Official Russia vs Ukraine War Thread

Interesting video from Russia State TV as some experts and politicians start to question the decision to invade Ukraine and the hardliners stick to “We’ll do whatever we have to do to ‘liquidate the Nazi regime’”. To which one politicians says, “Great. So my 10 year old son can join the fight one day.” Having such a discussion on State TV would have been unthinkable a few months ago. Now one of the panelists asks “should we start negotiating with Ukraine?” Super interesting stuff that Carmine will dismiss as propaganda (because the CIA obviously controls Russian State TV).

Saw this on Twitter earlier this morning. It's a Russian tank with some troops riding on top. The tank driver was "hell bent for leather" trying to escape being enveloped.

The tank passed a Ukrainian soldier standing along the street. The Russians riding on top of the tank saw him and immediately started jumping off the tank in fear of javelin missiles.

The tank driver went another 100 yards or two before losing control and sliding sideways into a tree.

Who ever filmed this added the theme song from the Benny Hill show's, Yakety Sax.

There really hasn't been anything amusing about this war, but this clip made me chuckle a bit.

Max your screen and turn up the volume.

Things could still go south if a demented Putin resorts to desperate measures (i.e. more terrorism), but at the moment, this is looking like a spectacular success for those who supported assistance for Ukraine. A corrupt, tyrannical regime that has sown political and economic unrest in America and across the west, that has violent dreams of expansion, that is one of China's key allies, is now on the brink of losing a misguided war to a supposedly inferior army in such humiliating fashion that it could lead to regime change. And, compared to total national spending, it has barely cost America anything. Russia has been totally exposed. Just a year ago, the idea that Putin might somehow lose his grip on Russia at any point in the near future was pure fantasy.

Yet, in the face of this massive victory and undeniable proof that they have wildly misjudged the Ukrainians' prospects for success and the Biden administration's approach, many conservatives are still demanding that the US stop lending them assistance. It's almost like reality has no bearing on their opinions! Or perhaps they just support Putin, like Tucker Carlson admitted.

Number of tweets about the conflict since Sept. 9 from prominent liberals-turned-right-wingers who had previously been unable to go more than a few hours without trashing America's decision to help Ukraine.

Tulsi Gabbard: 0

Glenn Greenwald: 0

Michael Tracey: 0

Matt Taibbi: 0

Waiting patiently for new talking points, I guess!

After spending billions of tax payers money defeating the Soviet Union during the Cold War, I just don't understand how some Americans can side with Putin. Hitler is the number one worst despot in living memory. Stalin was number 2. Although by the numbers of deaths both of incurred, they could be tied for first.

Putin wants to add his name to this registry for some reason. Why? Penis envy? Or is it more than that?

Reasonable thoughts encouraged..

Aaron Mate: 0

Max Blumenthal: -3

Mate's latest claim is that the UK (Boris Johnson) scuttled a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia that was reached "in principle" in April. Fiona Hill (former Trump advisor) wrote in Foreign Affairs that she had sources confirm that there was some sort of framework for a peace deal reached between Ukraine and Russia in April of 2022. Back in March of 2022, Ukraine's Pravda reported that Boris Johnson told Zelensky that UK would support Ukraine in the war and the UK would not sign on to any agreement with Russia (meaning no deal to drop sanctions). Mate makes the logical leap to claim that the UK was responsible for crushing a peace deal in order to wage a proxy war with Russia. Of course, no one has confirmed Hill's story and no one reported any reason why peace negotiations broke down (more than likely the fact that Russia had committed atrocities in Bucha that upped the ante on the war).

I said previously that Russia has shown itself only to be capable of blowing up everything in its path in order to take territory but would face big trouble trying to hold territory due to hostile local population and having forces stretched too thin. Fearing a humiliating counteroffensive in the south that would start UA forcing marching their way to retake Crimea (which would be the greatest humiliation in Russian military history), Russia sent divisions from the north to Kherson to try to blunt the UA counteroffensive. This was done even as it was clear that UA was massing forces in the North and probably was on the verge of a two pronged counteroffensive. When UA struck in the north, Russian forces could only run away as they were stretched too thin, had inadequate air support and just had no ability to respond to the attack because all Russian forces know is how to shell from a safe distance until the other side has to give up ground.

Russia lost 10s of thousands of soldiers taking what UA just retook in a matter of days. UA forces are better equipped, better trained and have a huge moral boost after this success. If Russia tries to retake the north, they will again have to resort to massive shelling campaigns that will require massive amounts of munitions and equipment. UA's strategy since late spring has been corrosion. They are strategically wearing down Russian forces in order to make them vulnerable and unable to hold territory. It is working.

I read something on the news, yes, I know of propaganda, the fog of war and all that. Ukraine has had 700,000 troops take a 22 week Nato training course. There were many Ukrainian men who wanted to join the army right off the bat, but at the time Ukraine was only accepting men who already had previous military service. They needed men who had already been trained. Give them weapons and uniforms and rudimentary training, then off to the front you go.

These are the soldiers that saved Kiev. Now, Ukraine has had the time to train 700,000 plus men to Nato standards. These are the soldiers that you are now reading about in the news. This is why Ukraine is doing as well as they are.

Could you imagine if the West and Nato didn't take an interest in them and teach them modern tactics. They'd be fighting the same way the Russians are and this war probably would have been over by March or April.

Gallant Pig - from reading accounts my impressions are the same as yours at the moment but given the fog of war I am hesitant to yet conclude the UA has had a spectacular success. Not a disagreement, but Ukrainian progress could go awry. I hope you are right.

The late Stephen Cohen at Princeton (passed away in 2020) had consistently been deemed a Kremlin apologist. I still though he was very much worth a read because he did give some insight into the Russian mindset. One of the things he consistently stated was that the Ukrainian people and the Russian people had a special relationship. There is considerable intermarriage and mutual reliance in trade, especially agriculture. The dynamics are far different between the two nations as opposed, to let's say, Russia and Chechyna. I wish Cohen had lived to comment on the current war. My guess is that he would have disapproved of the invasion, but also would have rationalized Putin's actions in some way. In any event, I raise this because it appears - and again I am cautious - that the Red Army is crumbling. Cohen in a sense was prescient - these troops do not want to go to war against Ukrainians, who are not just in many ways like the Russians in culture but as Cohen suggests are very closely tied to each other. Putin has started an unpopular war and if it drags on Russian prospects will get worse. The Russian people remember Afghanistan just as we of course remember Vietnam. Again, I think your preliminary conclusions are likely correct but just don't want to bet on it right now.

Query what a post Putin Russia will bring. The current Russian state really is a legacy of the KGB. I am not optimistic.

Happy Jack - I am open to the notion NATO and others helped but Ukrainians are far more motivated than their opponent. Still tough to make solid conclusions right now - war is always foggy.

In the past week or so I've been embedding Denys Davydov's daily updates from Ukraine. If you haven't listened to one yet, you might want to listen to this from today.

That was a good post. I don't post to get people to agree with me. I just try to share my thoughts. What grinds my gears sometimes is snarky posters. I don't mind disagreement, just keep it on an adult level. And I'm not trying to imply you are not a good poster. Keep replying. Keep posting.

I have no argument with your last paragraph. For the sake of saving lives, I wish this war could have ended before it started. But since it didn't, I'm all on board with Ukraine.

If Putin was on fire, I wouldn't piss on him to put it out.

Since Putin was embarrassed by the 2014 Maidan revolution, there has been a steady propaganda campaign in Russia to convince people that Ukrainians are subhuman Nazis and deviants who support LGBTQ people. Putin via Dugin believes that all peoples of the former USSR are decedents of the Rus, an ethnic group in medieval eastern Europe that had a loose confederation of states across eastern Russia, Ukraine and parts of eastern Europe. Putin claims that the Ukraine people do not exist and were just an invention of the Bolsheviks. So, Russians have been told that the war in Ukraine is necessary to put down corrupt Nazi loving Ukrainians so that Russia can begin reassembling a pre-Soviet empire to restore its glory on the world stage. Russians like the idea of Russia asserting itself on the world stage militarily. Wealthy Russians in Moscow, the ones who really have power over the Kremlin, have so far been marginally affected by the war. Of course it is difficult to get good public opinion data from Russia because most people will not answer pollsters honestly for fear of having an FSB agent pounding on your door late at night. Same for staging a protest. Putin's hold on power is extremely strong and I doubt we will see any sort of uprising whether from the masses or internally within the government any time soon. The main problem is that the people who have enough power to take out Putin are also very nationalistic and would overthrow him not to stop the war but to make sure Russia wins. That would require a draft/general mobilization. And that could be what really causes mass upheaval in Russia.

Constructive criticism here. Roy, your post would be easier to read with paragraphs. Sorry, TLDR.

For other posters, try making paragraphs, after 2, 3 or 4 sentences, depend on length of sentence. If you want someone to read your post, make it easy to read. Also beware of run on sentences. They can just be as annoying as a 500 word paragraph.

Curious, didn't some of you posters attend middle school?

Carry On,

HappyJack.

Dear HappyJack,

"Constructive criticism" and "didn't some of you posters attend middle school?" do not go together very well.

Respectfully,

Real Obvi

I'm a conservative and always have been. I want the US government to reduce unnecessary spending, maintain a balanced budget, and keep taxes low. I would like to see loopholes for big corporations eliminated.

I also think money spent on supporting Ukraine and stopping Putin is money well spent. Those who have bought into Russian propaganda are right-wingers which doesn't necessarily make them a conservative. I've also seen some left-wing extremists jumping on the Putin bandwagon, mostly because they hate the Western world and all it stands for.

One thought: Mao is credited with more deaths than AH and JS combined.

washingtonpost.com

Remembering the biggest mass murder in the history of the world

Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward was the biggest episode of mass murder in the history of the world. But it rarely gets the recognition it deserves.

Link:www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-con...

Thank you for the reply. You have more friends that think similar to you than you may think. I don't go out of my way to bare my soul with politics or religion. I don't wan't to be pigeon holed like other posters don't mind being.

Good post. Keep posting.

I kinda forgot about Mao Zedong and the sparrows. What a dumbazz he was. Lately we've, the whole world that wants free transit through the Pacific Ocean has had Xi on our radar.

Putin is an uncomfortable distraction, but Xi is a much bigger fish to fry. However, Xi must be watching Russia and is learning lessons. However, what lessons he's learning is the big question. Will he stand down, or will he learn how to do the job better? Thoughts.

Yes, great news! 20 more cities in the North East taken back last 24 hours by the Ukrainian troops.

This article explains the phenomena that you have noticed where a fringe subset of Trump fans have essentially become this generation's Hanoi Janes.

commonsense.news

Why Does Tucker Carlson Sound Like a Berkeley Leftist?

Antonio García Martínez

The war in Ukraine has exposed an ideological vacuum at the heart of American right.

Link:www.commonsense.news/p/why-does-tucker...

(Someone here posted this before. I think it was Agip.).