Official Russia vs Ukraine War Thread

USA establishment wants Americans to think all the $$ we are handing over to Urkaine is helping Ukraine win. Hence the propaganda.

None of us are there and so really know what is going on.

Get outside of the Western propaganda to outside media and independent media and the story is Ukraine is being sacrificed by the West. I tend to believe this.

After all, the US blew up the Nordstream pipeline, screwing over fellow NATO nation Germany and the puppets leading Germany are fine with it.

Got it. Thanks for clarifying.

Wagner is openly trying to scapegoat the Russian MOD, see for instance the recent complaints about ammunition supplies. Wagner's very existence is beholden to Putin, so it's hard to see Prigozhin being the one challenging Putin's authority. On the other hand it's only those in the oligarchy who would have the power and they're probably all beholden to Putin. That's why I find the thought that Putin himself might step aside interesting.

You might be interested in this long format program on the history of Prigozhin and the Wagner Group.

npr.org

How a former caterer created the mercenary army fighting Putin's war in Ukraine

Guardian journalist Shaun Walker talks about Yevgeny Prigozhin, the tough-talking convict-turned-businessman who recruits soldiers from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine.

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I don't think Ukraine is winning. Far from it. I don't see them ever simply beating Russia. But the US (and Nato) have invested too mush to walk away. I hope to see Putin realize that he's in a lose/lose situation and since he will never get what he wants he can lose small (pull out of Ukraine) or lose big (start WW3, and if he does he will lose fast and big, Russia will be wiped off the face of the earth, but the fallout will also result in multiple countries suffering huge losses.

I'd argue that RU already lost. The best it can hope for is a status quo from before the invasion, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of men, buckets of prestige, and its armed forces in general.

If you are India and you want to buy arms....are you going to buy RU weapons that have proven garbage? Are those the weapons you want to scare China off with? No. they aren't.

NATO and W Europe will hang together better now for a generation. RU has been trying to pry apart the west for 60 years...it gave it all back in one year.

RU has impoverished itself and lost incalcuable amounts of men and treasure. RU lost, even if it keeps its 10% of UKR territory.

The narrative in the west is that Ukraine is winning.

Putin can't lose small. If Putin can't declare victory in some way when this is over he's a dead man and he knows it. Which is why he will fight to the bitter end if he isn't killed by the Russians themselves first.

Most Russians agree that NATO in Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia so it's not even clear that Putin being toppled will end the war.

M1A2's would be just as ineffective if they were used the way Russia is using its tanks.

People buy Russian equipment because it's cheaper and easier to maintain not because it's the best.

A thin counterpoint, but at the moment, Russia has gained a land route to Crimea which is significant.

India is on a campaign to build a domestic arms manufacturing industry and will probably become a net arms exporter in the next two decades regardless of Russia's stature as an arms supplier.

That said, invading Ukraine doesn't seem to be working out for Russia and it's hard to see how they turn it around.

Russia has mostly taken territory that was already under the control of Russian backed separatist. The only real gain in territory has been along the coast of the Sea of Azov from Mariupol to the coast of the Black Sea. But the loss of Kherson has turned those gains into a liability with a UA spring offensive likely to focus on taking Melitopol. Russia has largely failed to take any solidly Ukrainian territory after a year of war.

The whole point of this war was to show the former USSR satellites that Russia was in charge of their internal affairs and any attempt to look to the West for EU or NATO membership would be fatal to that country's political regime. But in Ukraine, Zelensky is firmly in control and has been able to stand up to Russian forces. That sets a precedent for Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc. that Russia is weak and can be beaten. It also sets a precedent for people in Belarus who want to get rid of their dictator that Putin may no longer be able to come to the rescue of his pet autocrats. In short, Putin has achieved the exact opposite of what he set out to do in Ukraine.

Of course, many point to the development of relations with Russia and China and other non-aligned countries like India and several African nations as a sign that Russia's war in Ukraine has strengthened a non-aligned movement that will counter US/EU imperialism (albeit with their own and even more brutal imperialism). This would be a concern if Russia was able to find a way out of this conflict with some modest gains and was able to rebuild its economy. But the reality is that all of the talk about sanctions not working may be based on a steady stream of lies from Russia about the state of its economy. What may actually end up happening is that the Russian economy blows up because Russia is forced to print rubles to make up for budge deficits (may already be happening) and China is not willing to bail them out. The moment Russia has trouble paying soldiers and death benefits to families of soldiers, as well as pensions, etc., is the moment that Russia loses the war and the Putin regime will look to flea the country to save their skins.

econlib.org

Jeff Sonnenfeld's Bombshell About the Russian Economy - Econlib

David Henderson

My friend Jeff Hummel sent me a link to a recent 28-minute interview that DW News did late last month with Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management. Jeff asked me to evaluate it. I find it highly credible. The big...

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markets.businessinsider.com

Here's why experts say Russia and China's attempts to 'de-dollarize' global markets are going nowhere

Jennifer Sor

Efforts to challenge the US dollar have mostly gone nowhere, experts say, and plans for alternate reserve currencies haven't panned out.

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Assuming that the EU is fine with worsening it's economic position even more every time some satellite country decides they want some of that good European life too. The EU can only take this much of "Ukrainization".

Also, assuming that the US taxpayers are willing to provide free military gear to all those satellite countries.

Also, assuming that Russia, once completely cornered by NATO will not be simply willing to just push that red button. At some point you gotta ask yourself what being nuclear superpower is even good for.

As far as weapons, a perhaps unintended consequence is the emergence of South Korea as a major arms manufacturer. Obviously, even if a country wanted to buy Russian weapons, Russia doesn't have them to sell, and probably wont for some time. For that matter, the US manufacturers don't have the same stock to sell to international buyers.

Enter the free market:

keia.org

2022 in Review: South Korean Arms Exports - Korea Economic Institute of America

Troy Stangarone

Korea emerged in 2022 as one of the world’s most prolific arms exporters with an unprecedented $15-20 billion sale of military hardware.

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By the same token, look for India to continue expanding its own weapons manufacturing capabilities:

Probably a very good idea for civilized nations to band together and deliver a serious beat down to barbarian Russia. They don’t care about their people or anyone else. No wonder they lost so menu people in WW2. The planet would benefit from not letting their savagery win the day. As an aside…these suicidal Russians are all drugged up, right?

CNN:

NATO intelligence estimates that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russian forces have lost at least five, a military official with the North Atlantic alliance told CNN on Monday.
The official cautioned the five to one ratio was an informed estimate based on intelligence.

Without the "barbarians" in World War 2 we'd be living in the Third Reich right now...

Many of Ukraine's historical heroes were on Germany's side in World War 2...

Biden admin quietly declares national emergency over Ukraine War.

Less rights for us. More power for the government.

ntd.com

Biden Extends ‘National Emergency’ Due to ‘Extraordinary Threat’ of Russian Actions in Ukraine

President Joe Biden has extended an executive order that declared a “national emergency” in the United States because of Russian actions in Ukraine that conflict with U.S. interests, according to a White House notice. Signed...

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Know your enemy.

And it ain't Russia

Biden extended a “state of emergency” that has been in place since Russian invaded Crimea in 2014. Don’t get your news from f*cking idiots if you don’t want everybody to think you’re a f*cking idiot.

China is the USA's only near peer adversary in the world.

We are currently striving to drive Russia into China's arms for the sake of Ukraine which offers basically nothing to the world.

Seems like a terrible trade.

Great. Let's stick to your one statement, then: "Captured Russian tanks that they don't have trained crews to use." I pointed out that this is dumb because Ukraine and Russia use many of the same tanks. It's also dumb because we have video evidence of Ukrainian crews using captured Russian tanks.

Your repeated response has been that countries don't keep trained tank crews around without equipment to use, but that's also dumb. Every country with a standing army has more trained soldiers than it currently uses. They're called the reserves. In the U.S., that includes former active duty soldiers in the Ready Reserve. Such as yourself, a former active duty tanker.

You, TAITR, are a living example of a country having more trained tank soldiers than it has equipment in active use. The same thing that you claim doesn't exist in Ukraine, which has been at war since 2014.

Are you sure you want to keep defending this point? Really, really sure?

The number of tank crewman a country has is wholly dependent on the size of it's tank forces.

I don't believe a country with a decrepit military that had less than 500 tanks in the whole country in 2014 has thousands of tank crews in its reserves. If they exist at all they would be very poorly trained.

National Guard tankers in the US are considered untrained by US Army standards. American National Guard tankers have better training that Ukrainian active duty units.