Political Posts

[Xerxes]

I am personally against this type of fundraising. It is one thing for soldiers to write messages on payloads/shells (they are doing the fighting after all) than turn the practice into some sort of commercial enterprise. 
 

unrelated, I thought that this was rather entertaining. 
 

https://ca.yahoo.com/news/bomb-squad-called-er-88-085637481.html

[no_free_lunch]

14 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

LOL, Germany alone will buy ammo for 20B Euro and is building new plants. US is building capacity as well. Russia will run out of conscripts before NATO and Ukraine runs out of ammo.

 

I agree.  I suspect there is half truths to these articles, it's really to shock the western public so they are more receptive and understanding to the defense production requirements.  Yes, we will have to build more defense capacity for a more conventional war.  Note that they have been saying this type of thing for somewhere around 6 months and yet Ukraine keeps getting supplied.

 

From an economic perspective, this further ties in with in-shoring of production.  I would prefer we could spend our energies on something other than defense but then we won't have a "we" if we can't fight.

Edited December 24, 2022 by no_free_lunch

[no_free_lunch]

On 12/22/2022 at 1:50 AM, ANP301191 said:

Maybe I have missed something, but I do remember western intelligence agencies talking about how the war would cripple Putin's ability to control the oligarchs/crush the Russian economy and eventually force him from power etc.? Havent heard that line of thought in a while. In fact, I do remember reading that some of the oligarchs who spoke out against Putin have had some pretty harsh reprisals.

 

All this goes to say, no matter what armaments the west gives to Ukraine, if Putin remains in power, there always remains a chance of further escalation (more mass mobilizations, utlization of nuclear weapons, etc.). So by all means, lets give the Ukrainians planes and guns and missiles, this ends in a political settlement or a nuclear war. In my opinion, there is no path for Ukraine to simply expel the invading forces and end the war, it only ends when Putin decides he's had enough or he's won.

 

At some point, Russia may run out of suckers and it can lead to revolution.  It's one thing to talk ra ra let's go get the nazi's but how many Russian's really believe that?  It doesn't seem like people are rushing to volunteer given conscription and prison soldiers.   The communist revolution in 1917 was caused by the first world war casualities, that was a big part, you could have something similar happen here.  This is not an existential crisis and people know that as is evidenced by the lack of support.  It ends when the russian population says enough.

 

For sure though the western media is far too optimistic and paints Russia as weaker than it is.  I do not understand why, who does it benefit if it's not true?  Maybe it's so that the general public can feel they are closer to victory than reality.

[Xerxes]

Some of the Western media depiction of the war has been cartoonish at best. Not the facts but how they are depicted. I dont know how many YouTube vidoes have been poping out with armchair generals making sweeping "walk in the park" declaration. Like momentum-driven investors, some of these folks are trend-followers. Take a snapshot of say event in Aug, project forward, and declare the Zelensky will be at Moscow' gate by Christmas [sarcasim]

 

I would recommend folks to check out the few articles on The Economist which interviewed the president of Ukraine, along with its top general as well as the commander of the ground forces. They certainly do not see it as a walk in the park. To a certain degree, the upbeat optimistic Western narrative has been good for Ukraine in the first half of the war. That said, I think the Ukrainian leadership would prefer for folks to see it as it is, an uphill struggle where they need all the help they can get. Not a scene off a Rambo movie.

 

EXAMPLE:

 

Fact:                       Russian conscript are nowhere near the level of training Ukraine forces have and are getting. 

Western Media:    LOLOLOL they dont even have proper gear, LOL the have antiquidated guns LOL

Ukrainian/NATO:           

 

Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals explain why the war hangs in the balance | The Economist 

 

The third challenge is the most serious. Russia’s mobilisation effort has been widely disparaged, with countless stories of inadequate kit and disgruntled conscripts. Ukraine’s general staff and its Western partners are more wary. “We all know that the quality is poor and that they lack equipment,” says Kusti Salm of Estonia’s defence ministry. “But the fact that they can mobilise so fast is an early-warning dilemma for Ukraine and ultimately for nato.” Schemes run by Britain and the European Union can train around 30,000 Ukrainian troops in 18 months, he says. Russia has been able to conjure up five times as many new soldiers in a fraction of the time.

 

“Russian mobilisation has worked,” says General Zaluzhny. “A tsar tells them to go to war, and they go to war.” General Syrsky agrees: “The enemy shouldn’t be discounted. They are not weak…and they have very great potential in terms of manpower.” He gives the example of how Russian recruits, equipped only with small arms, successfully slowed down Ukrainian attacks in Kreminna and Svatove in Luhansk province—though the autumn mud helped. Mobilisation has also allowed Russia to rotate its forces on and off the front lines more frequently, he says, allowing them to rest and recuperate. “In this regard, they have an advantage.”

 

 

[UK]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-russia-ukraine-war-advisers-11671815184?mod=hp_lead_pos7

 

Russian troops were losing the battle for Lyman, a small city in eastern Ukraine, in late September when a call came in for the commanding officer on the front line, over an encrypted line from Moscow. It was Vladimir Putin, ordering them not to retreat. The president seemed to have limited understanding of the reality of the situation, according to current and former U.S. and European officials and a former senior Russian intelligence officer briefed on the exchange. His poorly equipped front-line troops were being encircled by a Ukrainian advance backed by artillery provided by the West. Mr. Putin rebuffed his own generals’ commands and told the troops to hold firm, they said. The Ukrainian ambushes continued, and on Oct. 1, Russian soldiers hastily withdrew, leaving behind dozens of dead bodies and supplies of artillery to restock Ukraine’s weapons caches.

 

Through the summer, delegations of military experts and arms manufacturers emerged from presidential meetings questioning whether Mr. Putin understood the reality on the battleground, according to people familiar with the situation. And while Mr. Putin has since then gone to lengths to get a clearer picture of the war, they say, the president remains surrounded by an administration that caters to his conviction that Russia will succeed, despite the mounting human and economic sacrifices. “The people around Putin protect themselves,” said Ekaterina Vinokurova, a member of his handpicked human-rights council until Mr. Putin removed her in November. “They have this deep belief that they shouldn’t upset the president.” The resulting mistakes have shaped Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine—from the initial days, when Mr. Putin thought his soldiers would be met with flowers, to recent humiliating withdrawals in the northeast and south. Over time, Mr. Putin, who has never served in the military, has become so wary of his own command structure that he has issued orders directly to the front line.

 

For months, a trickle of Russian officials, pro-government journalists and analysts tried to bring word in person to their president about how his invasion was floundering, according to people familiar with the matter. When one longtime pollster reached out to Mr. Putin’s office about a survey showing lower-than-expected public support soon after the invasion, his office responded, using Mr. Putin’s first name and his patronymic middle name, “Vladimir Vladimirovich doesn’t need to be upset right now,” according to a person familiar with the exchange. In July, as American-supplied, satellite-guided Himars rockets began to strike Russian army logistics depots, Mr. Putin summoned about 30 business leaders from defense companies to his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, according to people familiar with the meeting. After three days of quarantine and three PCR tests, the executives sat at the end of a long wooden table, listening as Mr. Putin described a war effort he considered a success. Ukrainians were only motivated to fight, he told them, because their army was shooting deserters, according to the people. Then Mr. Putin turned to Chief of General Staff for the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, who said Russian weapons were successfully hitting their targets and the invasion was going according to plan. The arms makers left the meeting with a sense that Mr. Putin lacked a clear picture of the conflict, the people said.

 

Since March, when Mr. Putin’s invasion began to clearly falter, Western leaders have been puzzled by how a leader so singularly occupied with the status of Ukraine and the restoration of Russia’s military greatness managed to so badly underrate Ukraine’s strength and misread his own. Some of Mr. Putin’s allies concede that information reaching the president was flawed and attribute military failures to poor planning by government officials. Konstantin Zatulin, a senior lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party who supports the war, said in an interview that the president “proceeded from an incomplete understanding of the situation and in some ways not fully correct.” The war planners, he said, “clearly underestimated the strength of the enemy and overestimated their own.” Mr. Putin needed only days to roll through more than a fifth of Georgia in 2008, and weeks to take Ukraine’s peninsula of Crimea in 2014—an operation that his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and Mr. Gerasimov, along with Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency and others, had advised against. The SVR declined to comment. The Russian president came to see the Crimea operation as a personal triumph. His inner circle gradually shrank down to his most hawkish advisers, who assured Mr. Putin Russian forces would seize Kyiv within days. “He probably forgot that when he was a KGB operative he was lying to his boss,” said Indrek Kannik, a former head of analysis for Estonian foreign intelligence.

 

From inside Ukraine, a Kremlin-connected businessman was telling Mr. Putin what he wanted to hear. Viktor Medvedchuk, a Russia-funded politician, had made Mr. Putin godfather to his daughter Darya. For years, Mr. Medvedchuk had a dedicated line to reach the president—a phone with a Russian number and a secure calling app the Ukrainians called Kremlyovka, in reference to the Kremlin, according to Yuriy Lutsenko, the former head of the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, which had tapped the phones of people linked to the Kremlin in an investigation into the 2014 downing of a Malaysian airplane above Ukraine. Mr. Medvedchuk assured Mr. Putin that Ukrainians saw themselves as Russian, and would welcome the invading soldiers with flowers, said two people close to the Kremlin. Mr. Medvedchuk, who had been arrested in Ukraine and then released to Russia as part of a prisoner swap in September, couldn’t be reached for comment. Meanwhile, the FSB was tweaking polling data to convince Mr. Putin that Ukrainians would welcome Russian soldiers, according to Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov and a person close to the Kremlin. Other opinion surveys appeared to be entirely fabricated, said Mr. Danilov.

 

War planning fell to the FSB more than the military, according to the former Russian intelligence officer and a person close to the defense ministry. The ministry kept normal working hours in the weeks leading up to the invasion, with little sense of the urgency.
Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Mr. Peskov; his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov ; chief of staff, Anton Vaino; and Mr. Kirienko, the domestic policy chief, weren’t aware of the plans, according to people familiar with the matter. Fifteen days into the war, after his quick strike on Kyiv failed, Mr. Putin scowled in a gold-embroidered armchair as his defense minister briefed him over a video link in a televised meeting. “Vladimir Vladimirovich, everything is going to plan,” said Mr. Shoigu. “We report this to you every day.”

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by UK

[UK]

I realise than not everyone here speaks russian, but for those, who can understand, very entertaining interview with former insider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isg4wArJJ28

 

[John Hjorth]

@UK,

 

I respectfully towards you and your right to privacy take the freedom to ask about your nationallity, mother tongue and location. I will naturally respect your refusal to provide this information, if you do so.

 

My own similar information is as follows: I'm a Dane, my mother tongue is Danish, and I'm located in  the city Odense, in the central part of Denmark.

 

I'm asking because the basis of your posts and their backdrop are important to me for my understanding of your posts.

 

This whole calamity / sh*tshow is quite close to me from a geographical perspective, as a Danish citizen. I consider Denmark at risk if this event escalates and gets somehow out of control.

 

Thank you in advance for your time and your posts in this topic.

Edited December 25, 2022 by John Hjorth

[UK]

1 hour ago, John Hjorth said:

@UK,

 

I respectfully towards you and your right to privacy take the freedom to ask about your nationallity, mother tongue and location. I will naturally respect your refusal to provide this information, if you do so.

 

My own similar information is as follows: I'm a Dane, my mother tongue is Danish, and I'm located in  the city Odense, in the central part of Denmark.

 

I'm asking because the basis of your posts and their backdrop are important to me for my understanding of your posts.

 

This whole calamity / sh*tshow is quite close to me from a geographical perspective, as a Danish citizen. I consider Denmark at risk if this event escalates and gets somehow out of control.

 

Thank you in advance for your time and your posts in this topic.

 

John, nice to know you! No problem, I am from Vilnius, Lithuania. It is some 180 km from Minsk, Belarus and only some 40 km from their new nuclear power plant in Astravets. My mother tongue is Lithuanian, but I also understand and speak Russian well, since my generation was probably one of the last, which still had Russian language on the full schedule at school (and on tv). Actually I love Russian classic literature etc. In my previous job, some 10+ years ago, I also worked on a project in Ukraine (in a town somewhere near Odessa), and my former employer was working on some other projects in a country, including in Mariupol, right until this February. Btw this summer we were visiting Billund, not that far from a place you live, very nice place for a fans of Lego:)

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by UK

[Spekulatius]

On 12/22/2022 at 10:34 AM, Xerxes said:

Tucker never fails 

 

 

Tucker Carlson has basically become a Russian propaganda asset. He has been repeating repeating Russia propaganda in some cases, unfiltered. It’s not the first time, or second time or third time. He does this over end over. 

 

[Dinar]

4 hours ago, UK said:

 

John, nice to know you! No problem, I am from Vilnius, Lithuania. It is some 180 km from Minsk, Belarus and only some 40 km from their new nuclear power plant in Astravets. My mother tongue is Lithuanian, but I also understand and speak Russian well, since my generation was probably one of the last, which still had Russian language on the full schedule at school (and on tv). Actually I love Russian classic literature etc. In my previous job, some 10+ years ago, I also worked on a project in Ukraine (in a town somewhere near Odessa), and my former employer was working on some other projects in a country, including in Mariupol, right until this February. Btw this summer we were visiting Billund, not that far from a place you live, very nice place for a fans of Lego:)

 

I was in Vilnius and Kaunas 35 years ago, what an amazing place, and a culture shock for a someone coming from the Soviet Union.  It was more European than Soviet.  

[Dinar]

@Spekulatius, forget Tucker.  The more important issue is that the support for Ukraine will drastically erode over time as the cost born by the West keeps growing over time while the people get worse off.  

[UK]

4 hours ago, Dinar said:

I was in Vilnius and Kaunas 35 years ago, what an amazing place, and a culture shock for a someone coming from the Soviet Union.  It was more European than Soviet.  

 

Dinar, thanks for your kind words. I am sure though, that at the time of your visit, not many here felt that different from the rest of the Union:). And then, since almost right after your visit, but especially over the last 20 years, the change was really big and thankfully for the better.

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by UK

[Blugolds]

3 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Tucker Carlson has basically become a Russian propaganda asset. He has been repeating repeating Russia propaganda in some cases, unfiltered. It’s not the first time, or second time or third time. He does this over end over. 

 

 

Agreed, the guy turns my stomach. 

 

There is literally no filter on the guy, spewing verbal diarrhea. The fact that this guy even has air time says a lot more about Fox, than it does about whatever "problem" he is targeting. 

 

Social Media certainly contributes to division in the country...but even without it, as long as MSM puts these jokers front and center for views, its not gonna get better. Its sad really..

[Xerxes]

23 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Tucker Carlson has basically become a Russian propaganda asset. He has been repeating repeating Russia propaganda in some cases, unfiltered. It’s not the first time, or second time or third time. He does this over end over. 

 

 

I see it more as FOX SNL. Comedy.

Sadly this thread will continue well into 2023 and beyound.

 

-----------------------------------

I was thinking to the earlier days of the war, and the "Ukraine is Weak" episode of Seinfeld came to mind as the one constant theme for 2022. 

 

I did a bit of digging - powered by Google Search. The episode was aired on January 1995.

The Label Maker - Wikipedia

 

A month earlier, in December, 1994, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, U.K., and the U.S. signed agreement to provide Ukraine with security assurances for returning the nuclear warheads to Russia'. 

 

A rather funny coincidence. 

 

 

 

-----------------------------------

 

Back to serious stuff.

 

Much has said about the 1994 memorendum. 

 

What has been unsaid is the fact, even if Ukraine had chosen to keep the nuclear warheads, they did not have the "command code" which comes from the Kremlin. Having physical warheads and having control over them are two different things.

 

In that alternative scenario, where Ukraine had chosen to keep the nukes, the historical timeline would have gone a different direction entirely, STARTING in 1994 and onward, AND not the way most Westerners would think => Which starts in 2014, and assumes Ukraine has nukes and Et Voila:

 

- Crimea would not have happened.

- Feb 22, 2022, would not have happened.

- Ukraine part of NATO

 

That change in that decision point in time, in 1994, would have maybe put Ukraine on path to become a pariah state over the next years and perhaps a closer partner to Russian Federation. Or U.S. could have teamed up with Russia to militarily remove those nukes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by Xerxes

[Xerxes]

This recent episode of 12/22 is really good

 

War on the Rocks | Listen to Podcasts On Demand Free | TuneIn

[John Hjorth]

We need mentally to be prepared  for the worse and at the same time try to aim for maintaining a constructive attitude based on realitistic optimism. ["This too shall pass"]

 

I think @Spekulatius said it the best on the former Simple Machines software platform for this board in his signature in his posts : "To be a realist, one has to believe in miracles".

 

[Important footnote kicked in here! : That signature was before @Spekulatius changed it in his posts to "Life is too short for cheap wine".]

 

Perhaps all this adds up to it would be more meaningful to seriously assult some good wine than to post in this topic. 

Edited December 26, 2022 by John Hjorth

[Spekulatius]

42 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

We need mentally to be prepared  for the worse and at the same time try to aim for maintaining a constructive attitude based on realitistic optimism. ["This too shall pass"]

 

I think @Spekulatius said it the best on the former Simple Machines software platform for this board in his signature in his posts : "To be a realist, one has to believe in miracles".

 

[Important footnote kicked in here! : That signature was before @Spekulatius changed it in his posts to "Life is too short for cheap wine".]

 

Perhaps all this adds up to it would be more meaningful to seriously assult some good wine than to post in this topic. 

LOl, cud’s for keeping track of this stuff. I really do like the first quote which is from Ben Gurion, the founding father of modern Israel.

 

The fact that Israel exists is in my opinion a miracle. The fact that Ukraine is still there and fighting and perhaps winning may also be considered a miracle.

 

Sadly, I think this thread will still be active in 2024 because I don’t  think the war will be truly over in a year. That‘s more of a tragedy but wars tend to be long drawn out tragedies.

 

Back to my not so cheap wine.

[Xerxes]

From CNBC
 

“China to scrap quarantine for international travelers in an essential end of zero-Covid”

 

this must be either a massive inflationary tailwind with the opening up of the economy… or a massive deflationary tailwind … if their Covid numbers explodes.  
 

 

[John Hjorth]

The posts in this topic by @UK and @Dinar are to me a so frustrating read [, but thank you to you both for them!]. It's simply difficult to think about what to think, because propaganda is an information tool [weapon] used on both sides in the war.

 

Personally I think the baltic states Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania are all in the same boat as Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and Poland, because of the strategic importance of the Baltic Sea for everyone, including Russia.

 

It's a calamity and and a sh*t show, imposing a potential threat on our way of life and our future.

[Dinar]

@John Hjorth, John, I would not be so pessimistic.  While the situation in Ukraine is awful, and unclear when it will end and how, I would be shocked if there is any long term impact on the Baltics, let alone Denmark/Sweden/Finland, besides possibly higher energy prices as these countries diversify from Russia.

 

I cannot imagine after the bloody nose that Russia has received in Ukraine, that it would attack any of those countries.  In addition, given that all of them are either Nato members or about to become Nato members I would not be worried.  

 

I hope that you had a merry Christmas, and I wish you and your family, a healthy, happy, prosperous and peaceful 2023!

Edited December 27, 2022 by Dinar

[ValueArb]

On 12/25/2022 at 5:15 PM, Dinar said:

@Spekulatius, forget Tucker.  The more important issue is that the support for Ukraine will drastically erode over time as the cost born by the West keeps growing over time while the people get worse off.  

 

I don't see it. Biden isn't going to backtrack and he's in office another 2 years. From the US perspective aid to Ukraine is the cheapest defense of the west in our history, we spent trillions protecting Europe from the USSR. For less than $70B so far, Russia has lost more than 100,000 soldiers, 1,500 tanks, 1,800 infantry Fight Vehicles, 299 Artillery units, 280 Armoured Personnel Carriers, 161 MRLS, 83 SAM systems, 67 warplanes and 74 helicopters.

 

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html

 

Russia can't replace these losses easily or quickly. It will take many years, even decades given the damage to their economy the war and sanctions have caused. This will greatly enhance the security of Europe for many years to come, as long as Ukraine does not lose this war. If Russia is able to conquer all of Ukraine, it will be able to rebuild faster, and staff a significantly larger military so that in a decade it will be a greater risk than ever.

[Dinar]

@ValueArb, 

 

a) Russia is NOT USSR, it has a fraction of military might population

b) It is not up to Biden, Congress has to go along.

c) Western Europe is NOT US

d) Russia is not a treat to the US, China is

[no_free_lunch]

I disagree Dinar, Russia is still a threat.  Russia is openlty threatening the US with nuclear annihilation.   

 

On the USSR, some of the propagandists, Dugin for instance, aspire to be something similar to the USSR and with this invasion of Ukraine, Putin is sure acting like the USSR (or similar) is the destination.   This is further reinforced by the ongoing threats against Kazakhstan.

 

Russia is an ally of convenience to China and weakening them is clearly to the US benefit prior to conflict with China.

 

I agree that europe is not the US, it would just be nice to see them get their big boy pants on and take care of their own business rather than recklessly attack and then depend on the US.  Europe has now openly admitted (by virtue of supplying arms in minor doses compare to America) that they rely on the US for their defense and that such defense IS needed.

Edited December 27, 2022 by no_free_lunch

[Ulti]

I think NATO defense spending had been going up prior to the invasion…

just as with energy, they are at least making the difficult choices and realize the errors of their ways.

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/aerospace-and-defense/our-insights/invasion-of-ukraine-implications-for-european-defense-spending

[ValueArb]

2 hours ago, Dinar said:

@ValueArb, 

 

a) Russia is NOT USSR, it has a fraction of military might population

b) It is not up to Biden, Congress has to go along.

c) Western Europe is NOT US

d) Russia is not a treat to the US, China is

 

a) Everyone knows this. The biggest increase in European security came when the USSR collapsed and instead of NATO facing a roughly 2-1 disadvantage in divisions, things have switched to a roughly 2-1 advantage. The problem is that if the Ukraine falls, that advantage diminishes significantly. As Putin moves more former republics under his control, our edge diminishes more.

 

b) Congress will go along. The only people in congress against supporting Ukraine are a small minority of whackos like Hawley, Paul, Boebert, Gosar, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

 

c) Western Europe isn't part of the US, everyone knows that. Like Puerto Rico they are US protectorates that owe their freedoms to the US and the trillions we've spent since 1942 protecting them while they coasted along barely spending anything on defense.

 

d) China has committed very few acts of military aggression over the last 150 years. The last time it invaded someone, it got its butt kicked by Vietnam in the 1970s. Russia has constantly been invading its neighbors for hundreds of years.  

Edited December 27, 2022 by ValueArb