Ukrainians fight like warriors in the battlefield, Putin bombs pensioners sitting at home in their apartments.
Russians don't do shame unfortunately. It's either nationalist fervor or complete apathetic resignation. Shame doesn't enter the equation.
What?
...
I don't think it matters how many men Russia mobilises if it cannot properly equip them, feed them and motivate them. That's really the question for Russia - are they all chassis and no engine?
And even then, Ukraine continue to receive armaments and training, so if one wants to say that the Russians will be looking better after Christmas, this will also be true of the Ukrainian military.
The Russians can try to reform their military in order to correct their losses - OK, but I propose that in the middle of a war, under heavy sanction from the West and selling cheap oil to the Chinese isn't the best time to do it. Some people thought that Trump was smart by constantly sacking members of his cabinet - using that businesslike scythe until he'd assembled that perfect team. Turns out he just kept sacking people until the end. I think the same will be true of Putin and his sacking of military generals. He's sacked something like half a dozen of his top brass since the start of this, with Shoigu being the latest.
It's a war. Attacking civilians creates political pressure on the Ukrainian politicians to respond. At this stage the Russians game is buy time, regroup apply the lessons and apply the tactics properly (if they can). Ukraine (or the West) does not have unlimited resources in the field, Russian army don't want Ukrainians concentrating their resources. Why use drone attacks from Belarus and the threat of incursion, if only to tie down Ukrainian man power.
Agreed but I presume you don't think that Ukraine should attack targets within internationally recognised Russian territory, bar some military supply depots near the border etc. It must be pretty tempting to deliver a bit of retribution on a Russian town or city and give Russian citizens a taste of their own medicine. But that would strain the co-operation with and supply of arms and intel from the 'west'. So it's a no go at the moment. Crimea and anywhere in the Donbas are fair targets though.
The problem is seeing Russian actions as “retaliation” for Ukrainian actions. They’re not. Russia’s actions in Ukraine are unilateral and without justification. They’re not bombing apartment blocks because their illegal bridge was hit. They’re bombing them because they’re using terrorism - in the purest sense of the word - as a state military tactic. But they’ll do that regardless of what Ukraine do.
It was obviously the Russians themselves. Another false flag like them bombing the nuclear plant, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline etc.
Not only that, but it would be a net PR loss to hit a Russian city or town just because. You give Putin an easy thing to rattle the sabre over and Ukraine's moral high ground gets a shade lower.
No. What is the name of the thread?
Ukraine’s broader interests are currently certainly best served by limiting their action to their own territory and targets causing them immediate danger (such as supply lines and depots) in nearby Russian territory. But that’s really only because of the pragmatic considerations of trying to keep a varying and disparate coalition of allies on side, rather than any consideration for Putin’s feelings.
At the meeting with head of Russian investigative committee Putin accused Ukrainian special services in explosion at Crimean bridge
in other news the pot called the kettle black
Ah, that was satisfying, taking however long it took you to type that reply out of your day.
The Russian ombudsman for human rights was complaining the bridge attack may have breached Russian citizens human rights
I wouldnt bet on that. One needs a shame installed in first place to carry for generations. Russians are not known for shame.
This is the hubris of any state that considers itself 'Exceptional'
They can dish it out without batting an eyelid, but if anyone dares to strike back, they complain that they are being treated unfairly or accuse the others of being terrorists.
American does it, the British did it, the Russians do it etc
Their logistics is atrocious considering they are right next door. Lessons from the front and Ukrainians tactics will be taught to the mobilised men, important issues like how to stay alive and do the maximum damage. They will revert to the proper application of their tactics with new adaptations. Over the next few months the Russians will keep degrading Ukrainian civil infrastructure, their own heartland is not impacted. The equipment only needs to be good enough. Their issue will be the quality of the ammunition will eventually get down to the stuff that does not work or explodes when you handle it, so there is an incentive to bring this to a halt before next Autumn.
There are also the issues of how the Winter plays out in the United States (November elections, lame duck president, domestic leftist violence, lack of support for the war, the war hawks in the Republican party have been stymied, their voters are not interested) and Europe (a collapse of German industry due to the pursuit of Green energy policies over he last two decades, bought forward by the shutdown of Russian energy supplies), coupled with financial instability across the EU and other elections.
These crazies are living in the most remote corner of the non-existent multiverse.
Whataboutery writ large-
Journalist Luke Harding described Russian whataboutism as "practically a national ideology".[21] Writing for Bloomberg News, Leonid Bershidsky called whataboutism a "Russian tradition",[22] while The New Yorker described the technique as "a strategy of false moral equivalences".[23] Julia Ioffe called whataboutism a "sacred Russian tactic",[24][25] and compared it to accusing the pot of calling the kettle black.[26]
Whataboutism - Wikipedia
Interesting if true ТРУХА⚡️English on Twitter: "Ukraine blew up all the bridges near the border with Belarus, said Anatoly Lapo, head of the State Border Committee of the Republic of Belarus. According to him, border roads are also mined. Potatoes will not pass😁 https://t.co/7gBvYCyoBi" / Twitter
The right track look to be buckled.
They must have run the train on the left one.
I don't think that the truck was involved. Its presence was purely accidental. There are simply too many "links" in the chain to make it work. And believe me, Russians check everything (especially trucks) going on to that bridge.
Going frame by frame one sees the start or the explosion, it's here in this screen grab I took ,the white haze you see on screen, that's a microsecond into the explosion and as you see all the trucks look fine.
This stuff about Russia adapting assumes that Ukraine won't be able to do the same and are just static in their ability. Ukraine continues to get NATO-spec weapons and training. If Russia's armoury has to be be 'good enough', it must be good enough to match that, and this is a country which is under heavy sanction.
Does Russia actually have until next Autumn to prosecute this war? Or more to the point, does Putin have that time? Already there have been protests over mobilisation, hundreds of thousands of men fleeing the country to avoid conscription and even Putin's top propagandists bemoaning the state of things on the battlefield.
I may be jumping ahead here, but if/when Putin kicks it, there is an unspoken reality that the media hasn't really tackled yet. Who replaces him?
When Putin came in to power, he was a bit of a hero to Russian people, both on the left and right. He rescued the economy. He also did something that very few world leaders have done - appealed to both the right and the left.
There is a school of thought that Putin is a gatekeeper of right wing extremism. He keeps the wildest ones at bay while entertaining and promoting their views.
Here's the thing. He's currently surrounding himself with those right wing nutcases as he regularly goes through sacking his staff. That new head of operations being an example. As we know, many of his supporters are pushing for extreme response with Ukraine up to and including nukes.
So when Putin does go - either when he kicks it or by way of political coup, who will take over? Its usually the opposition that rallies a coup. But in this case they're all either in prison or fired. If the coup comes from within the right wing element in the Kremlin, well that could make things worse for everyone.
This is all armchair speculation of course but important to long term security none the less.
Video of a screen playing the video is not a proper way to analyse this stuff. Even if you had the original file, they way video compression works can result in frames having the content of previous frames for some areas instead of what is actually happening.
This is what I was saying earlier today there's a definite flash comes across from the rail side and the trucks looks pretty much intact as the explosion engulfs the bridge, where if a bomb exploded inside the truck it would be torn to piece immediately as the explosion went off
Love to be a fly on the wall of the back channels at the moment between the US and Russia on Russia's off-ramp here.
This is not the Cuban missile crisis, it would be near impossible to keep any agreement like that secret today.
At some point a deal will be done to help Russia down from the cliff which I guess could more than likely involve partition of Russian leaning parts of Ukraine as well as other things.
Apparently if you pose the question that there is a possibility that indeed Putin is holding back the nutcase hawks from taking over you are in fact a putinbot to the clique on here. They'll be here in a minute with the usual "whataboutery" claims etc...
In fact it is a real worry and iv'e spoken out about it on here before that in my opinion Medvedev is the one to look out for when the over throw comes eventually.
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