saying that the standard NATO narrative that this war is nothing more than naked malice by the Hitler-like monster of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, is bogus:
We are so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as the Good Guys of history because versus the Nazis and the Soviets, we were that we don't see what we are doing now. What we are doing to countries around the world, and to ourselves. Our government believes that being on what it considers "the right side of history" that is to say, being driven by moralistic progressivism gives it the right to excuse itself from international norms. Kierkegaard called this kind of thing "the teleological suspension of the ethical," and used it to refer to Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac, because God told him to. I suppose the God of History, which spoke to the Marxists in a different language, and His sentimental Puritan handmaiden Goodly Intentions, absolves Americans of a responsibility to follow the rules.
The authors point out that the US Government on paper opposes an international politics in which powerful nations declare that they have "spheres of influence" that give them the right to tell weaker nations within those spheres what to do. Indeed, one of Joe Biden's final speeches as Barack Obama's vice president denounced that approach to foreign policy. Er, the Monroe Doctrine, anybody? American hypocrisy is glaring, even if we are so blinded by our own egotism to see it:
[Here's a link to a hell of an article in the prestigious liberal monthly Harpers. Authors Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne make a powerful argument against US involvement in Ukraine, explaining how America has broken its own promises, and behaves like a bully and a hypocrite on the world stage. They do this, by the way, not in defense of Russia's aggression, but to explain how the US's behavior provoked the Russians. They begin by saying that the standard NATO narrative that this war is nothing more than naked malice by the Hitler-like monster of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, is bogus:
US leadership promised the Russians that there would be no NATO expansion after the Cold War ended. We lied:Quote:
This conventional story is, in our view, both simplistic and self-serving. It fails to account for the well-documentedand perfectly comprehensibleobjections that Russians have expressed toward NATO expansion over the past three decades, and obscures the central responsibility that the architects of U.S. foreign policy bear for the impasse. Both the global role that Washington has assigned itself generally, and America's specific policies toward NATO and Russia, have led inexorably to waras many foreign policy critics, ourselves among them, have long warned that they would.
There can be no lasting security at the center without security at the periphery. Behold, this map of US military bases worldwide reveals what Washington considers to be "the periphery" the whole globe!Quote:
Initiated by the Clinton Administration while Boris Yeltsin was serving as the first democratically elected leader in Russia's history, NATO expansion has been pursued by every subsequent U.S. administration, regardless of the tenor of Russian leadership at any given moment. Justifying this radical expansion of NATO, the former senator Richard Lugar, once a leading Republican foreign policy spokesman, explained in 1994 that "there can be no lasting security at the center without security at the periphery." From the very beginning, then, the policy of NATO expansion was dangerously open-ended. Not only did the United States cavalierly enlarge its nuclear and security commitments while creating ever-expanding frontiers of insecurity, but it did so knowing that Russiaa great power with a nuclear arsenal of its own and an understandable resistance to being absorbed into a global order on America's termslay at that "periphery." Thus did the United States recklessly embark on a policy that would "restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations," as the venerable American foreign policy expert, diplomat, and historian George F. Kennan had warned. Writing in 1997, Kennan predicted that this move would be "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era."
We are so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as the Good Guys of history because versus the Nazis and the Soviets, we were that we don't see what we are doing now. What we are doing to countries around the world, and to ourselves. Our government believes that being on what it considers "the right side of history" that is to say, being driven by moralistic progressivism gives it the right to excuse itself from international norms. Kierkegaard called this kind of thing "the teleological suspension of the ethical," and used it to refer to Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac, because God told him to. I suppose the God of History, which spoke to the Marxists in a different language, and His sentimental Puritan handmaiden Goodly Intentions, absolves Americans of a responsibility to follow the rules.
The authors point out that the US Government on paper opposes an international politics in which powerful nations declare that they have "spheres of influence" that give them the right to tell weaker nations within those spheres what to do. Indeed, one of Joe Biden's final speeches as Barack Obama's vice president denounced that approach to foreign policy. Er, the Monroe Doctrine, anybody? American hypocrisy is glaring, even if we are so blinded by our own egotism to see it:
Read the whole article, and share it widely. Believe me] -Rod DreherQuote:
Missing from the current discussion of the war in Ukraine, then, is any appreciation for how the United States would respondand has respondedto foreign powers' incursions into its own sphere of influence.
What, after all, would be America's reaction if Mexico were to invite China to station warships in Acapulco and bombers in Guadalajara? For the past several years a civilian military analyst who has worked on international security issues with the Pentagon has put this question to the rising leaders in the U.S. military and intelligence services to whom he regularly lectures. Their reactions, he told us, range from cutting economic ties and exerting "maximal foreign policy pressure on Mexico to get them to change course" to "we need to start there, and then use military force if necessary," revealing just how reflexively these military and intelligence professionals would defend America's own sphere of influence.
Typifying the egocentrism that governs the U.S. approach to the world in general and relations with Russia in particular, not one of these future military and intelligence leaders has thought to connect, even in this past year, what they believe would be Washington's response to the hypothetical situation in Mexico with Moscow's reaction to NATO's expansion and policy toward Ukraine. When the analyst has drawn those connections, the military and intelligence officers have been taken aback, in many cases admitting, as the analyst reports, " 'Damn, I never thought out what we're doing to Russia in that light.' "
Nothing like taking an Op-Ed without a grain of salt.Redbrickbear said:
'Why Are We In Ukraine?'
[Here's a link to a hell of an article in the prestigious liberal monthly Harpers. Authors Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne make a powerful argument against US involvement in Ukraine, explaining how America has broken its own promises, and behaves like a bully and a hypocrite on the world stage. They do this, by the way, not in defense of Russia's aggression, but to explain how the US's behavior provoked the Russians. They begin by saying that the standard NATO narrative that this war is nothing more than naked malice by the Hitler-like monster of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, is bogus:US leadership promised the Russians that there would be no NATO expansion after the Cold War ended. We lied:Quote:
This conventional story is, in our view, both simplistic and self-serving. It fails to account for the well-documentedand perfectly comprehensibleobjections that Russians have expressed toward NATO expansion over the past three decades, and obscures the central responsibility that the architects of U.S. foreign policy bear for the impasse. Both the global role that Washington has assigned itself generally, and America's specific policies toward NATO and Russia, have led inexorably to waras many foreign policy critics, ourselves among them, have long warned that they would.There can be no lasting security at the center without security at the periphery. Behold, this map of US military bases worldwide reveals what Washington considers to be "the periphery" the whole globe!Quote:
Initiated by the Clinton Administration while Boris Yeltsin was serving as the first democratically elected leader in Russia's history, NATO expansion has been pursued by every subsequent U.S. administration, regardless of the tenor of Russian leadership at any given moment. Justifying this radical expansion of NATO, the former senator Richard Lugar, once a leading Republican foreign policy spokesman, explained in 1994 that "there can be no lasting security at the center without security at the periphery." From the very beginning, then, the policy of NATO expansion was dangerously open-ended. Not only did the United States cavalierly enlarge its nuclear and security commitments while creating ever-expanding frontiers of insecurity, but it did so knowing that Russiaa great power with a nuclear arsenal of its own and an understandable resistance to being absorbed into a global order on America's termslay at that "periphery." Thus did the United States recklessly embark on a policy that would "restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations," as the venerable American foreign policy expert, diplomat, and historian George F. Kennan had warned. Writing in 1997, Kennan predicted that this move would be "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era."
We are so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as the Good Guys of history because versus the Nazis and the Soviets, we were that we don't see what we are doing now. What we are doing to countries around the world, and to ourselves. Our government believes that being on what it considers "the right side of history" that is to say, being driven by moralistic progressivism gives it the right to excuse itself from international norms. Kierkegaard called this kind of thing "the teleological suspension of the ethical," and used it to refer to Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac, because God told him to. I suppose the God of History, which spoke to the Marxists in a different language, and His sentimental Puritan handmaiden Goodly Intentions, absolves Americans of a responsibility to follow the rules.
The authors point out that the US Government on paper opposes an international politics in which powerful nations declare that they have "spheres of influence" that give them the right to tell weaker nations within those spheres what to do. Indeed, one of Joe Biden's final speeches as Barack Obama's vice president denounced that approach to foreign policy. Er, the Monroe Doctrine, anybody? American hypocrisy is glaring, even if we are so blinded by our own egotism to see it:Read the whole article, and share it widely. Believe me] -Rod DreherQuote:
Missing from the current discussion of the war in Ukraine, then, is any appreciation for how the United States would respondand has respondedto foreign powers' incursions into its own sphere of influence.
What, after all, would be America's reaction if Mexico were to invite China to station warships in Acapulco and bombers in Guadalajara? For the past several years a civilian military analyst who has worked on international security issues with the Pentagon has put this question to the rising leaders in the U.S. military and intelligence services to whom he regularly lectures. Their reactions, he told us, range from cutting economic ties and exerting "maximal foreign policy pressure on Mexico to get them to change course" to "we need to start there, and then use military force if necessary," revealing just how reflexively these military and intelligence professionals would defend America's own sphere of influence.
Typifying the egocentrism that governs the U.S. approach to the world in general and relations with Russia in particular, not one of these future military and intelligence leaders has thought to connect, even in this past year, what they believe would be Washington's response to the hypothetical situation in Mexico with Moscow's reaction to NATO's expansion and policy toward Ukraine. When the analyst has drawn those connections, the military and intelligence officers have been taken aback, in many cases admitting, as the analyst reports, " 'Damn, I never thought out what we're doing to Russia in that light.' "
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.
Ukraine has debt and obligations with lend-lease and STAGGERING cost of future medical claims by vets. The loss of young/productive human capital is astronomical. Ukraine will have multiple more immigrant labor and politicians than indigenous and existing social conflicts.
We keep getting told that Russia can't hold up any longer. Now we're sending stuff to Ukraine that's getting blown up in the spot? The experts said javelins were a game changer. Then it was drones, then tanks and so and so on.
Covid yesterday is russia-ukraine today.
We keep getting told that Russia can't hold up any longer. Now we're sending stuff to Ukraine that's getting blown up in the spot? The experts said javelins were a game changer. Then it was drones, then tanks and so and so on.
Covid yesterday is russia-ukraine today.
Kuleba says upcoming Ukraine counteroffensive 'should not be seen as final'
by The Kyiv Independent news desk
May 10, 2023 5:04 PM
In an interview with the German newspaper Bild, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged not to think about Ukraine's expected counteroffensive as the last one "because we don't know what will come out of it."
"If we succeed in liberating our territories with this counteroffensive, you can say it was the last one, but if not, that means we have to prepare for the next counteroffensive," said Kuleba.
https://kyivindependent.com/kuleba-says-upcoming-ukraine-counteroffensive-should-not-be-seen-as-final/?fbclid=IwAR02I-VR2zZ1qflxEOGgsTEzdWV0owLyta2LtdhV-PA_GNKE_ixIsa5iC_Q
by The Kyiv Independent news desk
May 10, 2023 5:04 PM
In an interview with the German newspaper Bild, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged not to think about Ukraine's expected counteroffensive as the last one "because we don't know what will come out of it."
"If we succeed in liberating our territories with this counteroffensive, you can say it was the last one, but if not, that means we have to prepare for the next counteroffensive," said Kuleba.
https://kyivindependent.com/kuleba-says-upcoming-ukraine-counteroffensive-should-not-be-seen-as-final/?fbclid=IwAR02I-VR2zZ1qflxEOGgsTEzdWV0owLyta2LtdhV-PA_GNKE_ixIsa5iC_Q
What's getting blown up in the spot? An ammo dump that has been on a map for nearly 30 years?Doc Holliday said:
Ukraine has debt and obligations with lend-lease and STAGGERING cost of future medical claims by vets. The loss of young/productive human capital is astronomical. Ukraine will have multiple more immigrant labor and politicians than indigenous and existing social conflicts.
We keep getting told that Russia can't hold up any longer. Now we're sending stuff to Ukraine that's getting blown up in the spot? The experts said javelins were a game changer. Then it was drones, then tanks and so and so on.
Covid yesterday is russia-ukraine today.
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.
I don't get that map. It shows US troops where we have NO bases, NO embassies, or any other troop presence.Redbrickbear said:
'Why Are We In Ukraine?'
[Here's a link to a hell of an article in the prestigious liberal monthly Harpers. Authors Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne make a powerful argument against US involvement in Ukraine, explaining how America has broken its own promises, and behaves like a bully and a hypocrite on the world stage. They do this, by the way, not in defense of Russia's aggression, but to explain how the US's behavior provoked the Russians. They begin by saying that the standard NATO narrative that this war is nothing more than naked malice by the Hitler-like monster of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, is bogus:US leadership promised the Russians that there would be no NATO expansion after the Cold War ended. We lied:Quote:
This conventional story is, in our view, both simplistic and self-serving. It fails to account for the well-documentedand perfectly comprehensibleobjections that Russians have expressed toward NATO expansion over the past three decades, and obscures the central responsibility that the architects of U.S. foreign policy bear for the impasse. Both the global role that Washington has assigned itself generally, and America's specific policies toward NATO and Russia, have led inexorably to waras many foreign policy critics, ourselves among them, have long warned that they would.There can be no lasting security at the center without security at the periphery. Behold, this map of US military bases worldwide reveals what Washington considers to be "the periphery" the whole globe!Quote:
Initiated by the Clinton Administration while Boris Yeltsin was serving as the first democratically elected leader in Russia's history, NATO expansion has been pursued by every subsequent U.S. administration, regardless of the tenor of Russian leadership at any given moment. Justifying this radical expansion of NATO, the former senator Richard Lugar, once a leading Republican foreign policy spokesman, explained in 1994 that "there can be no lasting security at the center without security at the periphery." From the very beginning, then, the policy of NATO expansion was dangerously open-ended. Not only did the United States cavalierly enlarge its nuclear and security commitments while creating ever-expanding frontiers of insecurity, but it did so knowing that Russiaa great power with a nuclear arsenal of its own and an understandable resistance to being absorbed into a global order on America's termslay at that "periphery." Thus did the United States recklessly embark on a policy that would "restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations," as the venerable American foreign policy expert, diplomat, and historian George F. Kennan had warned. Writing in 1997, Kennan predicted that this move would be "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era."
We are so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as the Good Guys of history because versus the Nazis and the Soviets, we were that we don't see what we are doing now. What we are doing to countries around the world, and to ourselves. Our government believes that being on what it considers "the right side of history" that is to say, being driven by moralistic progressivism gives it the right to excuse itself from international norms. Kierkegaard called this kind of thing "the teleological suspension of the ethical," and used it to refer to Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac, because God told him to. I suppose the God of History, which spoke to the Marxists in a different language, and His sentimental Puritan handmaiden Goodly Intentions, absolves Americans of a responsibility to follow the rules.
The authors point out that the US Government on paper opposes an international politics in which powerful nations declare that they have "spheres of influence" that give them the right to tell weaker nations within those spheres what to do. Indeed, one of Joe Biden's final speeches as Barack Obama's vice president denounced that approach to foreign policy. Er, the Monroe Doctrine, anybody? American hypocrisy is glaring, even if we are so blinded by our own egotism to see it:Read the whole article, and share it widely. Believe me] -Rod DreherQuote:
Missing from the current discussion of the war in Ukraine, then, is any appreciation for how the United States would respondand has respondedto foreign powers' incursions into its own sphere of influence.
What, after all, would be America's reaction if Mexico were to invite China to station warships in Acapulco and bombers in Guadalajara? For the past several years a civilian military analyst who has worked on international security issues with the Pentagon has put this question to the rising leaders in the U.S. military and intelligence services to whom he regularly lectures. Their reactions, he told us, range from cutting economic ties and exerting "maximal foreign policy pressure on Mexico to get them to change course" to "we need to start there, and then use military force if necessary," revealing just how reflexively these military and intelligence professionals would defend America's own sphere of influence.
Typifying the egocentrism that governs the U.S. approach to the world in general and relations with Russia in particular, not one of these future military and intelligence leaders has thought to connect, even in this past year, what they believe would be Washington's response to the hypothetical situation in Mexico with Moscow's reaction to NATO's expansion and policy toward Ukraine. When the analyst has drawn those connections, the military and intelligence officers have been taken aback, in many cases admitting, as the analyst reports, " 'Damn, I never thought out what we're doing to Russia in that light.' "
cowboycwr said:I don't get that map. It shows US troops where we have NO bases, NO embassies, or any other troop presence.Redbrickbear said:
It was a map that came with the article...so I made sure to post it.
I can not speak to the accuracy of the map.
I does not show bases anymore in Afghanistan so at least that is accurate.
[Hersh: A group of countries is secretly calling on Zelenskiy to end the conflict - even at the price of his resignation
A group of European countries led by Poland is secretly calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to end the conflict, even at the price of his resignation, American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh said.
"That group is led by Poland." She is secretly calling on Zelenskiy to find a way to end the conflict - even if that means he has to resign," Hersh wrote on the "Substak" platform.
As he added, that group of countries includes the Baltic and Eastern European countries, specifically Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
According to Hersh, the Ukrainian president does not agree to that and is starting to lose the support of his neighbors.]
A group of European countries led by Poland is secretly calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to end the conflict, even at the price of his resignation, American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh said.
"That group is led by Poland." She is secretly calling on Zelenskiy to find a way to end the conflict - even if that means he has to resign," Hersh wrote on the "Substak" platform.
As he added, that group of countries includes the Baltic and Eastern European countries, specifically Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
According to Hersh, the Ukrainian president does not agree to that and is starting to lose the support of his neighbors.]
Redbrickbear said:
[Hersh: A group of countries is secretly calling on Zelenskiy to end the conflict - even at the price of his resignation
A group of European countries led by Poland is secretly calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to end the conflict, even at the price of his resignation, American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh said.
"That group is led by Poland." She is secretly calling on Zelenskiy to find a way to end the conflict - even if that means he has to resign," Hersh wrote on the "Substak" platform.
As he added, that group of countries includes the Baltic and Eastern European countries, specifically Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
According to Hersh, the Ukrainian president does not agree to that and is starting to lose the support of his neighbors.]
If true, the beginning of end. If removing Zelinsky is enough for Russia to leave? If he says no, I will start to come around on this
RMF5630 said:
If true...
It's not.
L O Efing L. This is how you know Seymour is absolutely full of ****. Poland is not leading a charge for Ukraine quitting or Zelensky resigning.Redbrickbear said:
[Hersh: A group of countries is secretly calling on Zelenskiy to end the conflict - even at the price of his resignation
A group of European countries led by Poland is secretly calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to end the conflict, even at the price of his resignation, American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh said.
"That group is led by Poland." She is secretly calling on Zelenskiy to find a way to end the conflict - even if that means he has to resign," Hersh wrote on the "Substak" platform.
As he added, that group of countries includes the Baltic and Eastern European countries, specifically Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
According to Hersh, the Ukrainian president does not agree to that and is starting to lose the support of his neighbors.]
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.
Redbrickbear said:Neither of these countries can afford the loss of young men either.Doc Holliday said:
15 months of war so far.
Will be several years at this pace.
Russia fertiltiy rate: 1.50
Ukraine fertilty rate: 1.22
Obviously you have to have a fertility rate of 2.1 to keep the population from declining.
In Ukriane this is compounded by the fact that millions of poeple have fled.
"Over 8.2 million refugees fleeing Ukraine have been recorded across Europe, while an estimated 8 million others had been displaced within the country by late May 2022. Approximately one-quarter of the country's total population had left their homes in Ukraine by 20 March."
Its economy is in shambles and kept afloat only by injections of cash by the USA.
[The impact of the war is hard even to comprehend. According to our estimates, Ukraine will lose at least one-third of its GDP in 2022.] -IMF
Don't confuse short and long term problems. They CAN afford them now. The consequences are decades down the road.
Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
You have it exactly backwards.
they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.
It started in Crimea and it will end in Crimea. --Volodymyr Zelenskey.trey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Amusing.trey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
'Lowry' is not spelled 'Zelensky'.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
whiterock said:Redbrickbear said:Neither of these countries can afford the loss of young men either.Doc Holliday said:
15 months of war so far.
Will be several years at this pace.
Russia fertiltiy rate: 1.50
Ukraine fertilty rate: 1.22
Obviously you have to have a fertility rate of 2.1 to keep the population from declining.
In Ukriane this is compounded by the fact that millions of poeple have fled.
"Over 8.2 million refugees fleeing Ukraine have been recorded across Europe, while an estimated 8 million others had been displaced within the country by late May 2022. Approximately one-quarter of the country's total population had left their homes in Ukraine by 20 March."
Its economy is in shambles and kept afloat only by injections of cash by the USA.
[The impact of the war is hard even to comprehend. According to our estimates, Ukraine will lose at least one-third of its GDP in 2022.] -IMF
Don't confuse short and long term problems. They CAN afford them now. The consequences are decades down the road.
If you mean that Ukraine will be in even worse shape in the coming decades…then yes we agree.
It's demographic picture is a horror show.
And it's economy is in the gutter..and what has not been destroyed is in the hands of oligarchs and kleptocrats in Kyiv.
What are they gonna do when this war is over…get Western and Central Europeans to immigrate to Ukraine? Come on
Amusing, your lack of anything outside of "Mighty Russia!"Sam Lowry said:Amusing.trey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.
LOLtrey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
it's gonna be funny watching Russia wave the white flag while losing the equivalent of 4x the US losses in Vietnam in less than 2 years, while losing 4000+ tanks, untold amounts of other military vehicles, hundreds of planes and helicopters, and several naval vessels to a country they were supposed to roll over in 3 days. That's lulz. **** Russia in the neckKaiBear said:LOLtrey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.
I hate Putin; but Russia has is not losing this war . Ukraine's infrastructure is being destroyed week by week.trey3216 said:it's gonna be funny watching Russia wave the white flag while losing the equivalent of 4x the US losses in Vietnam in less than 2 years, while losing 4000+ tanks, untold amounts of other military vehicles, hundreds of planes and helicopters, and several naval vessels to a country they were supposed to roll over in 3 days. That's lulz. **** Russia in the neckKaiBear said:LOLtrey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Any peace settlement will involve Russia possessing much of the territory in eastern Ukraine which they currently occupy.
Russia's defenses are substantial. Ukraine will have some nice technology, yes, but they won't have any experience using it in the real world, much less integrating it with the hodgepodge of equipment they have. Their air power is minimal and artillery limited. They've never mounted such an offensive, which calls for overwhelming numbers. In fact they're the ones outnumbered six to one, and that's before Russia adds any of the troops they're currently marshaling at home. The fundamental elements just aren't there for Ukraine.trey3216 said:Amusing, your lack of anything outside of "Mighty Russia!"Sam Lowry said:Amusing.trey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
The [#Russian] force groupings closer to #Vuhledar were “utterly clobbered,” said ISW #Russia analyst @KarolinaAHird. “Elements in the area are in absolute shambles. They’ve been trying to take Vuhledar since October and have taken so many losses."https://t.co/YaG1Xenp5x
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) May 17, 2023
Ukraine is marshaling nearly 50k trained troops who've spent 4-6 months with superior weaponry against Civil War/WWI defenses. Once they pick their spots, they're going to roll through areas with a swift fury. Then they'll dial back and see how the untrained russian replacements react, and batter them wholesale. It's going to be ugly.Sam Lowry said:Russia's defenses are substantial. Ukraine will have some nice technology, yes, but they won't have any experience using it in the real world, much less integrating it with the hodgepodge of equipment they have. Their air power is minimal and artillery limited. They've never mounted such an offensive, which calls for overwhelming numbers. In fact they're the ones outnumbered six to one, and that's before Russia adds any of the troops they're currently marshaling at home. The fundamental elements just aren't there for Ukraine.trey3216 said:Amusing, your lack of anything outside of "Mighty Russia!"Sam Lowry said:Amusing.trey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.
Are you as a good a general as you are epidemiologist and public health expert?Sam Lowry said:Russia's defenses are substantial. Ukraine will have some nice technology, yes, but they won't have any experience using it in the real world, much less integrating it with the hodgepodge of equipment they have. Their air power is minimal and artillery limited. They've never mounted such an offensive, which calls for overwhelming numbers. In fact they're the ones outnumbered six to one, and that's before Russia adds any of the troops they're currently marshaling at home. The fundamental elements just aren't there for Ukraine.trey3216 said:Amusing, your lack of anything outside of "Mighty Russia!"Sam Lowry said:Amusing.trey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
God what a stupid war.
It's all so senseless
400,000 dead men
It's all so senseless
400,000 dead men
“We have a wounded … fuck, he’s dead”, soldier with the camera looked surprised back … thinking WTF
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) May 17, 2023
-> Guy watched too many action movies? pic.twitter.com/OAYVc2pUmO
No. But still good enough for SicEm.He Hate Me said:Are you as a good a general as you are epidemiologist and public health expert?Sam Lowry said:Russia's defenses are substantial. Ukraine will have some nice technology, yes, but they won't have any experience using it in the real world, much less integrating it with the hodgepodge of equipment they have. Their air power is minimal and artillery limited. They've never mounted such an offensive, which calls for overwhelming numbers. In fact they're the ones outnumbered six to one, and that's before Russia adds any of the troops they're currently marshaling at home. The fundamental elements just aren't there for Ukraine.trey3216 said:Amusing, your lack of anything outside of "Mighty Russia!"Sam Lowry said:Amusing.trey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Sam Lowry said:No. But still good enough for SicEm.He Hate Me said:Are you as a good a general as you are epidemiologist and public health expert?Sam Lowry said:Russia's defenses are substantial. Ukraine will have some nice technology, yes, but they won't have any experience using it in the real world, much less integrating it with the hodgepodge of equipment they have. Their air power is minimal and artillery limited. They've never mounted such an offensive, which calls for overwhelming numbers. In fact they're the ones outnumbered six to one, and that's before Russia adds any of the troops they're currently marshaling at home. The fundamental elements just aren't there for Ukraine.trey3216 said:Amusing, your lack of anything outside of "Mighty Russia!"Sam Lowry said:Amusing.trey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
Great reply. I might use that sometime. You will receive the appropriate royalty of course.
I think the size of the Ukrainian reserves are closer to 70k. Those forces include experienced units, as well as newly raised units. They have indeed been training on all the new equipment. That is an incredibly significant fact missed by the Russo-philes. Also significant that Ukraine has stymied the Russian offensive virtually in its tracks. Fred Kagan observed that he is unaware of an instance where a major armored assault has been stopped cold. More typically the pathology of defeat is: race forward, outrun supplies, get pushed back. Most importantly, Ukraine did that while holding back significant forces in reserve. Meanwhile, Russia is all in. tapped out. Scraping the streets to throw untrained troops into the line piecemeal. One giant rule of command is HOLD ON TO YOUR RESERVES - the general who commits his reserves last usually wins the battle. (Russia is all in....Ukraine is not.)trey3216 said:Ukraine is marshaling nearly 50k trained troops who've spent 4-6 months with superior weaponry against Civil War/WWI defenses. Once they pick their spots, they're going to roll through areas with a swift fury. Then they'll dial back and see how the untrained russian replacements react, and batter them wholesale. It's going to be ugly.Sam Lowry said:Russia's defenses are substantial. Ukraine will have some nice technology, yes, but they won't have any experience using it in the real world, much less integrating it with the hodgepodge of equipment they have. Their air power is minimal and artillery limited. They've never mounted such an offensive, which calls for overwhelming numbers. In fact they're the ones outnumbered six to one, and that's before Russia adds any of the troops they're currently marshaling at home. The fundamental elements just aren't there for Ukraine.trey3216 said:Amusing, your lack of anything outside of "Mighty Russia!"Sam Lowry said:Amusing.trey3216 said:they haven't even started a comprehensive counteroffensive dude. They're picking their points right now and playing games with the Russians who are well too thin to defend an 800 km front line and are goin through horrific morale and supply problems. Their main offensive is going to be loaded with newly well trained groups with loads of western machinery facing depleted and depressed "force" more or less hoping to get their mom a new Lada. Knife meet butterSam Lowry said:Once Ukraine wears itself out with counter-offensive after counter-offensive, what's to stop them?trey3216 said:how the **** are they gonna get to Kiev? They can't even get through the equivalent of Commerce right now, and have been tryin fluke hell for 10 months.Sam Lowry said:
Poland doesn't want Russians in Kyiv, which is a real possibility if Zelensky doesn't come to his senses.
So the battles around Vuhledar and Bakhmut & other locations on the front are simple holding actions for the Ukrainians, and they've substantially depleted Russian units, some of which have gone thru 3-4 complete cycles of loss & replenishment. Daily ISW maps of the Bakhmut front show Russia frantically redeploying troops from up to 100 miles away to keep sustained assaults going....assaults which are resulting in marginal gains. More importantly, Ukraine is showing successful tactical counter-attacks, but only on the flanks of Bakhmut. In other words, Ukraine is allowing the Russian center of the Bakhmut line to creep forward. I'll come back to the significance of that in a moment. Meanwhile, Ukraine is engaging in limited actions at a number of locations up & down the line. Finally, Russia has an impressive length and depth of defensive fortifications. What they do not have is sufficient troops to man them properly. (a fire-team cannot defend a hundred yards of trenches, much less a mile.)
So what it looks like we're seeing is this: Russia's offensive culminated at least 2 months ago. It is still relentlessly attacking piecemeal with essentially no gains. Ukraine is easily holding the line and is now conducting probing attacks all up & down the line.....leading many (particularly Russophiles) to conclude the Ukrainian offensive has already begun. It has not. The attacks we see are probing attacks, to test the strength of various points on the Russian line. Those attacks are also feints, to lure Russia into redeployments that create openings. Which brings me back to the reference above about the bulging line in Bakhmut. Ukraine very well could be allowing Russia to pour troops into a growing salient. A salient which a Ukrainian offensive could cut-off, surround, and annihilate.
What Ukraine needs to do to win the war by end of summer is what I and others have laid out....to puncture the Russian line somewhere on the Kherson and Zapo fronts and sweep down toward the Crimean approaches, encircling Russian defenders before they can withdraw to man the trenches in Crimea. That scenario is so strategically significant that Russia has to defend against it. But Ukraine may not have the resources to do it. Russia does, in theory, know how to create effective defense in depth. Moreover, the further the Ukes penetrate behind Russian lines, the further they get from their air defense systems, which opens them up to Russian air assault. So such is high reward, but high risk and low odds for Ukraine.
What would be easily doable is this: Ukraine to bait Russia to concentrate forces somewhere on the front line, then encircle them and force a surrender of 20-40K troops. Russia is indeed pulling in troops from all over the front into the Bakhmut grinder. Ukraine is doing limited and very effective counter attacks, but only on the flanks of the Bakhmut front. Ukraine is allowing the center to bulge out. A 5 mile Uke penetration on both sides of the Russian flank, followed by left/right turns, encircles 5-digits of Russian troops. It does so while remaining underneath Uke air defense coverage. That kind of outcome destabilizes the whole front. Russia does not have the troops in uniform....today....to fill the gap without creating gaps elsewhere. At minimum, Russia would have no choice but to withdraw to a line along Luhansk-Makhivka. And that creates opportunities for flanking attacks on Melitopol which will force Russia to consider moving troops from the Kherson front to bolster Melitopol.
the bulging front.....the feigned retreat.....are tactics as old as warfare itself. Cannae, Hastings..... Bakhmut is more Cannae in all regards. Good diagrams here: https://www.worldhistory.org/Battle_of_Cannae/ I suspect we are seeing exactly that in Bakhmut. Bakmut itself is nothing, of no significance. But it is being set up as a killing ground for a reason.....a way to destroy a division or two at one fell swoop. And, if not....Russin reinforcements of Bakhmut are creating soft spots elsewhere.
Russia is has no good options here. All they can hope for is to hold on to 2024 and hope the outcome of the American election will end American support for Ukraine. I think not. Trump will more likely open the spigots than turn them off.