On Ukraine: being wrong over and over doesn’t seem to stop Colonel Macgregor
In the comments recently, Geoffrey Britain posted a link to an April 17th pronouncement by Colonal Douglas Macgregor that is entitled “Col. Douglas MacGregor on Ukraine: ‘We’re in the final phase of this war’”. Here’s an excerpt:
Former U.S. Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor believes the war in Ukraine has reached its “final phase.” MacGregor stated that tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops are surrounded in trenches dug around the Donbas region. Without food, ammunition or a means to retreat, he expects these pockets to collapse over the next few weeks.
An interview follows in which Macgregor spends most of his time criticizing the Biden administration. I concur in criticizing it, perhaps even more harshly than Macgregor. The colonel also thinks it “nonsensical” that Russia would ever use nuclear weapons. Funny thing, but they keep talking about it quite seriously, although I suppose Macgregor can read their minds.
And of course, perhaps Macgregor is correct that the Ukrainians are about to be overwhelmed militarily by the Russians. I don’t think most people who support the Ukrainians have ever believed that Russia doesn’t hold the upper hand in terms of numbers and might win for that reason, if Russia is willing to sacrifice enough blood and treasure. But it’s by no means a foregone conclusion, and the timing is very uncertain.
For that last point, I bring you the evidence of the previous pronouncements of none other than – Colonel Macgregor himself. Nor is Macgregor new to the business of opining on Russia and Ukraine. For quite some time, actually, Colonel Macgregor has been all for Russia taking over Ukraine. See this:
In 2014, Macgregor went on Russian state-owned RT to express his opposition to U.S. intervention in the Kosovo War.
In 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea and was engaged in a conflict with Ukraine over its eastern parts, Macgregor appeared on Russian state-owned network RT where he called for the annexation of the Donbas and said residents of the region “are in fact Russians, not Ukrainians, and at the same time, you have Ukrainians in the west and in the north, who are not Russians.”
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Macgregor appeared on three Fox News programs to speak in support of Russia’s actions. Russian state television broadcast excerpts of Macgregor’s appearances, which included a characterization of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “puppet,” that Russian forces had been “too gentle” in the early days of the invasion and that Russian president Vladimir Putin was being “demonized” by the United States and NATO. Macgregor said he believed Russia should be allowed to seize whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted.
Here’s what Macfregor said a full month ago, in mid-March:
Ret. United States Army Col. Douglas Macgregor declared Ukraine has lost the war with Russia and that the country has been “grounded to bits.”…
…In fact last month [that would be in February shortly after the invasion], Macgregor said the war was basically over before Ukrainians mounted a spirited if not inspired defense that continues to this day.
At that same point in mid-March, Macgregor also said this:
“The war is really over for the Ukrainians,” Macgregor continued. “They have been grounded to bits. There’s no question about that despite what we report on our mainstream media.
Ah, but now – NOW – Macgregor means it: “we’re really in the final phase of the war.”
Why am I harping on Macgregor? It’s not really about him, and at any rate he’s a very minor figure. It’s about holding people accountable for past predictions and their truth or falsehood, and whether we should pay much attention to their predictions about the future. Macgregor is hardly the only TV talking head who is consistently wrong (and/or biased) who keeps on going and going like the Energizer bunny, and who doesn’t seem to be called on his past errors. Their number is legion.
I don’t know how this war is going to end. I just know I want the lunatics in the US who want us involved to shut up.
I would just like to suggest more people read this thread.
Mike K:
Perhaps you should define “involved” so your position is better understood. Do you mean any involvement whatsoever? Do you mean greater involvement than we have now?
Why am I harping on Macgregor? It’s not really about him, and at any rate he’s a very minor figure.
I mean, he can’t even keep Peter Rabbit out of his vegetable garden.
It’s about holding people accountable for past predictions and their truth or falsehood, and whether we should pay much attention to their predictions about the future.
Personally I try to avoid making predictions unless I happen to have very deep knowledge about a subject (of which there aren’t many such subjects and even fewer of any consequence).
And the current Ukraine mess is as opaque as it gets. There’s just wayyy too many obscurities, unknowns, and vagueries. I seriously doubt that anyone honestly has a good sense of how things will ultimately turn out. So it amazes me that so many people are apparently willing to make so many definitive proclamations about what’s going to happen. I’ve read and heard so many people declare that “It’ll be over very soon” in one way shape or form over the past month or so. Yet the fighting continues.
I wonder why it’s so hard for some people to admit that they don’t know? Is it not ok to simply say that you just don’t know what’s going to happen? And why do people always rush to make predictions despite being wrong all the time? Do they not remember all the other times they were wrong?
Fools, lunatics, and no shortage of loons either. Where is Bagdad Bob?
Not funny, but wars, once started seldom follow the script.
It is telling that the Colonel was a ‘regular’ on RT. IIRC the Russian troops were reportedly looting grocery stores before they “feinted” away from Kyiv. Fog of war
Yep, one of the perks of a career in “public / national service;” you can be wrong most of the time, maybe even all the time, and you will not lose your job.
In the military, if you F up enough, or you piss off the wrong people , you just don’t get promoted above a certain level; but you keep your job (and salary, benefits, etc.)
In a non-military, public service role, all that matters is one’s political ideology and the number of mistakes you make is of no consequence. Think Nuland, Bidet, Harris, Susan Rice, Blinken, pretty much the entire State Dept, CDC, FBI, NSA, etc.
These types keep getting appointed to top jobs or even promoted.
Look what awaits joke Bidet’s Minister of Propaganda , Jen Psaki Goebbels. She will be moving to CNN/ MSNBC/CBS/ABC , where she will be easily be paid over 1 million $$ a year because of her innate ability to lie with a straight face and vocally excrete the demokrat party and approved joke Bidet propaganda.
Nonapod:
His livelihood as a talking head depends on seeming to know. But he also seems to have a bias; don’t know why, except it seems he’s gotten some of that livelihood by appearing on RT (Russian-owned).
https://alchetron.com/cdn/pugsley-addams-c3bce0b2-5a1d-4fc0-9965-651ccac23d3-resize-750.jpg
Perhaps you should define “involved” so your position is better understood.
No US service members in Ukraine. No “no Fly Zone.” Eventually, the Russians are going to attack one of the supply depots with US personnel. After that, I have no idea what will happen. I also believe that if the Democrats had not stolen the election, we would not be in this fix but it is too late to worry about that.
I have a three year old grand daughter. She is what worries me. I’m old.
Not my only grandchild but she is the youngest and most innocent.
Tucker’s pet colonel said one thing that was absolutely true: “Russia is what it’s been for hundreds of years”. Unfortunately, the import of that statement, that Russia has been an imperialist, brutal and aggressive power, appears to have eluded the colonel.
Mike K:
Very few people are advocating that level of involvement.
Usually when I’m wrong about something that I’ve researched and think understand I become reticent and cautious.
Then again, my livelihood does not depend on punditry.
I don’t so much mind these talking heads who go on and on even though often wrong (perhaps because I don’t listen to them often).
But, I do mind when they go on state-sponsored media which is usually filled with propaganda. They are not that stupid (or are they?) that they don’t realize they are giving some sort of legitimacy to that government’s propaganda. Even if they aren’t proclaiming the propaganda word for word – they, just by their appearance, are giving legitimacy to that government’s lies.
Beware the recent comments of Biden’s boy bald eagle Chris Coons.
Nonapod: “Personally I try to avoid making predictions unless I happen to have very deep knowledge about a subject (of which there aren’t many such subjects and even fewer of any consequence).
“And the current Ukraine mess is as opaque as it gets….”
I try to study history and learn from it. This includes the importance of the rise and course of nationalism and the nation state system for nearly 400 years – basically, since the Treatie(s) of Westphalia in the 1640s.
And early on, the survey data of popular opinion on post fall of communism in successor states indicates that one could make a good case that where Russia was favored in the 1990s remains the case in election data in the past decade.
Or, in other words, in certain portions of eastern Ukraine.
Therefore, subject to a plebiscite, I expect this war to settle on something similar — sooner or later. Whether or not such a vehicle for legitimation is settled on soon or not. Putin’s partition of Ukraine.
As for Putin, the smart thing for any ruler or any popularly autocrat, or even the fairly elected government, when faced with a setback of initial expectations, the smart course is always to adjust expectations and resolve to convert a loss into some sort of “success” — no matter how disreputable some see it — and sue for peace or go home.
Despite Putin’s bluster, I still doubt any other eventual course is wiser. Whether or not he chooses to stay the wise course or stretch his time and steer Russian resolve for a long course, I don’t know and can’t say.
I did read, however, that SoS Blinken believes the war will last through the rest of the year. In other words, until winter.
Perhaps that’s when negotiations will bring about some sort of resolution?
The whole “How much pain can you stand?” question is the most opaque yet decisive issue to settle, to me, to gauge the outcome of Putin’s War in Ukraine. And here’s where I have no crystal ball.
Except that there are some important tests. Traditionally, when the frost goes out of the ground and mud stems any advance with any heavy arms movement — that’s one marker to watch — see the next three weeks.
That’s the current indicator. After that, it’s whether or not spring rains are heavy or light? Heavy means no movement; light means movement may well be possible some places — but not those vulnerable to flooding from down pours or wet land runoff.
Weather and water controls so much of any territorial war in most of Europe, probably more so in the East.
So. I guess those are a few limiting litmus tests.
The proxy war Russia has long waged in that borderland ought to give them some confidence over what’s possible and what isn’t in the seasonal challenges to come. In this sense, local history is destiny.
TJ:
I wonder whether anti-Russian sentiment in the east of Ukraine will increase, as a result of that population observing how Russia has destroyed the city of Mariupol, for example. Seems quite possible to me. The city is part of Donbas.
“The colonel also thinks it “nonsensical” that Russia would ever use nuclear weapons. Funny thing, but they keep talking about it quite seriously, although I suppose Macgregor can read their minds.” neo
No mind reading needed. Russia’s first use of nuclear weapons would result in a suicidal nuclear war. Putin is many things but what evidence is there that he is suicidal?
McGregor points out that, “Only the use of nuclear weapons by NATO or a large invading army on Russian borders would prompt the Kremlin to use nukes, MacGregor asserted. He further pointed out that the fallout would likely affect Russia proper, as well as its allies, due to the prevailing winds in Europe blowing from East to West.”
NATO is not suicidal either, so it seems to me that MacGregor labeling as “nonsensical” the notion that Russia would deploy nuclear weapons is not without validity.
In hindsight was Clinton’s interference in the Kosovo War advisable? If not, then McGregor’s objections were valid.
In 2014, “Macgregor appeared on Russian state-owned network RT where he called for the annexation of the Donbas and said residents of the region “are in fact Russians, not Ukrainians, and at the same time, you have Ukrainians in the west and in the north, who are not Russians.”
The great majority of Donbas residents first language is Russian. America excepted, generally people’s first language is a primary determinate in their cultural identity. If in 2014, the Ukraine had held a plebiscite on the Donbas regions’ political allegiance and a clear majority had voted to secede from the Ukraine and align the Donbas with Russia and had the plebiscite vote been peacefully accepted, how many lives would been saved between then and now? Viewed from that perspective, arguably McGregor was right.
I watched most if not all of McGregor’s appearances on Fox and I dont recall him ever asserting that Putin has a right to invade the Ukraine. His attitude was those were ‘the facts on the ground’ and had to be accepted as a reality. The Wiki article linked to contains no footnoted references to McGregor’s Fox appearances. But they were characterized by “U.S. representative Liz Cheney said of Macgregor “This is the Putin wing of the GOP.”
IMO, there is no doubt that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a “puppet”. As no one receives the political and financial backing of the corrupt Ukrainian Oligarchs without doing their bidding. To imagine otherwise is to reveal a remarkable degree of either naivete or willful blindness.
So too has Putin been demonized in the West, he’s now just below Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. That can be argued to be justified but that Putin has been demonized by the Media and US Politicians cannot be denied.
If the Ukraine succeeds in repelling Putin’s invasion, then McGregor will have been proven wrong on that score. I’m unaware of when he’s ever declared his judgement to be infallible.
BTW, McGregor stated that the war was in its “final phase” he did not however provide an end date to that phase. Final phases in a war can take months.
McGregor has indeed stated that Russia is close to achieving its goals in the invasion. If Russia does secure the independence of the Donbas region and secures agreement that the Ukraine will remain an independent buffer State… will it really matter 5 years from now that McGregor was off in his assertion by a few months?
The great majority of Donbas residents first language is Russian. Generally, people’s first language is a primary determinate in their cultral identity.
They speak Russian all over the Ukraine. . What they have not had in the Ukraine was a constituency in favor of merging the two countries. The Crimea was unusual in that the majority of the population there in 2012 were self-identified Great Russians. VP wasn’t too confident of their allegiance to Russia, however, so the ballot boxes in that referendum in 2014 were stuffed. You have had two political parties who advocated a Russophile foreign policy. They competed well in Donetsk and Luhansk, not well anywhere else. No, they haven’t been advocating a merger of Russia and the UkraiGeoffreyne. The people who want that are Russian nationalist wankers in Moscow (e.g. Vladimir Zhirinovsky).
They speak English in Limerick. Advocates of merging Britain and Ireland in Limerick number just about 0.
BTW, McGregor stated that the war was in its “final phase” he did not however provide an end date to that phase. Final phases in a war can take months.
You don’t have to eat every sh!t sandwich Mearsheimer and MacGregor put in front of you.
I did read, however, that SoS Blinken believes the war will last through the rest of the year. In other words, until winter.
I’m sure the author of the Afghanistan débacle is just the person to consult.
I don’t know who said but it seems applicable:
“Russia is Mexico with nukes”.
Interesting that Zelensky is a puppet in Geoffrey world; wheels within wheels.
Good luck pinning the Colonel down as to what this final phase means. Magic 8 Ball time with the Colonel.
Didn’t every talking head who opined on Russia and Ukraine get it wrong?
of course he is, and lets not forget, that zelensky is totally in for the social credit model, that we don’t want,
man with the white cat, has made it clear that regime change, is the goal, so you can’t really reel it back like Georgia in 2008, what happened in Mariupol, might very well have happened in Kyev, if they had chosen a better season to invade,
(either the winter or the summer, see telenko’s thread) who benefits from the rubble that is left, the famine through out much of the third world, the expended armaments,
Poor Vlad couldn’t figure out when to invade, bested by a puppet, and forced onto the fainting couch. Making rubble is one thing he knows how to do. If only he had gone down with the Moskva, da?
But the puppet didn’t run away. How odd.
no the puppet is the likes of kolomoisky, who owned the largest bank, privat, and burisma, which involves a lobbying network that encompasses german foreign ministers, polish prime ministers, through the royals of monaco,
Wheels within wheels, but wheels had 3rd world tires and 3rd world maintenance, and tracks that have to stay on roads. Poor Vlad, didn’t know weather in Ukraine, he should get out more. Da?
I’m sure Vlad weeps for the starvation he will be causing. Da?
The Roosian way eh, Colonel MacRT?
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/04/19/russia-is-creating-facts-on-the-ground-to-support-annexing-eastern-ukraine-n552532
Art Deco,
“You have had two political parties who advocated a Russophile foreign policy. They competed well in Donetsk and Luhansk, not well anywhere else.”
Which demonstrates that the majority of residents in the Donbas, in advocating for a Russophile foreign policy wish alignment with Russia. Which makes it nonsensical to respond to that reality with a “They speak Russian all over the Ukraine.”
Seceding from the Ukraine and aligning the Donbas region with Russia is not advocating a “merger of Russia”. NATO nations are aligned with the US but haven’t merged with the US.
When I find myself in agreement with Mearsheimer and MacGregor, I so state. I don’t agree with Mearsheimer about Israel and have so stated. I’m not yet familiar enough with MacGregor to have identified wherein we disagree.
Which demonstrates that the majority of residents in the Donbas, in advocating for a Russophile foreign policy wish alignment with Russia. Which makes it nonsensical to respond to that reality with a “They speak Russian all over the Ukraine.”
When you’ve stopped pretending you do not understand the distinction between a particular foreign policy orientation and an actual merger of one territory with another, get back to me.
It’s about holding people accountable for past predictions and their truth or falsehood, and whether we should pay much attention to their predictions about the future.
I’ve been saying this for over 40 years now. To crickets. So is it just you and me now or are there others? If so, when are the meetings and what is the media budget?
Smooth move Vlad, by invading Ukraine and threating to nuke everyone you may have brought nukes a lot closer than 13 minutes. Unexpected fallout?
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/04/19/vladimir-putin-threatens-eastern-europe-with-nukes-because-he-has-a-monopoly-lets-change-that-n552710
Step up Geoffrey, tell us how it will not be existential for Europeans to react to Vlad’s little adventures and harsh words. Maybe you have to walk a kilometer in European shoes instead of Roosian boots?
I’ve watched Col. MacGregor on Tucker Carlson a few times. He appeared quite sure of his knowledge of the situation and what he was saying (Ukraine is corrupt and not worth supporting/Russia will overpower them quite easily/We should stay out of it/etc.) He’s been pretty wrong on all his opinions about the war so far. You want to believe such pundits have some extra knowledge of the Russians, Ukrainians, military strengths, etc. Apparently not, or his judgment is badly flawed.
His latest prediction that the Ukrainian Army is trapped in the Donbas with no possibility of resupply does not make sense. So far, the Ukrainian Army has outmaneuvered and been tactically sharper than the Russians. It might be happening, but it doesn’t look like the way to bet.
Also, what remains of the Ukraine resistance in Mariupol seems determined to fight to the death. Quite mysterious that such a corrupt country has such brave citizens who will choose to die rather than live under Russian domination.
MacGregor’s opinions don’t seem well founded. Maybe at some point he will be right. After all, even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally. Until then, I’m not putting much faith in his pronouncements.
Just got back from a school board meeting where we mousetrapped them like DeSantis did Disney. They came out vocally and loudly in favor of queer and transgender rights. Now on the next step. Life is good.
https://americanmind.org/features/parents-rights/make-them-say-it/
If you consume legacy media you are being lied to. They freely admit it.
https://canadianpatriot.org/2022/04/07/us-officials-admit-theyre-literally-just-lying-to-the-public-about-russia/
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014
What is worse? Telling the lie or being willing to be lied to?
So I go to non traditional sites and obtain information from all perspectives.
I am going to state that since 2014, the Ukrainian forces have been transformed into a Western army that is well trained, armed and ably lead at a tactical level. They have acquitted themselves well. But like the Germans in WWII they will lose. Despite all the happy talk and outright lies from the legacy media and western governments they will lose.
But because they have been ably trained and armed they have delayed the final outcome. So I will miss my prognostication of war enduing will be in time for the May V Day parade. Cie la Vie.
I have settled on The Dreizin Report, Meaning of History, Defense Politics Asia, India Times and The Duran Report who have interesting people on to talk about events.
https://thedreizinreport.com/
https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgGHiivhFq7M_1MLemh-cjg
I suffer through Nuland’s husband Robert Kagan “ISW” who puts a good 1944 Goebbels happy talk spin counterbalancing it with “The Saker” pro Russian Tub Thumping reporting. Recently the Saker has been more accurate.
Wauck’s latest post draws on the Saker Blog for to me is a critical point. Remember Russian munitions were forecasted to be running out by legacy media? Now it is the West who has to replace Ukraine’s destroyed war material. Note there is no let up on the Russian side. Who forecasted this? Saker, Macgregor, Scott Ritter and Asia Defense. Where are all the pictures of destroyed “Russian” armored vehicles. Maybe a lot of them were actually Ukrainian like the ghost of Kiev, Snake Island, atrocities like Bucha which has disappeared from legacy media.
https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/p/what-ukraine-resupply-issues-tell?s=r
Here is the portion of his post that I want to emphasize. I work in the Defense industry and what is being said is EXTREMELY true.
“But there are other sources that have echoed the sentiment that right now the U.S. lacks even the manufacturing capacity to reproduce many of these armaments in great quantities, like the stingers mentioned in the article. One third of all U.S. Javelin stockpiles have already been sent to Ukraine and have paid no dividends, and mostly fallen into the hands of RF forces.
And on top of that the arms producers are actually facing “supply chain issue” of critical components (like microchips etc), like the rest of the world, which is hampering their ability to ramp up production on any of these key units.
…
This reflects what Doug Macgregor and Scott Ritter have been saying over and over—the US is in no position to get into a major conventional war. NATO is even less prepared for such an eventuality. We outsourced our basic industries that are essential for our defense, then went haring off around the world bombing tribesman carrying small arms or, at most, third world militaries. We were counting on sanctions, virtue signaling, and nukes to deal with Russia. Putin—with his hypersonic missiles and robust but lean military—called our bluff. Welcome to the real world, Deep State.”
This war didn’t have to happen. The Deep State egged on this war to get at Russia and its resources. Russian regime change was always the goal. The numb nuts who grew up watching “West Wing” crossed Russia’s vital interest line, as they clearly defined it, and allowed Putin to kick off this operation. Like the old India proverb “When elephants fight it is the mice who suffer” the Ukrainian people will bear the suffering of this war. And soon it will be Western Europe and United States citizens who will economically suffer.
So all of you apologists for the “West Wing” wannabees that infest our government share the guilt of this needless war that will end up with repercussions on our life styles you haven’t even started to comprehend. You live in the paradigm of Fukuyama’s “End of History”. Geoffrey (in his imperfect way), MacGregor, Ritter, The Duran and I live in Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” paradigm. Guess which paradigm is correct.
I, I, I, I should stIck to elections. I, I, I, I have my own favorite news sources. I, I, I, I may be wrong. I, I, I, I work in the Defense Industry. That’s nice, in my prior job (9 yrs) we made essential diagnostic equipment used by the USN, USAF, USA(rmy), BFD.
It appears Vlad’s army doesn’t have tires that work, PGMs to put on their planes, or cruisers that can defend themselves. But they do still know how to shoot lots of civilians and make mass graves. Hiding evidence of that is still a problem (see Karyn). I know, I know, those were all Nazis that shot themselves. Just ask the Colonel.
So the corrupt Western leftist billionaires are going to steal Russia’s resources away from the corroupt, and murderous, Roosian billionaires who stole it first (Vlad’s gang). Vlad has nukes, they may want to keep their loot.
Stick to elections. Boot the Groomers. Bye for now.
But like the Germans in WWII they will lose.
You told us some weeks back that Russia would be holding a victory parade on the 7th of May. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
The Deep State egged on this war to get at Russia and its resources.
Thanks for the issue of your imagination. Always an education.
I don’t see how war for resources makes sense. Even if you win, isn’t the actual cost much higher than just buying the stuff? If the guy with the resources is being a meanie and refusing to sell to you, he isn’t getting any money. So why would he do that?
The idea of going to war for resources is so dumb, it seems to me, that it almost certainly doesn’t happen. It’s a construct of third parties looking at the situation and unable to understand other issues.
Saddaam invaded Kuwait because, according to reports, the latter was stealing his oil by slant drilling. I’ve read assertions that the equipment necessary to do that was not in evidence near the border so possibly it wasn’t actually happening and it was an excuse.
In any event, Saudi Arabia was obviously next.
The Iran-Iraq war showed Saddaam’s appetite for conventional, armies grinding each other, warfare.
Ideally, Saddaam would own a lot of oil and make a lot of money. Which would take him how long to refill his military capability and come out even?
More likely, he was seeking conquest for its own sake and, luckily, his immediate neighbors had oil, which would be his means for more conquest.
The laborious point is that, even if you win—unlike a lot of people who’ve tried it–it’s a losing proposition. This should be so obvious to those contemplating it that they don’t do it. They do something else and third parties haul in the “for resources” because, dumb as it is, it’s more acceptable to supposedly rational people.
Om reminds me of a junior high girl making snarky comments in the lunch line about others. No substance at all. No marshalling of counter facts or citing sources of information. Just put downs. I am currently in the defense industry, you were once involved. Hence your past work is irrelevant. I ignore poseurs like Om. Go watch re-runs of “West Wing” and dream.
Art Deco, I too remember my forecast and laid out the reason why I am retracting it. That is called analytical thinking and decision making. I am glad I am giving you an education.
I don’t see how war for resources makes sense. Even if you win, isn’t the actual cost much higher than just buying the stuff?
Bingo.
I Am Spartacus:
Actually, om can be snarky but often has lots of content that is valuable.
As does Art Deco.
As do you. For example, your last paragraph at 12:22 AM was quite snarky. But you’ve certainly given a lot of good content over the time you’ve been commenting here, as well.
Snark is allowed here but not encouraged.
I am Spartacus:
That prior job was 6 months ago. Care to eat some more crow?
What you do in “the Defense Industry may or may not have relevance to Ukraine and Vlad, you haven’t shown it has any.
The Colonel has some credibility issues and he was in the Army at some time in the past, but then by your logic his opinion is of no value since he isn’t active?
You have some ‘splainin to do Lucy. It’s good to know you can “educate” us, the unworthy, or just give your opinion.
Macgregor appears a lot on Tucker Carlson (along with Tulsi Gabbard and Glenn Greenwald who are also Putinistas).
I am of the opinion that Democrats are unserious about the Russia-Ukraine war. They are much more worried about their own electoral prospects, and will be inclined to do or say anything that can leverage their long investment in the “Trump loves Putin” myth. That makes them very dangerous.
I’m struggling to see where Macgregor said anything that was untrue. Ukraine tore up the Minsk accords and started shelling the Donbas region indiscriminately for 7 years killing 14,000 civilians according to Red Cross and non-Russian sources. Europe and Biden enabled them rather than restrain them leaving an existential threat. A belligerent Ukraine seeking NATO air protection AND nuclear weapons under a Neo Nazi regime is a non-starter for Russians. Remember they paid the highest price defeating the last Fascist regime. Telling them to ‘suck it up’ and ‘deal with’ a NATO Ukraine would be like telling Israel to ‘deal with’ a nuclear Iran or Hezbollah.
The strategic war was lost last month when the best Ukrainian formations were surrounded in the south in this Cauldrons near Mariupol. Ukrainian weapons factories and fuel depots have all been destroyed. So this war is now senseless for Ukraine to keep fighting. You sense the exasperation from Lavrov, who try negotiating with the regime. They’ll make an offer which Ukraine initially agrees to, then retracts after Biden or Johnson objects. It’s the EU and Biden who are prolonging this. Any rational actor would’ve counseled surrender from Ukraine to stop the killing. Instead they double down on stupid. There won’t be much left of Ukraine…or Zelensky and it’s their own fault
Richard Aubrey,
“I don’t see how war for resources makes sense. Even if you win, isn’t the actual cost much higher than just buying the stuff? If the guy with the resources is being a meanie and refusing to sell to you, he isn’t getting any money. So why would he do that?”
Strictly from the standpoint of the acquisition of resources it may or may not make sense. WWII Japan is a case in point of where, from the Japanese’s POV it did make sense, having an absolute need for oil necessary to keep its military operational. That it could have acquired that oil through seizure in several areas doesn’t change the need for oil. The US oil embargo was designed to cut off oil to Japan, money didn’t enter the calculus. War was the result.
In the case of Russia, I maintain that the West’s global leadership views Putin as an impediment to global dominance and the reestablishment of a Uni-Polar world. Effective if not explicit control of Russia’s resources is seen as necessary to global dominance from both a political and economic perspective.
I’ve reached this perspective by examining what the WEF’s leadership has explicitly and repeatedly said is their goal and what is necessary to achieve their goals and what conditions obstruct their achievement of their agenda. WEF’s importance lies in its influence through the West’s political and economic leadership. Nearly all of which are acting in accordance with the WEF’s Davos agenda.
Obviously, China’s CCP is an impediment too but Russia is the easier target and a compliant Russia will allow much greater pressure upon China and other nations like India when the time has come to take the last major steps to fully establishing global dominance. Such unanimity being a necessary precondition to the creation of a New World Order.
Through NATO’s expansion, the West’s global elite have (from the Russian strategic perspective) forced Putin and his supporters into a position where invasion of the Ukraine was seen as necessary in order to achieve one primary objective; the independence of the Ukraine’s eastern region.
Putin’s “denazification” and claims of the Ukraine being part of Russia (however sincere or insincere) are strategically, unimportant. Viewed strictly from a strategic perspective, ripping eastern Ukraine from western Ukraine will create a de facto buffer state between Russia and western Ukraine when it (predictably) becomes part of NATO.
Putin and the Russian military view the Ukraine’s eastern region’s ‘independence’ as an existential necessity to retain Russia’s National Security.
the WEF strategy is to crack the dollar and hence it’s opposition to globalism, which is retained by free states like florida and texas, the crimea has been russian property for 200 years, thereabouts, acquired in their great war with turkey under
catherine the Great, an exorbitant price hike, say to $6.00 a gallon, would trigger the kind of Reset they want,
Hong:
His specific predictions were untrue. He said it was all over right at the start. It wasn’t. He said it again a month ago. It wasn’t. He’s saying it now. It isn’t.
However, as I said in the post, Russia certainly might end up winning – in fact I think most people expect it. But it didn’t happen in February and it didn’t happen in March.
You reveal yourself entirely as a Russian propaganda disciple when you write, “A belligerent Ukraine seeking NATO air protection AND nuclear weapons under a Neo Nazi regime is a non-starter for Russians.” Nicely Orwellian, too.
GB Japan needed oil. Could have bought it, but who’d sell it to them? Anybody except for the fact that Japan had already started a war and people were embargoing such resources as oil and steel.
The need for oil could have been solved by purchase except…they’d started a war which was going to greatly increase their need for oil while causing potential sellers to not sell.
The war came first with the presumption they’d win. And that they could get the oil easily, without much fighting. But see the raid on Balikpapan in Aug 43. Had an uncle flying B24 on one of those raids. Longest ever by Libs. Ran low on fuel and had to put down on a forward fighter strip. Destroyed the refinery. How’s that oil going, guys?
Should have stayed home. Problem is, if starting a war for reasons other than resources means you now need more resources and have to fight for them, you shouldn’t have quit drinking cold-turkey. Easing off is the best way to go.
Snark aside, they didn’t start the war to get resources.
I recall during the Somalia issue, some of the left desperately looking for oil in the Horn, to be able to accuse the US of going to war for oil. Losers.
Presuming Vlad was going to get Ukraine’s resources at, say, one tenth the cost of today’s butchers bill,, it would still take a long time to cover the cost of the war and the occupation.
And having more oil and gas to sell means…the price drops.
From which it may follow that the war started for some other reason and “resources” are imposed on the perp’s reasoning out of habit.
Hong’s contentions about the death toll in Luhansk and Donetsk since 2014 are also humbug.
https://www.rferl.org/a/death-toll-up-to-13-000-in-ukraine-conflict-says-un-rights-office/29791647.html
Viewed strictly from a strategic perspective, ripping eastern Ukraine from western Ukraine will create a de facto buffer state between Russia and western Ukraine when it (predictably) becomes part of NATO.
They had their buffer state 10 years ago. You can see where their strategies have landed them in the interim.
Neo says,
“His specific predictions were untrue. He said it was all over right at the start. It wasn’t. He said it again a month ago. It wasn’t. He’s saying it now. It isn’t.”
–It IS all over. Everything but the screaming. Do you really think there’s any point in the Azov Nazis to continue fighting in Mariupol? They’ve been written off by Zelenskyy. This war is only being artificially prolonged for sad, sadistic reasons of the globalists who control the purse strings.
Neo says,
However, as I said in the post, Russia certainly might end up winning – in fact I think most people expect it. But it didn’t happen in February and it didn’t happen in March.
–No one said it would, except idiots in the West like Miley, who claimed that if they didn’t take Kiev in the first 3 days, they ‘lost’. Russia never gave a timetable nor any shits about Western ‘expert’ opinions. The same ones like certified morons like Malcolm Nance who larp in Ukraine. Americans who are used to Shock and Awe and carpet bombing find this accretional advance almost infuriatingly slow. But such an approach was meant to surround and liquidate centers of resistance while preserving local infrastructure (and people). I’m not exactly a fan of it either but when this is over, the military casualties will be higher than usual, but the civilian deaths will be nothing compared to thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of Iraqis civilians killed both during and after Baghdad fell.
Neo says,
You reveal yourself entirely as a Russian propaganda disciple when you write, “A belligerent Ukraine seeking NATO air protection AND nuclear weapons under a Neo Nazi regime is a non-starter for Russians.” Nicely Orwellian, too.
–I reveal that I’m better informed on this than you or most on your boards. Maybe because I was a history major or the fact that I was a former Marine reservist. I’d say again for you to stop reading fake news but that only triggers you to investing more of yourself into Ukrainian/Biden Bothood. Had you bothered to do your own research though and listen to far right, neocon voices like Jimmy Dore and Scott Ritter (sarcasm) you’d see that Putin has been making the same, consistent demands for 7 years. No to a NATO Ukraine. No to Nazis in Ukraine, and No to a Nuclear Ukraine. That last bit was added after Zelenskyy started demanding nukes a month before the invasion. What was the EU’s response when Ukraine abrogated the Minsk accords even though they were gaurantors: Nothing. They, Zelenskyy, and Biden brought this down on themselves. If they really cared about innocent lives, they’d tell Zelenskyy to surrender. Instead they double down on self destructive sanctions and now embargoes, cancel culture, banning the letter ‘Z’ (that’s fucking hilariously sad actually) and real Orwellian talk about ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ while squelching free speech, banning russian athletes, ignoring Zelenskyy’s shut down of opposition, arrest and/or murder of dissidents. Speaking of which:
#WhereIsGonzaloLira
Paid in rubbles (that’s what Vlad makes, rubble), and a Vlad boy to the core. Now dialed to 11.
But the Ukrainians are all Nazis, eh, Hong? Maroon.
On the internet no one knows you are a dog. Da?
Hong:
I guess World War II was all over in 1943.
Except that it wasn’t.
The Ukraine War is not all over. Words have meanings, which you are ignoring. It’s not the only thing you’re ignoring.
You’ve been an intermittent commenter here for about a year and a half, so I can safely assume you’re not a troll in the pay of Russia – even though you sound like one at this point and people can be forgiven for thinking you are. Quit insulting people’s intelligence.
Neo says,
” guess World War II was all over in 1943.
Except that it wasn’t.”
–And the govt media didn’t say it was either so your point is lost.
Neo says,
“The Ukraine War is not all over. Words have meanings, which you are ignoring.”
–Retreating to pedantic observations fails to address the point that the strategic situation for the Fascists in Ukraine is hopeless.
Neo says,
“It’s not the only thing you’re ignoring.”
–I don’t Macgregor was literal in saying the fighting would end, only that Ukraine’s strategic position was pointless and hopeless. If you honestly thought he was saying the shooting would stop in a weeks time than you truly have given yourself brain damage from too much fake news as Scott Adams might say.
Neo says,
“You’ve been an intermittent commenter here for about a year and a half, so I can safely assume you’re not a troll in the pay of Russia”
-Shows how weak your observational skills are. I’ve been here since Fred was with us during Gulf War II. I battled some dedicated leftist trolls here and watched you go from a laissez faire approach about troll commentary to actively trying to police it. No doubt you’re going to say I’M a troll now for disagreeing with your hate Russia narrative here.
Neo says,
“even though you sound like one at this point and people can be forgiven for thinking you are. Quit insulting people’s intelligence.”
–I remember being called (or implied to be) far,far worse than a Russian bot. That’s the latest iterative shaming language of the Mob. I’ve been called a ‘Chickenhawk,’ Bush boot licker, ‘phobe’ (of every kind), Trump cultist, Q-anon follower by people far less informed; yet you want accuse ME of insulting peoples intelligence! None of those labels stuck and I expect your Russia label will also wither away. The question is what cognitive dissonance might YOU suffer when it’s revealed Ukraine is the villain with ACTUAL Nazis killing reporters and mayors. Why Biden, Kerry, Pelosi, Romney have deep financial ties to the Ukraine and what you’ll do when gas hits $6 gallon during the summer.
#WhereIsGonzaloLira
Retreating to pedantic observations fails to address the point that the strategic situation for the Fascists in Ukraine is hopeless.
At the rate Russia is proceeding, we can expect the fascist Zelenskyy to board a helicopter into exile around about August 2025, at which point about 1/4 of Russia’s flag rank officers will be pushing up daisies.
Art Deco says,
“At the rate Russia is proceeding, we can expect the fascist Zelenskyy to board a helicopter into exile around about August 2025, at which point about 1/4 of Russia’s flag rank officers will be pushing up daisies.”
–Whatever you need to say to console yourself. So far everything the West has said about Russia turned out to be nothing but turd blossoms. Russia’s economy didn’t collapse (it’s getting stronger), Putin wasn’t unpopular (he’s at near historic highs), China didn’t supply weapons to Russia (It’s Putin who’s giving aid to the CCP), Russia didn’t suffer 15,000 killed (Ukraine has), Bucha was a hoax, the nuclear plant attack was a hoax, the captain of the Moskava is alive, the Russians weren’t beaten back near Kiev (they left because it was a feint), Russia’s not out of gas (Ukraine is), Putin isn’t calling up 145,000+ draftees to fight (it’s a seasonal call up), it goes on and on and on and it’s shameful that Neo is echoing every lie you might find on Twatter or what’s left of the Daily Kos.
#WhereIsGonzaloLira
Hong certainly is dialed past 11, but he loves Vlad for free. How precious.
Kill a Nazi for Roosia, Vlad can’t do it all (inconceivable).
Maroon.
Om says,
“Hong certainly is dialed past 11, but he loves Vlad for free. How precious.
Kill a Nazi for Roosia, Vlad can’t do it all (inconceivable).
Maroon.”
Ad hominem is all you globalist shills have left when facts detonate your ‘argument’ and what’s left of your brains. Enjoy the $6 of gas
#WhereIsGonzaloLira
And the Moskva is now a submersible cruiser, eh Hong?
Cruiser submarines were tried by the French and Great Britain in the 1930s, but they didn’t have fires and internal explosions before they went underwater. Oh, and the French and British vessels were designed to resurface. Not so the Moskva.
Someone loves his Roosia (eg. Vlad Land), not the same as Russia, where Russians live under corruptocrat oligarchs and despots.
Precious that neo doesn’t know her own blog according to Hong. Did Hong troll wit a different handle in the olden days?
(It’s Putin who’s giving aid to the CCP)
While his army withdraws from Kiev and Sumy.
Not withdrawing! Feinting, feinting away. Pining for the fjords of Murmansk?
Hong:
I see you have become not just a troll, but a boring one as well.
@Hong
Oh you are! Poor Baby.
Let me do you a solid.
Start with his estimates on when Kyiv was supposed to have fallen, then expand out to his general egregious over-estimation of the Russian military. Go from there,
No, Putin put the final nail in the coffin of the Minsk Accords just recently with the formal recognition of the DNR and LNR. Though frankly the Minsk Accords were already borderline stillborn due to the ongoing military activity at the time as well as Putin’s leaders letting the cat out of the bag that they hoped it would lead to a forced confedralization of Ukraine (which next to a big and aggressive Russia generally means divide and conquer with unworkable, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth style internal fissures that can be exploited by outsiders).
Really? They just STARTED to shell the region for no reason, and indiscriminately?
Nothing at all to do with the significant and nasty urban fighting going on between Ukrainian forces and Russian forces aided by “local separatists” regularly breaking the laws of war?
Oh and all of those came from Ukrainian artillery, nevermind how the Russians and their “Separatists” had the artillery advantage for virtually all of the Donbas war, where it played an important role in things like stopping Ukrainian advances further into the East after the initial chaos?
Yeah, you really haven’t been paying attention.
See above.
Even as far as bullshit propaganda those this is exceptionally tortured.
“An existential threat” to WHAT?!?! Last I checked, prior to Feb 2022 the world recognized that the Donbas was part of Ukraine, and Russia has been one of the leading advocates that humanitarian concerns do not trump national sovereignty. So in order for this nonsense narrative to work, we’d have to acknowledge the presence of Russian troops invading the Donbas long before Putin acknowledged their existence, and thus long before the large scale deployment of Ukrainian government artillery…
Whoopsies.
Shame such a regime DOES NOT EXIST.
First and foremost you fucking idiot: when has Ukraine EVER sought Nuclear Weapons since the fall of the Soviet Union? I couldn’t blame them for doing so given how the Budapest Memorandum proved to be yet another case of failed statecraft, but even the Kremlin tends to focus on the “Biolabs.”
Secondly: “Neo-Nazi”? Neo-Nazism in Ukraine is borderline non-existent. Even the resident Neo-Fascists like Azov Battalion trace their lineage back to an indigenous form of Fascism that clashed with the Nazis after the latter exploited them for their local knowledge in the leadup to Barbarossa before ordering them wiped out.
This is why it has been public record since 1945 at the latest that the Nazis sought to exterminate “the Bandera Movement” and other Ukrainian Fascist organizations, with orders to that effect being admitted into evidence at Nuremburg with the grudging acceptance of the Soviets.
And even Ukraine’s resident Neo-Fascists (who are still disgusting and evil people but not Neo-Nazis) have been marginalized from power since their peak just before Euromaidan, hence why their parties contain a grand total of one Rada Deputy.
Ironically, Russia is far more heavily influenced by Neo-Nazism, as can be seen by the fact that not only does Putin make a habit of recruiting public Neo-Nazis into some of his paramilitaries (Such as Wagner PMC under the command of Dmitry Utkin, who decided it was a good idea to tattoo SS lightning onto his skin) but also Medvedev, his functional second in command and possible successor.
https://theconversation.com/putins-fascists-the-russian-states-long-history-of-cultivating-homegrown-neo-nazis-178535
https://twitter.com/stzaryn/status/1438219187470614535?lang=en
https://youtu.be/X4uMLG1JWMM?t=274
Of course, if you puncture that you quickly unravel much of the Kremlin’s bullshit attempts to claim residual credit for the Soviet contribution to WWII (which itself deserves far less credit than it usually gets, MORE ON THAT LATER) by showing who the real Nazis in this war are.
Which is almost fitting, considering how the largely Russified Soviet Regime in Moscow played such a high role in *ARMING AND ENABLING* the Nazis in particular and to a lesser extent other Fascist regimes during the Interwar.
Simply put, at the very least by the time of the Rapallo Pact the Soviet Union was committed to supporting illegal German military rearmament on a vast scale, which it did for more than a decade and a half. Even the ascension of Hitler (itself tacitly aided at parts by Stalin’s German proxies in the KPD) was not enough to change this, which is why one up until 1941 Stalin was Hitler’s most important strategy ally and co-conspirator, however uneasy.
And ironically one of the most consistent blocks on attempts to expand this connection was NOT from some kind of principled objection by the Soviet to supporting the Nazis, but from a combination of HITLER getting cold feet at several proposals Stalin fielded (such as expanded loans for rearmament in the early 1930s) and miscommunication (most fatefully when during the Nazi-Soviet Axis Negotiations in the Winter of 1940 Molotov exceeded his instructions and made demands that Germany recognize Soviet interest in Bulgaria and Finland, which proved to be something too much for Hitler to tolerate)..
It’s impossible for me to understate the importance of this. Hitler would never have gotten half as far as he did without the methodical and entirely pre-meditated Soviet decision to support the very worst actors in German politics in order to build up their ability to wage wars of aggression and continuation of support for it during an actual war into early 1941.
This was motivated in the hopes that the Soviet Union could strengthen Germany’s militarists enough to cause a “protracted” war between the “imperialists” that would leave all sides exhausted and ripe for Communist revolution, sort of a reheated attempt to play Lenin in 1918 but this time it’ll work Comrades.
As we know, this absolutely failed and dozens of millions of people DIED because of it. Hitler got far more out of Molotov-Ribbentrop than the Soviets did and he used it to good effect.
The great tragedy is that the repercussions of these atrocities and failures by and large DID NOT claim the lives of the monsters in the Soviet government who enabled and spearheaded it, but the millions upon millions of innocent people who had no say in the matter.
And I’m supposed to give some kind of exceptional credit to the Soviet Union or “Russia” for fighting against the Third Reich after years of helping to feed the beast, after a backstab that meant the Soviets had literally no choice but to fight or die?
To hell with that, and to hell with Kremlin shills trying to make me care.
AND YET that is EXACTLY what Putin’s Russia- in concert with Biden and some other globalists- are trying to force Israel to do, as Neo has illustrated.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/russia-iran-deal-putin-war-crimes-kirby
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/new-iran-agreement-would-let-russia-cash-in-on-10-billion-contract-to-build-nuclear-sites/
So why the lack of compassion or empathy?
It’s almost as if the Kremlin and its propagandist shills like making weak and insincere analogies without actually caring about them or whether the regime they support is honoring the spirit or principles of what they claim.
Citation Needed. The idea that the “best Ukrainian formations” were surrounded at Mariupol calls things into question and it mirrors similar propaganda I remember at Debaltseve, where in spite of the Russian victory the “cauldron” failed to be secured, meaning the Ukrainians retreated in good form.
Translation: you don’t know jack all about Ukraine’s strategic infrastructure, and particularly that in the West or even center of the country.
I’m guessing you never heard of the term Kremenchuk? Imagine my shock.
…. according to a sophist git who doesn’t know where Ukraine’s military industries are and that not all are in the East, and who doesn’t know what ‘Neo-Nazis” are. Very convincing.
But let’s throw out all of that knowledge and pretend your previous claims were right. That still doesn’t mean the decision to fight on is “senseless”, especially given the successes so far. And it still wouldn’t be even if the Ukrainians had been far less successful than they have been.
How?
Well, let me quote a certain Balding British Alcoholic on the matter.
One of the few things Putin’s official narrative is correct on is that Ukrainians and Russians are indeed fraternal peoples who have been united more often than not in history.
The flip side of the coin Putin DOES NOT like talking about- but which was self-evident even more than a century and a half ago to the likes of Nikolai Gogol the Absurdist Novelist and Great Russian Imperialist- is that Ukrainians have a distinct identity from (Northern) Russians as well as distinct interests. And what Gogol pointedly did not want to address is that they’ve had a Long, LONG time to deal with Russian hegemony and abuse, and have plenty of reason to NOT want to go back under the Kremlin’s yoke any time soon.
Considering this war started when the Ukrainian Rada dismissed Yanukovych for (among other things) trying to get the military to use unlimited lethal force against all protestors, it takes a fool to think otherwise.
Well, of all the people (and in Lavrov’s case I use that term loosely) who deserve to be exasperated, Lavrov is near the top of the list. Turns out when you prove to be a treacherous snake and general scumbag, people tend not to like dealing with you. I wonder why?!?
Citation Needed.
Bullshit, The EU wasn’t on the ground in Kyiv at the time this war started, and Biden was just a Vice President at the time.
Moreover, as Zelenskyy pointed out several times, the Kremlin has been more than capable of ignoring peace offers (including Zelenskyy’s own for a demilitarized referendum in the Donbas and Crimea after the withdrawal of all Russian and Ukrainian forces).
Ah yes. So the mask slips to reveal the bloodthirsty, cruel totalitarian within. That “any rational actor” would have counseled the Ukrainians to surrender to a regime that has proven itself several times over to be utterly untrustworthy, utterly perfidious, and quite brutal That failure to agree to these “obviously” “reasonable” terms is a sign that one is not in a rational state of mind, in much the same way as opposition to Marxist-Leninism was a sign of mental psychosis in Sluggish Schizoprhenia.
Disgusting nonsense to hear from you. Poorly argued at that.
Funny, I seem to remember similar proclamations form Putinite trolls around the time of Debaltseve.
Turns out that didn’t work out quite so well.
I suppose the method behind the madness is to keep reiterating the same points in the hopes that eventually one time they’ll be right?
So in addition to being a moral cretin, you have no clue about military science (in spite of trying to lecture us on how Ukraine has no military chance). Typical.
Firstly: Azov aren’t “Nazis”, indeed Azov are the heirs of people the Nazis backstabbed and tried to wipe out for being Ukrainian Fascists who wanted an independent hellish dictatorship rather than a German agricultural slave state.
If you want to know who the Nazis are, check the Wagner Group and Medvedev’s past.
Secondly: As for the reason why Azov and co are fighting on in Mariupol in spite of there being scant to no hope for victory or even relief? Well, have you ever freaking heard of Brest Fortress and what happened to it?
Now I’ll have to re-check my notes on Barbarossa, but the last realistic hope the defenders of Brest Fortress had for rescue or relief ended on June 23rd, 1941, when the Wehrmacht had pushed through the units assigned to act as rapid response.
However, the battle for the city would rage on in full fervor until June 26th, and would not be completely over until June 28th. So why did the Soviet defenders hang on? Well, offhand part of it is probably in order to get some measure of revenge, and also to tie down and make the enemy hurt in order to give more time and thus more hope for their friends and colleagues further away.
To quote one of the great leaders of Russian Military History and the victor of Stalingrad, “Time is Blood.” Making the enemy expend time and blood on your stubborn holdout helps save your own side time and blood down the line and makes it more likely they will suffer for it.
Only? REALLY!?!? So I’m supposed to believe that each and every single civilian that took up arms was given a personal check by the Globalists?
This is simple delusion.
Please spare me the obvious horseshit. Macgregor was on the record predicting a quick war and he was not alone, since we also have official Russian government accounts stating that Ukrainians would greet invading Russian troops as brothers rather than fight.
(Which is particularly delusional given how that’s by and large not how the people in the Donbas- which you would expect to be the most pro-Russian of areas in Ukraine- reacted to invading Russian troops in 2014, but propaganda is rarely about being reasonable).
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-invasion-ukraine-intelligence-putin/31748594.html
The fact that it never gave a timetable is one of the few competent things the Russians did. However, they happily fed exaggerated nonsense to sympathetic “Western Expert Opinions” like Macgregor in order to toot and also talked in general terms of a rapid victory to be gained with little fighting, hence the comparisons to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
That failed miserably.
Anybody who unironically claims the US has done “carpet bombing” since the end of the Indochinese Wars is either an idiot, a liar, or in your case both.
The fact is that the US’s methodology of warfare and that of the West in general is to “make Haste Slowly”, with often lengthy preparation followed by what is supposed to be decisive and quick action, especially when it comes against a conventional military rather than guerillas.
The Russians went into this war monumentally underprepared for the resistance they would face- both in 2014 and in 2022- and have failed to deploy what is supposed to be their own stated doctrine competently.
Even in comparison to more limited conflicts like Chechnya and Georgia.
This isn’t primarily a matter of culture clash with Western analysts failing to understand the “differences “in Russian military doctrine. This is a case of the Kremlin failing in most of what it set out to accomplish.
Bullshit.
And how do we know it’s bullshit?
Well for starters because the only significant areas of resistance the Russians have succeeded in encircling are Mariupol (itself a fringe area far away from the relevant infrastructure but exposed to two Russian axes of advance and the Russian naval presence in the Black Sea) and Kharkhiv, with Mariupol on the verge of falling but Kharkhiv holding strong.
In the meantime, the Russian military conspicuously failed in whatever it was trying to do around Kyiv- probably seizing the border cities to prepare for a siege or storm of the capitol- and pulled back.
And this is before we talk about indiscriminate shelling (which curiously seems to only exist when the Ukrainians do it in spite of the Russians having far more tubes) or the “preservation” of infrastructure and people… or lack of said preservation.
Moreover, the US and other Western forces have shown itself to be fair more willing to delay gratification in order to surround and destroy enemy forces. Indeed, one of the untold problems of Desert Storm is the fact that the advance into Kuwait was supposed to be slow and gradual, so that the main Allied force would hook around to the Gulf Coast and trap the occupation forces in Kuwait.
This failed in large part because the “distraction” force advancing along the coast made such headway that it spooked the Iraqi Garrison which began to bolt ahead of time before the trap closed.
In contrast Putin has typically placed a very high premium on primarily political objectives such as Grozny.
Yeah, bullshit.
The reason why civilian deaths will be far less than in Iraq is primarily because even among your kin few claim that there are nearly as toxic or murderous elements at play in Ukraine as-say- Al Qaeda in Iraq or IS creating the majority of those dead civilians. Ditto the lack of Sadrists.
So you’re comparing apples to oranges and asserting before the fact that this will be some kind of vaunted achievement of the Russian military rather than what it is. Raw failure to execute its own doctrines efficiently.
The same doctrines I might add beyond things like Beslan School and the near-razing of Grozny, two things of which the Kremlin has issued few if any apologies for. So please drop the narrative that the Russian military somehow cares more about civilians than the likes of the IDF or US, it’s simply not true and we know it’s not true.
Dunning-Kruger Hubris, fine people.
Huh, funny.
Because I happen to be a History Major as well, as well as a fat autist who has never seen military service outside of re-enactment LARPing. But who does do a lot of research and knows quite a few people both serving and previously served in assorted military roles and others.
So I can say with some authority that I simply don’t believe what you are saying.
You’re a proven liar (as my analysis of your claims shows), and your level of competence and knowledge is far inferior to not only mine but that of many others. Including a few friends who served on Team Semper Fi and who would be frankly insulted and annoyed at some disgraceful little shit online trying to rah rah *PUTIN’S RUSSIA* as more humanitarian in waging war than they are, whether because you’re a Stolen Valor Charlatan having claimed to be a Marine Reservist (which frankly is my main guess) or because you lack the intellectual honesty and knowledge to NOT disgrace yourself by smearing your organization and former kindred in arms.
I’ll leave which explanation is worse to be decided by those reading through this.
In any case, it’s a sad testimony to how far academia has fallen that I cannot completely cite your provable incompetence and ignorance as grounds to believe you are lying about being a History Major. But it is grounds for me to disregard your posturing at intelligence and knowledge.
Again chowderhead, this is so stupid and wrongheaded a Chinese Flat Earther rebutted it thousands of years before you blighted this word. A rebuttal which- after being translated from the clunky archaic Chinese formulations- reads something like this:
”
Sun Tzu said Know the enemy and know yourself in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril. ”
Perhaps you are familiar with it?
There is a valid reason in consuming Fake News, which is why I periodically do so from both the Left and Kremlin shills.
Indeed, it’s one way I am able to better understand their claims and explode them, such as pointing out how the Kremlin almost certainly knew of US Biological Research in Ukraine since 2010 at the latest, and yet only bothered feigning horror about it a few weeks ago when it was looking for rationales to salvage its performance.
Firstly: Jimmy Dore is a Far-Leftist Historical Idiot and liar, part of whose work I ripped apart here.
https://patriots.win/p/142ArgpjVP/x/c/4OUhJPR2azR?d=50
In short, I pity anybody who trusts what he has to say without due diligence.
Scott Ritter I have heard of but not scrutinized so closely (mostly because I am focusing on primary sources and informed secondary sources like Oryx) but will have to check.
But secondly: the idea that Putin has been making consistent demands for 7 years is simple horseshit.
This war started not over NATO, or Nuclear Weapons, or whatever bullshit excuse it is today, but over an EU Association Agreement.
Now, the EU is not NATO. Moreover, We know Putin knows this.
We also know that Putin is quite happy to adjust his demands in order to perpetuate instability and his leverage, hence the Lucy-with-the-Football elements of his negotiations in Moldova and Georgia, as well as in Ukraine with Minsk and the violations of such.
So please do not try to lecture me on how “consistent” he is, especially since I can read the Astana Accords as well as anyone. It doesn’t hold water.
Correction: Demanding nukes AFTER about 8 years of undeclared war with invading Russian forces in in utter violation of the Budapest Memorandum.
You know, the Budapest Memorandum in which Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for recognition of its sovereignty and territorial integrity?
HUH, NOW WHY WOULD UKRAINE WANT TO CONSIDER GETTING NUCLEAR WEAPONS AGAIN WHEN THAT DEAL PROVED TO BE SO SUCCESSFUL!?!?
Again chowderhead: the party that abrogated Minsk was the Kremlin. As even the Duma’s vote to recognize the DNR and LNR show.
Zelenskyy wasn’t even a politician at the time this war started and Biden was a senile, corrupt foreign VP.
Quit the victim blaming, it’s annoying.
No they wouldn’t.
I realize intellectual honesty and research is too much to hope for from someone like you, but a lot of far smarter and more honest people like RJ Rummel showed that war is not in fact the great killer in human-on-human conflicts. MASS MURDER by one armed faction and one mostly or completely unarmed public is.
Which brings us back to the rather nuanced and deep statement by the aforementioned lionized British alcoholic:
What is worth revisiting about this speech segment is that Churchill knew quite well that under Greco-Roman Law as well as many others, a slave was property who could be killed by their owner (usually the Pater Familias but also others) at whim, for any reason. And indeed this happened quite a lot.
So living as a slave is in fact consigning oneself to a death one has no control over.
Why on Earth would anybody in Ukraine trust the Kremlin to keep its worth after flouting things like Budapest, Minsk, and Astana?
And now we get into the Orwellian bullshit too.
I have little love for the extremes of cancel culture or demonizing people on the basis of nationality and it’s FREAKING SAD that an indie Game Modder had a saner and more rational approach to Russian sanctions than supposedly hallowed institutions like the New York Met did.
However, sanctions have an important effect. They greatly clamp down on an aggressor’s ability to wage war, as the Germans, Japanese, and Soviets all found out.
Moreover, Zelenskyy did not “shut down” “opposition”, he banned a few parties he accused (rightfully or wrongly) of being tied to the Kremlin on grounds similar to the wartime banning of the German-American Bund, with most opposition parties and politicians in Ukraine remaining at place quite handily.
Don’t know, don’t particularly care. War is a hell of a thing at the best of times and we’re not likely to know the answer soon.
Translation: You haven’t studied what “the govt medias” were saying.
PS Chowderhead; Americans generally abbreviate it as “gov’t” rather than “govt.”
Logical Fallacy: Loaded Premise.
You haven’t explained how the strategic situation in Ukraine is hopeless. Ergo Neo has no need to address that.
While I already have, arguing that the strategic situation is far less hopeless than you want to claim (in particular, Poland in mid 1919 faced a strategic situation that was FAAAAAR Worse than Ukraine faced now, but Poland ultimately survived and succeeded). I also addressed why Ukrainians would wish to continue fighting even if things were really as hopeless as you falsely claim they are.
(I also have absolutely zero fucking reason to believe you can competently define what “Fascist” is given how you have mis-used the term Nazi endlessly while “conveniently” ignoring the Fascist links of Russian Eurasianism and the outright Neo-Nazi nature of Wagner Group and Medvedev, but that’s a separate issue.)
So you want to play retroactive psychic and claim that what Macgregor REALLY, TWUELY meant something other than what he was literally saying.
The problem with this bullshit is simple: even on the off chance that your interpretation is correct (and given Macgregor’s incompetence and erroneous track record as well as your own shambolic conduct I have no reason to) that doesn’t change the fact that Macgregor phrased it badly and screwed up. The onus for that is on him.
If the shoe fits and you act like a combative asshole, wear it.
Appeals to your venerable alleged lineage as a commenter and reader do not change that fact. Nor do they make the poor substance of your claims any better.
Probably because you ARE.
If you are lying about being a Marine Reservist, you are a Stolen Valor Fuckhead.
On the off chance you are NOT a Marine Reservist, you are dishonorable scum who decided to smear the USMC and the American Military- as well as those you claim to have served alongside- in order to try and airbrush the record of a regime that still looks back at Beslan as one of its great achievements at showing “strength” and thinks Grozny was an acceptable and moral way of conducting moral warfare.
Pick. One. Hong.
The deranged egotism and resorts to insults also say nothing good about you, nor does your glibness and lack of competence in arguing.
Which is why I don’t like making accusations of Russian Bottery except in jest, not only because it is almost impossible to prove but because I actually have some small amount of sympathy for the actual Russian Bot propagandists and their Chinese kin in the 50 Cent Army, misplaced as said sympathy may be.
Moreover, I’ve also encountered disgusting people willing to say things just as bad or worse for free.
So I don’t have to care about what you “really” are, your conduct and claims literally speak for themselves.
Funny, I can say the same.
Because you are, you dishonest fucking Dunning-Kruger Headcase.
Nor does one have to be a great observational talent with even a fraction of your claimed expertise. I can point to several times you’ve done it in these comments alone, always to put others down without evidence you actually deserve to be up.
Unlikely, for the reasons I mentioned before. You want to smear US Marines (“your fellow” Marines) as being less humane in waging war than the freaking Russian Military, among other shit such as spewing out fallacious accusations of “Fascist” and “Nazi” so much I almost think I’m back in Berkeley.
Once again you simpering ignoramus, this is goddamn rich.
Firstly: As I stated *AGAIN*, learn what the Fuck Nazi means, since you obviously do not. The number of “Nazis” in Ukraine on its side is vanishingly small, even among bad actors like Azov (who are themselves a small and nasty minority that have been out of any semblance of government power for years).
Secondly: Even if this bullshit claim were true it does LITERALLY NOTHING to change the fact that Putin’s Kremlin is the one that started this needless, criminal war by invading Ukraine in 2014. And one way we know it was criminal was because Putin felt the need to LIE that his invasion was actually an invasion, hence the origin of the “Little Green Men” slang.
I am not daft or naive enough to think the Ukrainian Government is a Parliament of Angels and that those fighting under its banner have done no wrong, though I do submit we will not understand the magnitude of such for quite some time. However, by any stretch of the imagination they are far less villainous than the Russian regime.
After all, they have never invaded anyone.
Valid points, though I note you are also not curious about why many pro-regime Russian Oligarchs have such ties.
Also as for “when gas hits $6” that’s largely the product of the Left appeasing Russia (and often being funded by Putin) in order to clamp down on Trump’s quest for energy independence.
But I suppose you don’t want to talk about that.
Says the rather shameless egotist.
Not true. Indeed, the Left has scaremongered about Russia so long I actually discounted their reports and scares that Putin would invade Ukraine, among other things.
Indeed what’s at least as telling is not merely the accusations they made, but also the accusations they DID NOT make, such as how Putin has been bankrolling Leftist and “Green” Parties to attack the West’s energy independence while palling around with generally nasty, bad actors.
Correct, at least for now.
HAHAHA. Bullshit.
The number of nations whose economies get better or stronger under Autarky is very, very small. And Russia is not proving to be one of them.
Here’s a decent overview of the problems, with the Russian Government going all-in to stabilize the economy in the short to medium term at the expense of greatly undercutting its prospects in the medium term onwards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEpk_yGjn0E
Especially if they cannot get massive amounts of Chinese and Middle Eastern support for this.
But sure brah, tell me how Glorious Mother Rossiya does not have to worry about interest rates, because it’s SOOO convincing when it comes from the Fed in spite of the Fed being in a relatively stronger position.
Bolstered by massive censorship, persecution of dissent, and (as things like Herod’s Law showed) outright rigging the polls when needed. Not very convincing stuff.
Both sides are giving aid to each other in different ways, with Russia primarily supplying things like naval frames to the PRC in exchange for currency.
How that’ll evolve will see.
But in any case, the Kremlin sure as hell used the Olympics to hammer out some far reaching agreements with China, so they obviously predicted that they would need Chinese support soon.
Citation Fucking Needed.
Especially considering that if the leaks from Russia are to be believed (and they are far more believable than the bullshit Russian official stats from a regime with a bad habit of cremating its own dead in order to keep official losses low) 15,000 killed is actually an UNDERSTATEMENT now.
In contrast, while Ukraine has done its own brand of propaganda in reporting and claiming losses, it has generally been much more honest and less outright deluded than their Russian counterparts. Anybody remember when the Kremlin supposedly claimed the destruction of the Ukrainian Air Force in the first day?
Yeah, no wonder that’s getting scrubbed from the interwebs.
Citation Needed.
Then I’m sure you can prove it.
This is tortured bullshit at its finest on a couple different levels.
Firstly: A successful “feint” can be capitalized on to great Effect, as things like Operation Compass show. The Russian military was obviously not in that shape, as show by the bitter fighting in the cities Northwest of Kyiv.
Secondly: on the unlikely prospect that it was a feint, it was one of the most clumsily executed and costly in post-Cold War History.
The fact that the Russians decided to withdrawal shows a degree of institutional maturity in their military beyond what I had expected after the miscarriages on the first day, but not by much.
I haven’t seen many people claim Russia is out of “gas” in general, though there has been speculation on shortages of things like aviation fuel backed up by decreased flight areas.
For now, though considering how draftees have “mysteriously” shown up in Ukrainian Combat Zones and the shock shock shock from the government leadership should raise some obvious questions.
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-700779
What’s shameless is your conduct. Incompetent, dishonest, disgraceful, and arrogant to boot.
This is rich coming from an idiot who repeatedly blathered about “Nazis” in Ukraine, thus showing they have no idea about what Nazism actually is and that they have regurgitated the old Leftist propaganda standby of calling everybody they don’t like “Fascists” and “Nazis” in spite of the evidence.
I won’t, but at least I can say I do not shoulder the blame for it.
Neo:
So “Boring” that you reply and then BLOCK me. Pathetic
Om:
I’m sorry you’re babbling again. Maybe if you take that dildo out of your mouth. Heh
Hong:
That was particularly clever, for you.
Bless your heart.
Has Vlad refloated the submersible cruiser Moskva?
Hong:
Here you go, something to read. But you man Vlad won’t like you if you do:
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/04/21/ukraines-future-depends-on-these-three-fights-that-russia-must-win-n553893
Lie back and think of Roosia.
The Winter War and Vlad’s Little Adventure:
“Historical Comparison: Finland’s Winter War vs Russian Invasion of Ukraine”
from forgottenweapons.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sbmgOiQWjc
You know, if you really cared about Ukraine and its future as a sovereign state, you might want to pay a little bit of attention to all the things you’ve been told so far that turned out not to be true. And then you might want to think about all the things you’re not being told, like…for example…any of the secondary impacts of the sanctions being imposed on Russia.
But if Ukraine is just another blog pissing match, please do carry on.
Mike
@I Am Spartacus
Congratulations on the victory! For whatever our differences on this or any other issues, it’s good to hear news like this against the left.
Anyway…
This is a fair point, and frankly I have come around to just assuming that many or most sources you get are lying or at least spinning to you. Which is one reason why I trust fairly few sources.
Indeed, and that is what I have done too, with the likes of Neo, VDH, and some others being among the few.
That’s a poor comparison and the logic doesn’t hold.
Above all, the WWII German Army lost because it fought a coalition of vastly superior enemies on at least two and arguably three fronts while struggling to hold down a continental-sized occupation.
Had the Wehrmacht, SS, and allies only had to fight the Soviets on one front, they almost certainly would have won in much the same way the Central Powers actually won the Eastern Front in WWI even while contending with a host of fronts from France to Italy through the Balkans to the Middle East. And indeed in fighting a one front war German or Germanic armies have generally had a pretty favorable win/loss ratio against Russian ones (nowhere near as good as Wehraboos would like to believe given things like the Battle on the Ice and the victorious showing the Russians had against Frederic the Great of Prussia, but pretty good).
Indeed, as it stands the European Axis in WWII came far closer to defeating or at least crippling the Soviets than if often held, given how by early 1943 the Soviet Union was in an acute food supply collapse, with even massive food aid from the US and other Allies being able to only slow the descent into massive internal famine. A near-miss that was avoided by the decisive counter-attacks in 1943 that recaptured many of the Black Earth regions of Ukraine and Central Russia while restoring contact to those in the Caucasus. And even then the system was so badly damaged that the USSR suffered a post-war famine in 1947 which still has repercussions neither Russia or Ukraine have fully recovered from.
TIK covers this fairly well in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46sqhBhHJ-M
Moreover, while the “inexhaustible Russian human waves” School of historiography has always been flawed, the Soviet Union and other Allies in WWII won it through massive sacrifice of manpower that’s simply untenable here even if there was the political will to declare this an open war and send conscripts in.
Ukraine’s still in an unenviable position, facing threats from nearly 280 degrees against enemy forces that significantly outnumber and outgun them. But that’s far better than the situation the Axis faced by 1945.
They also have very secure rear areas (especially West of the Dneiper), extensive support from the West and even nonaligneds, and a distinct lack of collaborationist mobilization outside of Crimea and the Donbas (at least for now).
To those students of history that feel this sounds familiar, that’s because it is quite similar to the situation the Poles faced in 1919-1920 and arguably a bit better since the Poles still had major and often violent conflicts in their West, South, and North.
That does not mean that Ukraine will win or even survive. But it would be reckless to assume that it will inevitably lose, especially with overladen comparisons to WWII. Particularly seeing how thoroughly the regular Russian Military has underperformed even my own learned amateur assessments.
Fair enough. I read and watch DPA and the Indian Times significantly; was not impressed by the times I read The Dreizin Report and “Meaning of History”, especially given how the latter seems to downplay the importance of historiography (especially in authoritarian systems like Russia).
For my own part I have an eclectic bunch of sources, often on Video Format like Perun at Youtube and a few others. I also consult with a few friends or friendly acquaintances who I either know have experience or have AT A MINIMUM convincingly bullshatted that they do (I don’t have the same kind of evidence for all of them) and I cited a couple on my first comment on this site way back when about how Russia would actually secure Bioweapon or Biological Labs.
I’m not too surprised at that given how Nuland and Kagan have not only a long history of lying but also being quite bad about it (such as the initial and incompetent denials about US Sponsoring biological research in Ukraine, which I noticed was incompetent, easy to disprove, and gave ammo for almost-certainly-just-as-bullshit propaganda from the Kremlin about Bioweapons Research).
That said, I have been greatly annoyed by The Saker carrying provable horseshit not just from the Russian regime but also from assorted Russian-friendly terrorist states like Iran, especially since I have been paying fairly close attention to the latter.
Moreover, as much as I despise Nuland and Kagan I still find it a hint distasteful to make the Goebbels comparisons about them in a war in which Russian propaganda- both by the regime and by affiliated NGOs- echoes Goebbels and other NSDAP rhetoric towards Austria in the 1930s.
Not really to be honest, though the fact that I keep only half a look at Legacy Media and the MSM doesn’t help.
The main focus from what I remember was if Russia is either running low on munitions or other supplies AT THE FRONTLINE due to overextension and/or interdiction (which does seem to be a problem the Russian military has worked to rectify by pulling back, consolidating, and resting, especially in the North) or due to shortages of *precision* weapons, which are quite a different species from plain munitions as both far more complex and expensive but also usually far more effective.
Both seem to be fairly true. Russia’s logistics problems have been well noted for about a century, especially when operating outside of the railheads, and the heavy reliance on seized equipment from the enemy and even civilians (which among other issues causes problems due to how they’re not really designed optimally for military logistics or hauling demands) indicates it is running into problems supplying moving fronts, which coupled with the sky high supply usage in medium-to-high intensity combat had predictable effects.
https://mwi.usma.edu/russias-logistical-problems-may-slow-down-russias-advance-but-they-are-unlikely-to-stop-it/
That by itself isn’t particularly crippling unless units were cut off and either mauled or destroyed (like we’re seeing with the Ukrainian garrison of Mariupol or the Russian failure at Hostomel), particularly since the Russians apparently knew this and decided to pull back and consolidate- in particular abandoning their “feint” that was probably not a feint near Kyiv altogether and heading back to Belarus for rest and recuperation, which is probably the mature and correct move.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZUMJ_T1YB
The Smart Weapons shortage is a bit harder to detect especially in the fog of war but it seems to be manifesting in the fairly poor effect of Russian artillery and bombing fire, as well as how much of it seems to be done quick and dirty.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairw/articles/20151019.aspx
https://southfront.org/russian-warplanes-are-now-using-guided-glide-bombs-to-hit-targets-in-ukraine/
This is particularly important for a military trying to fight a war of this scale as the attacker (which Russia is primarily due to its extremely aggressive stated war goals) and on the thin without doing things like calling for a formal declaration of war and mobilization for war production (as Russia is). I’m not a big fan of the Cult of the Guerilla/Insurgent/Etc that tends to pop up and that Afghanistan has only worsened, but the fact is that a bunch of people with Kalashnikovs may not be super effective against a top tier conventional military, but they can cause a lot more trouble more efficiently than the military can clear them out.
And they certainly can be more effective against said top tier conventional military’s SUPPORT forces, as we have seen time and again from our own Patriots pantsing on Royalist American troops during the Revolution, to the Chinese wiping out collaborationist Chinese puppet government troops by slaughter or recruitment, to now with the rather dismal state of the DNR and LNR troops (particularly since Russia is no longer funneling as many ripe young recruits from the national military to it).
But that together and it says we should estimate expensive and complex stuff to blow up, break down, or run low first, that this will be particularly true for units close to the front in combat, and that this holds true for all sides.
It’s going to be most evident for the Russians in places like around Kyiv because they’re essentially fighting alone, having to haul what they can or carry equipment and supplies they can with them (barring what they can forage) while Ukrainians are operating closer to their logistical bases and can also count on significant support from locals (whether as partisans popping out of the woodworks with Babushka’s old Mosin-Nagant or making a Tik Tok of passing Russian convoys that can be vetted by some artillery supported).
Conversely, the Ukrainians will find it hardest in Crimea (if they try to campaign there) or the Donbas (if they don’t) due to similar issues and closeness to the Russian border and its umpteen artillery tubes and air bases.
Yah, about that. That REALLY isn’t news. Those of us who have been watching this war since it broke out back in 2014 have been expecting the Ukrainian ORBAT to be mostly armed with a collection of homegrown/indigenous production and Western support, and that has so far panned out exactly as you’d expect (with small arms being the least commonly replaced among line troops in comparison to-say- middling complication equipment like portable AT and AA weapons).
That’s not because we’re savants (or at least not primarily because I’m one- I may be a savant registered at MENSA but I sure as farq called a bunch of things in this crisis wrong such as Putin not committing to an open invasion).
It’s because that’s generally how high intensity hot wars work, especially in the “Developing World.”
Yaaah…about that:
Anybody who told you there was “no let up on the Russian side” is misinformed, stupid, or lying to you. Especially given the pullbacks on the Northern Fronts and attempts at consolidation at a few other places like Kherson (which you’ll probably note hasn’t been in the news as much).
The large sweeping advances of the first couple of weeks have mostly died down on both sides, in large part because the Ukrainians are on the defensive and the Russians realized fairly early on they cannot really supply three/four different axial advances at the same time even if/when they have the logistical capabilities.
So we’ve seen a general decrease in combat scale and a shift towards more positional warfare, especially with the Russians trying to grind down Mariupol to secure the Sea of Azov.
Another part of this comes from the fact that true to form, all sides essentially underestimated the amount of equipment they’d need on hand to support this tempo of operations after nearly a decade of relatively limited war in which the Ukrainians and Russians fought each other in a mostly static Cold-Trench-War kind of situation in the Donbas without official recognition, while the Russians fought as surgical auxiliaries of Assad’s government in Syria.
This is a pretty common problem to be honest and seems to accompany most nations on the outbreaks of modern war going back to at least the Russo-Japanese War. It is perhaps most famous for things like the British Shell Shortage of 1915, the infamous (and exaggerated) Soviet equipment losses in the opening stages of Barbarossa, the far-from-exaggerated Japanese armaments with improv weapons at the end, and our own DOD. But this is pretty common.
The fact is, nobody quite expected a hot war between Russia and Ukraine to play out like it has. Certainly not me. That seems to have extended to the leadership of Ukraine and PARTICULARLY Russia, given the number of false starts and whatnot the latter made.
Now with the assorted sides trying to take stock of the first rounds, iron out their logistics chains, and figure out roughly how this war can be expected to go it’s not surprising we’re seeing a mad rush by both sides to try and get what supplies and equipment they can and then get that to the frontlines.
The Ukrainians probably have a slight to modest advantage in terms of getting the stuff and moving it to the “Second Mile” given their Western backers and the infrastructure in Western Ukraine while the Russians probably have a robust advantage on equipment count on the whole, but both are going to be suffering from similar problems.
If your sources didn’t tell you this, there’s a problem with them.
Yeah, about that; “Where are all the pictures of Destroyed Russian armored vehicles”?
The go to source now is Oryx, found here.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
I’m not sure their exact identity or agenda (though it seems to be anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine) and I’m certain they are not perfect (and to be fair neither do they) but they have made the intention of trying to list all equipment losses that can be identified by pictures and/or geolocation by both sides in this war. And they have made a particularly heroic effort in this regards and I think their equipment lists speak volumes.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
And for their list on Ukrainian equipment losses:
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-ukrainian.html
And it’s particularly worth noting because the lists only contain those that have been (supposedly) photographed and identified specifically, meaning we should expect actual losses to be higher.
By all means, peruse with a critical eye and don’t believe everything you read or even everything you see.
But even if you-say- chop the numbers in half and assume that half the listed Russian tank losses were really mis-labeled Ukrainian ones (Which I REALLY DOUBT for a bunch of reasons going from equipment numbers to icons; some probably slipped through but not that many) the Russians have still lost far more equipment than the Ukrainians have, which is worse because they are on the offensive.
And if we assume that at most a couple of dozen tanks of error there, we’re still looking at the losses of about 2% of the Russian AFV fleet in about a month and a half of combat operations. That’s NOT a good rate, particularly when we realize that the losses are probably concentrated most on their most modern and well-equipped tech in Line Unit use.*
* That doesn’t mean they don’t have BETTER stuff like the Armata, but it does mean that they probably do not have enough of it to be comfortable deploying it in this war.
This is one of the better assessments I’ve seen on the issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lem3enNkbV0
And again, these are just the “confirmable” losses; the actual ones are probably higher but can’t be confirmed for various reasons due to the fog of war.
The fact that the Russian government’s been caught cremating their own dead to keep the death toll low does not help.
I’m not sure where the heck you’ve got that idea, but while I am far from an avid watcher of the MSM/”Legacy Media” Bucha is still talked about fairly regularly unlike the Ghost of Kyiv and Snake Island.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-forensic-experts-bucha-help-ukraine-investigate-possible-war-crimes-2022-04-12/
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/21/ukraine-russian-forces-trail-death-bucha
The reason for why it’s talked about LESS is probably simple and comparatively uncontroversial: It’s the Media Cycle and the MSM has gotten bored/tired of it, especially since an investigation will take a while before its results can be “weaponized.”
Fair, and this touches on my point regarding how we should expect some fairly massive demands on equipment and shortages of it by both combatants about now, when the war has shown itself to be way more demanding than either side anticipated but the infrastructure hasn’t been rolled out or modified to handle the increased demand.
The issue this post has is that it’s emphasizing only one side of the problem, Ukraine’s, rather than Russia’s.
I’d downgrade it to being “EXTREMELY true” in terms of the talks on US/NATO equipment shortages but then waxing down to dubious later.
And this is the part I’d argue is extremely true and which you likely have direct knowledge of.
Possible but all but unknowable at present.
Now this is pure freaking disinformatsiya mixed in with copium.
Again, it’s hard to calculate the exact impact of the Javelins (let alone when mixed with the wider war) but it’s clearly not been “no dividends” as the huge list of confirmed losses in Russian vehicles and equipment shows.
That doesn’t mean that the US or other Allies has been producing nearly enough to win the war, especially a war as hot as this one or worse like a World War. Especially since- again- the US has mostly geared its demands towards Medium to low Intensity Wars with artisanal and often old equipment hand crafted by the Unionized Master Craftsman in the fires of Mount Doom (also known as Lima) and its relatives, which would be inadequate for a direct peer on peer conflict and has been found wanting in the pace of a proxy conflict like this.
Hence the talks on stepping up production.
But the Russians have clearly been smarting from aid like this, and it has played a significant role in driving up their costs.
This is also true, but it also applies to Russia. If anything it does so even more harshly due to sanctions.
Which also dovetails with what I’ve said regarding the shortage of smart munitions the Russians are probably facing. They’re nowhere near Two Men One Rifle Terrain (which they really weren’t at even in Stalingrad) but it’s probably dear enough to be worth rationing.
And as far as that goes, I absolutely agree.
The issue I raise in opposition is: What military or great power IS prepared to get into a major conventional war? Or at least, is MORE prepared to get into such a war than the US is?
Because I legitimately cannot think of one outside of maybe India, which benefits from being a relatively Classical Liberal-Conservative Capitalist Republic (especially Under Modi) with the benefits of a high birth rate and hardiness skirmishing with the Chinese and Pakistanis (and generally winning lately).
Russia’s rather sub-par performance well below my own and most other analysts’ track record indicates that isn’t the case here. Especially given the fairly deep well the US has in terms of NCOs and retired troops (to the point where the Left has had to habitually prune them down in order to keep control).
What’s worse is that the Russian military has- outside of a few very specific cases (usually at times of national crisis) been thoroughly feared and disliked as authoritarian, corrupt, and a borderline death. That’s only gotten worse nowerdays with the heavy influence of “Beasting” and corruption by the “Grandfathers” that rule over the conscripts with an iron fist, shake downs from organized crime, and other rot.
What’s worse is that the Russian military basically does not have the kind of history or tradition of Middle Management leadership or NCOs that goes back to at least Rome in the West and was continued even in the age of Levies by entities like the Sergeants of Medieval Armies. Officers are revered and feared as little gods and generally obeyed rather sternly, but also expected to do way too much. Which in a fluid war is a bad bad thing.
So in a battle between the One Eyed and the Blind I have to think that the US would defeat Russia in a conventional war if only because it is significantly less-“less prepared” to wage one than Russia seems to be.
Of course I could be wrong on that, but the fighting in Ukraine does little to quell that. Especially when you realize the Russians lost one of their Naval Capital Ships to a nation whose navy they managed to all but capture completely during the Crimeaschluss of 2014.
And I certainly am not wrong on the issues.
Agreed there, though I note the Russian military has largely faced similar issues and it’s starting to show.
Sorry, but the idea that Putin’s military is “robust but lean” made me laugh out loud.
Anybody claiming the Russian military is “robust but lean” has either not been paying close attention to it for the past half century (when the Dedovshchina really took hold) or is shoveling fertilizer, and for the reasons I mentioned.
The Russian military of today is a formidable and intimidating shell of what it once was and heir to a bunch of “worst of both worlds” scenarios, since you have a simultaneously expensive but underfunded military (especially in the conventional arms) comprised of limited callups of conscripts who are further beaten down by older/more senior conscripts, under the rule of officers who tend to be staggeringly corrupt and often dubiously competent and who are largely promoted on the bases of
A: Loyalty
B: Type A Micromanaging.
and
C: Efficiency at carrying out peacetime stuff.
None of this bred a terribly efficient war machine except maybe by contrast to others. And moreover, “lean” is not always a good thing as the list of killed Russian senior officers in Ukraine shows (which again due to Russian military culture basically cuts the head off of those units).
It’s a bad system. Moreover, the Russians KNOW on some level that’s a bad system, which is why they have been trying to institute gradual reforms for the last few decades in order to make it more functional, professional, meritocratic, and less likely to trigger a shitshow from what passes for Russian public opinion.
https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-post/best-or-worst-both-worlds
But obviously you can’t put the world on hold while waiting for this to complete, and Putin’s generally been banking on this system (which let’s be fair is STILL one of the most powerful and relatively capable in the world in absolute terms) to be “Good enough” to deal with the likes of Chechen and Dagestani Rebels, the Georgians, Syrian Revolters, and now Ukraine.
Experience indicates that last one might not have been so.
Moreover, the fact is that the US clearly didn’t merely expect “sanctions,” “virtue signaling”, and “nukes” to keep Putin at bay, as shown by the weapons shipments through Trump’s Presidency and now the rule of Biden and co.
On that much we agree completely.
However, we are going to furiously disagree on WHY it happened.
Sorry, but this sounds incredibly tortured.
Firstly: Russia’s always been fairly happy to trade its resources to the Deep Statists, Globalists, and the like. Indeed, one of the problems that’s been manifest (ESPECIALLY now with the US and particularly Germany but also with much of its “near abroad”) has been the influence cheap Russian resources (and the accompanying power) has had on global politics. Indeed, it was a major cause for the ongoing tariff wars between Russia and other nations like Ukraine and Belarus that have been going on for longer than I’ve been alive.
Secondly: The idea that the Deep Staters have always been seeking regime change in Russia is dubious at best, especially given the repeated attempts of Swamp Creatures to reach out to Putin and other Russian governments early in their tenures.
Thirdly: None of this changes the fact that the war happened in Ukraine, as a result of Russian invasion of it, starting in 2014 and escalating now. So talks about Globalist regime change in Russia and Russian resources are frankly not the cause of the war.
This strikes me as tortured on multiple levels.
Firstly: “Allowed” Putin to kick off this operation? I don’t think Putin needs permission to do much from this. He certainly did not need permission to invade Crimea and the Donbass in 2014 or Georgia in 2008.
Secondly: define “crossed” in the “crossed Russia’s vital interest line.” Because depending on how you measure it the “West Wing”ers you argue have been doing remarkably little different prior to the invasion in 2014.
And thirdly: if we’re going to talk about resources, regime changes, ambitions, and vital interest lines, perhaps it would be fit to ask what Ukraine’s vital interest line is?
After all, it is a sovereign and independent country and even the Russian regime has paid lip service to that with things such as the Budapest Memorandum, the Astana Accord, and so forth. The fact that the Kremlin seems unwilling to actually honor such terms just points to its particular brand of great power hypocrisy, and the at least public statements about the “historic unity” of Russians and Ukrainians goes back to a problem noticed by Khmelnitsky the Elder back in 1654: that the Muscovite Autocrats lived so very far away and cared so very little about the rights and interests of the people living in Ukraine for all the pretenses to kinship of blood, faith, and language.
The Ukrainian people have suffered immensely from this war and others, as well as from the often arbitrary, capricious, and abusive treatment of assorted governments in the Kremlin, because many things have changed in Russian political culture but some things have not. In any case if how Putin treated Yanukovych trying to seek an EU Association Agreement is any indicator (let alone how he egged Yanukovych on to use lethal arms against all protests), those mice have little hope or prospect for much of a future in the “fraternal embrace” of Putin’s Russia.
Which is where trite comparisons fall short. Even pawns can make moves of their own, and Elephants are often startled by mice. So why would the mice not seek to align themselves with the elephant they perceive is best?
Especially in a context of Ukrainian history and culture, where they dealt with hundreds of years of Russian (mis)rule, nearly twenty years of corrupt broadly pro-Russian government that still could not settle things like the pipeline legal disputes, and now this.
We already are, and so will Russians and yet others.
I have been fairly polite in this response to you, IM Spartacus, up to this point, particularly since I have not had to deal with you before and not seen patent argument in bad faith or dishonesty.
But now you want to argue I share the guilt of this?
I say FUCK You, I Am Spartacus.
Even the worst possible interpretation of the events in Ukraine for the past couple of decade made with the least love for Globalist goons, Deep Staters, the Swamp, Soros, and co cannot change the very basic Fact:
For all of the talks about “Russia’s” interests, Russia’s resources, and regime change in Russia, war came to Ukraine in the form of Little Green Men sent by the Russian Kremlin (starting with Putin) on false pretenses to terrorize, arrest, or kill all those who opposed them in a supposedly “Fraternal” nation, with the goal of dismembering said nation, back in 2014. And we know it was on false pretenses- again- because Putin and his government blatantly lied to the world about it until a point when they felt no need to do so further, at which point they justified it using rhetoric and methodology on par with what Hitler and Goebbels did in Austria and Czechoslovakia.
Everything that has happened since then has largely followed from that singular action. You might be able to argue as you have secondary or indirect causation for the action due to pressure from Nuland, or Kagan, or Soros, or a host of other actors of real and imagined infamy, the fact is that it was Putin who gave the orders that started this war, and who earlier had encouraged Yanukovych to give criminal orders to the Ukrainian military that led to his summons for questioning by, flight from, and deposition by the democratically elected Ukrainian Rada that had taken office alongside him.
As such, there is nobody in this story who bares greater responsibility for this than Vladimir Putin and those in his circle and among his foreign allies (such as Xi) who encouraged him in his actions. Those who do not take the time to study these pertinent facts but who claim otherwise share in a lesser degree of that guilt.
Ah yes, classic magical thinking. That if we do not agree with your chosen sources and interpretations for whatever reason (perhaps because we have other sources than the likes you are relying on and know things like where photos of alleged destroyed Russian equipment are), we are Fukuyaman uotpians , in sharp contrast to you the “grim realists” such as MacGregor the charlatan and Huntington (one of my favorite authors by the way).
Here’s an alternative take: If you are indeed in a Clash of Civilizations, it’s a bad idea to let a regime that positions itself as a hostile civilizational force to break agreed upon international laws and agreements in order to aggrandize its power. Not because of Fukuyaman dreams about the inevitability of conservative capitalist constitutionalism’s triumph but for the opposite: the very fact that said capitalist constitutionalism has been defeated before and might well be so again. That it is unwise to trust any regime that cannot be trusted beyond the bounds of its interests, particularly if said regime views its interests as diametrically opposed to yours (As Mark Steyn pointed out nearly 20 years ago in America Alone regarding Putin’s Russia and Red China), and that one should exploit the fallout made by strategic rivals making missteps.
Missteps like-say- crudely denigrating the importance of Ukrainian public opinion and economic concerns even among Pro-Russian parts of the populace by demanding the Ukrainian government stop pursuing an Association Agreement, and then launching an invasion when that backfired.
In any case, since Putin’s Russia has proven to be an utterly untrustworthy partner in peace and diplomacy at the best of times- to the point where it is not at all clear he will support “Christiandom” over Islamic apocalyptics- I do not fault anyone for viewing him as a threat to be eliminated or neutered. He certainly can’t be trusted to keep a common front against the likes of the Iranian Mullahcracy or the Green New Deal Utopians and is actively in bed with some Islamists like Kadryov and the Red Chinese, so what is he exactly good for? Occasionally supporting the less-worse Islamists and Third World Autocrats? We can get that from our own domestic tyrants thanks. Championing muh “muscular Christianity/Russian Civilization” while empowering Kadyrov’s quest to turn Chechnya into an Islamist state and assorted Neo-Pagan lunatics like Dugin while stomping on the most functional and “based” parts of the West like Poland and the Baltics?
In spite of the lengths of my statements I’m actually not that fanatical about Ukraine, in as much I do support supplies for Ukraine and hope they defeat and humiliate Putin (and that this humiliation leads to his removal), but not so much I want to intervene particularly forcefully or think we should send our entire Stinger stockpile there. America must come first and it has its own domestic tyrants to slay.
But the world would be a much, Much better place without Putin spending decades acting as an untrustworthy backstabber, and I have no reason to want him to be more powerful or trust him to be so. Especially since he serves as a convenient boogeyman and demonization tool for the Left to seize power (and also an occasional source of funds for them on things like the war on energy independence). He’s an unwelcome distraction from the clash with Dar al Islam’s most messianic and deranged members, the Red Chinese”Central State”, and our own Green-Red Post-Modern Marxist tyrants and cultural decadence.
Like Mark Steyn was back when he wrote America Alone, I am through pretending that a quarter century of appeasement might make him into something he is not and almost certainly never will be.
I am also through with humoring the idea that the Moscow Kremlin has some kind of practical or realistic right to continue abusing the nations on its borders in a way that would’ve made even Teddy Roosevelt blanche, and moreover that it is inherently within America’s “interest” To grant such a hostile and seemingly irreconcilable foe such an allowance. To the extent we should accept or tolerate it, it should be for a purpose.
Hong’s views are interesting to me because they are not unique in the world, although uncommon on this blog.
I read a long post that comes close to what I interpret to be Hong’s perception, by a former NATO military analyst and East European expert.
His credentials, listed at the bottom of the post, are impressive (although I have no real way of vetting them), so he can’t be dismissed as a fringe alarmist.
I don’t take the position that he means is correct, because we have those 51 credentialed American Foreign Policy and Intelligence Experts who assured us that Hunter Biden’s Laptop was a Russian plant.
https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/09/former-nato-military-analyst-blows-the-whistle-on-wests-ukraine-invasion-narrative/
That his post contradicts most of what we are hearing on both the Right and the Left in America needs to be considered.
However, there is clearly a large chasm between the Movie Screens being watched (since Hong referred to Scott Adams, I will use his analogy).
In the past, Adams merely suggested the various factions were getting different key points from the same movie*, but now we don’t even have our theaters in the same universe.
See Tracinski’s post for a refresher on the general consensus, for comparison.
I got the above link from his commenter kaay; see also David Foster’s comment immediately following, and some others giving various views of the controversy, one of whom recommends a post by Matt Taibbi as a cautionary view of both extremes.
https://quillette.com/2022/04/19/ukrainians-are-nobodys-pawns/
Another excellent post, from an American who has studied Russia since an early age, lived & worked there for many years, married & had a child, and has now left because he could not safely continue his opposition to the Russian invasion.
https://quillette.com/2022/04/16/casualties-of-war/
*Same movie, different views.
An eye-opening analogy to reading political punditry ostensibly about the same events.
https://www.zootopianewsnetwork.com/2017/07/zootopia-but-in-7-different-genres.html
For instance, compare what Piers Anthony is saying about his interview with Donald Trump to what Trump says to what the unedited audio of the interview shows.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/20/my-fiery-showdown-with-donald-trump-over-his-stolen-election-claims/
https://nypost.com/2022/04/21/trump-refutes-claim-he-walked-out-of-piers-morgan-interview/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/20/deceptive-edits-audio-contradicts-piers-morgan-shows-he-warped-trump-interview-ending-in-promo/
Mic drop comment: “Piers Morgan is the kind of guy you’d want to grab a beer with after receiving a terminal diagnosis—so you’d feel better about dying.”
@AesopsFan
Fair, but I guess I find them to be rather uninteresting because I run into them fairly frequently, and Hong seems to be a particularly unpleasant and disingenuous carrier of them in contrast to some others I have clashed with like I Am Spartacus or Geoffrey Britain
As someone who has slogged through a lot of nonsense, lies, and worse by people with authentic and impeccable lists of credentials (such as an idiot who claimed that King Kong was racist against Black People with absolutely zero concept of a country where one of the most iconic images was of Kaiser Wilhelm II portrayed as a giant ape and where King Kong himself was portrayed somewhat sympathetically), I have no such qualms. That doesn’t mean I will assume they are such off the bat, but it means that titles cannot bring respect or honesty to a fundamentally dishonest or disreputable claim or person.
The problem is that right of the bat of this post, I already see massive piles of horseshit.
This is as far as I’ve read and I can already tell the author is being ludicrously dishonest and intentionally omitting some pretty hefty context by starting the story with the “referendums” on May as the “roots” of the conflic.t
For the record: Russian troops operating under false flag and fake pretexts started invading Crimea no later than February 27th, which they would use to help engineer the secession of Crimea from Ukraine and its annexation to Russia under terms recognized by international law (such as it is) as well as common sense as untrustworthy and illegal.
We now know beyond a doubt that this was a foreign invasion meant to dictate terms in Crimea because Putin has admitted as such in things like “Crimea: The Road Home.”
This is important for our story because it tells us two things about this.
Firstly: that the Russian Government will happily break both international law and bilateral treaties in order to forcibly seize Ukrainian territory.
Secondly: that the Russian government will generally lie about its involvement and that of Russian forces until it sees no point or serious harm in doing otherwise, usually fobbing off these invasions as spontaneous manifestations of pro-Russian/anti-Ukrainian sentiment that may or may not be real (certainly Crimea and the Donbas had plenty of supporters of the Russian troops) but which is ultimately tertiary to the conduct.
We also know that the Russian military invaded the Donbas in a similar fashion, as officially de-nationalized “Little Green Men” with similar goals; to communicate with any anti-government pro-Russian elements and oversee the forced takeover of the territories from Ukrainian government officials.
https://www.rferl.org/a/british-online-research-group-says-more-evidence-found-of-russian-role-in-donbas-conflict/30116665.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-troops-in-donbas-court-document-amid-concern-invasion/
In light of these things and the commanding role the Russian military and its Commander in Chief can be proven to have played in Ukraine during the crucial months of early 2014, quibbling over whether the fundamentally illegal and coercive referendums overseen by a mixture of occupying Russian troops and armed paramilitaries sympathetic to them was about “autonomy” within Ukraine or “independence” within them is well and truly missing the forest for the sake of the trees. And whether or not Putin actually objected to these referendums (which I frankly laugh at the concept), he certainly allowed them to go through in spite of understanding how irregular and … “dubious” they would be with the support of serving Russian Federation troops in a foreign country without said country’s authorization, under false pretenses.
Nor should we assume that a declaration of “autonomy” rather than “independence” is some kind of great gift to Ukraine, given how Putin’s happily used promises of “autonomy” for Transnistria and the Gaguz within Moldova to try and destabilize a reunified Moldova.
So I don’t really need to read much further than that to establish that someone is really fucking trying to ignore the obvious and is peddling Kremlin propaganda to do so.
I MIGHT return to this and analyze or fisk it in more detail….. But frankly do I really need to?
Moreover from the few paragraphs I read, it seems like this analysis has a few smell test failures.
Firstly:
Firstly: This supposed NATO genius gets another point I keep hammering the fuck out of wrong: That the “overthrow of President Yanukovych” did not result in a “new government.” It resulted in a preliminary government consisting of the Rada elected alongside with Yanukovych and what few members of his Cabinet were deemed to be not engaged in criminal nonsense (…or at least criminal nonsense the Rada cared about) moving to hold a snap election.
This is not a “putsch” but an irregular but still constitutional method of removing the Head of State. The fact that Kremlin propaganda and those regurgitating it state that it was a “putsch” is one of the more tedious and provably wrong things about this. The fact that this Rada had previously been praised by Putin for its generosity in Ukrainian language rights is telling.
For instance, completely unmentioned by this shuckster is the fact that this was THE SAME RADA- sans some member changing- that approved the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law in the first place, having been ushered in during the General Election of 2010 and not being ushered out until the Snap Election of May 25th, 2014, by which time the war was well and truly started.
So this supposed Finely Credentialed NATO Gorilla Warfare Expert doesn’t know basics of Parliamentary Procedure as applicable to the Ukraine or a basic timeline of Ukrainian elections. Truly confidence inspiring.
So this is REALLY goddamn funny.
A few points here. I COULD point to the fact that this chowderhead is claiming that the repeal of this law caused a “militarization” of the situation and “repression” Rather than…. Armed separatists and Russian troops invading Crimea and forcibly taking control over it at the end of Feb.
But I won’t.
I COULD point to the fact that this clown provides no sources for such “repressions” or examples of how the “new” government (really the hollow husk of the old government waiting time until being replaced) would do so.
But I won’t.
Instead, I will focus firmly on the fact that this simpering chowderhead tried to pass ODESSA off as a “Russian-speaking region” rather than a Ukrainian speaking plurality mosh pit.
https://translatorswithoutborders.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Ukraine-Language-Map.pdf
And having focused on that, I will laugh. Because while far more understandable than some of the other nonsense chucked up by him, it shows the sort of bias and narrative massaging involved.
Yah, I’m not sure which war he was watching but it clearly wasn’t the same war I did, especially since the “Separatists” (disproportionately really Russian Fed regulars sent in false uniform, though with plenty of local supporters) generally had heavy equipment and firepower superiority in set-piece battles. This was not a free-flowing Sahel like revolutionary force, in no small part because such a force would’ve been unlikely to prevail as it did in the nasty, long, grinding attritional battles like Donetsk and Debaltseve.
No wonder he’s “conveniently” omitting the Russian military takeover in Crimea. Because that would in addition to showing the presence of Russian troops disguised as “separatists” or “autonomists” in Ukraine, it would bring up the issue of naval dominance.
But even WITH those convenient omissions… Seriously Bruh, I’m supposed to believe you were a NATO officer studying weapons proliferations and saw no indication of such in the SEA OF AZOV of all places? Let alone the curious numbers of T-72s and even T-80s crossing the border?
Yeah, I’m sure those were all defecting Ukrainian regulars. Even the ones with Russian Fed Dog Tags.
Maybe this clown was a NATO veteran with all the credentials he said, but he’s clearly being rather backbiting and dishonest towards not only his former servicepeople but also towards the intelligence and awareness of his readers.
But honestly I’m not too inclined to extend the benefit of the doubt.
Now, I might come back and re-read this more thoroughly and analyze it line by line…but at this point do I really need to?
If I’m just a non-credentialed Internet Autist and I can blow some holes in this narrative starting with very basic ones like which government was in power, I have little faith to trust the rest of this stuff is any better.
But yeah, Trump was wise to keep the unedited recording in order to dunk on these clowns and for the reason you mentioned. Intelligence and politics already create a “Forest of Mirrors” effect, and it’s made worse by outright dishonesty by assorted actors.
Art Deco:
Yeah still looks like a feint. Ukrainians immobilized by inaction and lack of mobility (no gas).
Sadly my response options are limited by Neo’s blocking me out of any ‘proRussian trolling’ (ie the truth) lol
Om:
Still dumb as ever. Can’t respond to your endless and childish verbal diarrhea when Neo blocks my anti war posts.
Neo:
You’re a disappointment and a hypocrite. When you only allow low information trolls like Om to post – you become Drudged.
Yeah still looks like a feint.
If it helps you feel better, you be you. Not going to cause the Russian Army to win any more territory, however.
Poor Hong, the Moskva is still sunk, Vlad still has fiented from Kyiv, and Hong can’t fly to Moscow for the May 9th Victory Parade. Such a sad little troll.
@ Turtler > “As someone who has slogged through a lot of nonsense, lies, and worse by people with authentic and impeccable lists of credentials…I have no such qualms. That doesn’t mean I will assume they are such off the bat, but it means that titles cannot bring respect or honesty to a fundamentally dishonest or disreputable claim or person.
The problem is that right of the bat of this post, I already see massive piles of horseshit.”
Thanks for fisking the NATO expert’s post. Most of what you elucidated touched on the points that looked suspect to me, but Everything I Know About Ukraine I Learned on the Internet This Year, so I don’t have the deep background and resources to rebut his assertions.
BTW, your posts are probably the most entertaining ones on the webz these day.
They remind me of Doc Zero (John Heyward), who I often link to on Neo’s threads.
Allow me to introduce you.
https://threadreaderapp.com/user/Doc_0
@Hong
You’re a disappointment, a hypocrite, and a genocidal boot-licking Fascist.
As I’ve outlined before.
….says the low-information troll.
@AesopFan
Thank you kindly. That is perhaps the greatest praise I have received, and you humble me with it. I also have read a lot of John H’s posts, and they have mostly been a treat and very acidly needed indeed.
And yet missiles still reign down on kyev the birthplace of the rus, colonel mcgregor doesnt have time for happy talk kosovo became another base for al queda their intramural about iraq well do we need to belabor that point
We joked about the afghan winter 20 years later at the gates of kabul it wasnt so funny
Miguel:
Missiles raining down on Kyiv just shows the Roosian approach to warfare; indiscriminate application of inaccurate force. Civilians? Too bad. Da! They are all Nazis! Da!
Let us know when Colonel MacGreggor gets something right. Last time I checked Brandon was the brain behind the Afghan final debacle.
Why you root for Roosia is a puzzle given that Russia was the chief sponsor and sugar daddy of Castro. Cognitive dissonance?
Yeah I know, WEF and Davos, as if Vlad gives a flying F about that. You be you.
Because the jackasses in this govt have always been soviet tools and furthermore they have a soviet if not maoist mindset against us kulaks,
As for the fabled west in the eu, they are ashamed of their own culture and history
Miguel;
That’s all very nice about pro commie jackasses (Brennan CIA for example) and self hating beaurocrats in the EU, but, I assume you are neither. So why do you root for Putin? Spite about Cuba and Castro?
Seems to be a lot of Ukrainian “kulaks” remember what the Roosians have done for their country in the past. You be you.
Kulaks counter revolutionaries wreckers deplorables clinging to their guns and their religion
Yes leonov was fidel and ches handler curiously he doesnt have a good opinion of putin
And you point is what? That the left in this country are despicable? Who has a good opinion of V;ad? Astounding insight.