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This is the ultimate result of what happens to a nation after 70 years of enforced atheism.
We keep hearing that there is no rush. But after 80 days with no clear end in sight one has to ask what is going on. This is turning into Afghanistan faster than anyone cares to admit.
yeah…the soviets were in afghanistan for 10 years. the US for 20. but sure, 80 days with slow steady progress is a slow, disastrous trudge. in a country the size of afghanistan, roughly the size of texas and twice the size of italy.
“so why couldn’t the allies take rome in 40 days? what were they waiting forrrrrrrrrr?!?!?! i’m so BORRRRRRRRRRRED!!!”
i’m starting to wonder if someone should dump several tons of ritalin into western drinking supplies.
The estimated losses and probably the monetary costs of the current war are closing in on 10 years of Afghanistan after 80 days. The trajectory is not sustainable. Like it or loath it the collective West can weather the costs, not indefinitely, but arguably for a longer period of time than RF.
Aid to Ukraine in a few months is already more than half of Russia’s annual military budget. The US and EU are sanctioning themselves to death – inflation is soaring in every sector.
Meanwhile RF income from energy has doubled and the ruble is the world’s best performing currency. Russia is actively increasing trade with China and India (the two largest countries in the world) and Brazil. South and Central America and the Middle East are turning their backs on the US.
I hope you are enjoying your KoolAid.
1914-18 war would have ended sooner had USA not entered. US entry imposed postwar settlement which laid groundwork for 1939-45 war and present situation
Name the religious cult behind usa entry into ww1.
Which lead to Versailles which lead to fall of Russia to the bolsheviks which led to rise of Hitler and led to the cold War and fall of China etc etc etc.
And note ww1 was a highly suspicious war. Those nations leaders were manipulated into a brother war.
Assertions not based on fact. Western Financial systems financed as Germany funded itself through Mefos and lack of raw materials
It’s a war of attrition now, Russia has food, energy, and all sorts of raw materials. The west needs to import all those. The US is better on that front but then again, baby formula?
And the donbass is much closer than Afghanistan from Russia’s border, logistically speaking
True, but the USSR had all those (and more!) during Afghanistan, whereas Afghanistan had very little apart from what was funnelled in. I cannot compare the two situations and reach a more favourable conclusion for RF.
It didn’t help the US in Afghanistan either. It is nigh on impossible to “win” a war these days. What does victory look like for RF and how and how quickly can it be achieved? I see no path.
Ukraine cannot handle the losses Afghanistan incurred in terms of dead civilians and Pashtun Taliban
Maybe starvation and droning wedding parties could be tried in Ukraine ?
You are ignorant of Afghan losses or losses in Korea or Vietnam to gain US defeat
@Andrei: “What does victory look like for RF”
I think victory looks like no NATZO nukes near Russia’s borders; because that’s what the RF said.
Well, Afghanistan was on the border of the Sowjet Union.
@Steffen Bendel: “Well, Afghanistan was on the border of the Sowjet Union.”
It still is. But no more possibility of NATZO nuclear weapons in Afghanistan. That’s what victory in Ukraine will look like.
Rubbish, lies, misinformation, and outright blatant fakery of “facts”.
“…the collective West can weather the costs….” ROTFLMAO
@petr
“The collective West” has maxed out its credit cards. We are no longer eligible for a NATZO size war loan. We can no longer afford a Trillion dollar occupation like Afghanistan. All we can do is fund cheap, billion dollar third-world proxies; like we fund ISIS in Syria (barely holding on to a fraction of Syria now) and fund Azov in Ukraine (slowly being driven out of the Russian Ukraina).
PS I regret having to refer to Ukraine as a third world country, but that is what it has become after 8 years of looting by The Man from Uncle (aka, The Collective West).
You are deluded. Russia is self-sufficient, the west is not. All we have is our reputation, and that has become so bad, Russia is a better option- for the non-west.
You also disregard the fact that the Russian population want this war, and they know very well what it will cost, because they have live through it before. In several versions.
The question you need to ask is how willing are the collective in the west to make the same sacrifices? And if they are not- will we see more Trucker Convoys and yellow vests?Will there be moer tear-gas, water-cannons or asset-forfeiture? Civil war. perhaps?
Russian military losses after 80 days have been minimal. Very minimal. Remember that they are almost simultaneously dealing with the initial war and the counter-insurgency going by the western planning for this. This will not be at all like any Iraq and Afghanistan for the US after the initial “mission accomplished” stage. Plus you cant compare totally different wars like in Ukraine to Afghanistan.
Where are you getting your “estimated losses” nonsense from? The Poles? The Brits propaganda BS?
TOTAL nonsense – the uSA spent trillions prosecuting the Afghan war ad trillions more in Iraq – this Uki war for Russia is a rounding error
both in men and materials – missiles are cheap in comparison to outfitting and training a soldier with armaments and support
Russia can lob missiles in for years from Russia itself and coordinate ammo dumps – fuel depot – trains – troop hotels – etc etc etc
They already add 480ppm of stupid to the water. That’s up 15% from 4 years ago.
Depends on who you listen to. EU has sanctioned its’ citizens to death and the ‘leaders” there are about to face the wrath that we saw first in Sri Lanka.
That is not only wishful thinking, but it will not likely impact on the duration of the war, of which the RF is also not immune to the costs.
I’m wondering the same thing. Who predicted early on that this would last 3 months+? Even Scott Ritter changed his tune. He now says that if current situation goes on Russia will be bled dry cause of all the assistance NATO is providing. According to him Russia should mobilize 1M+ troops and finish off Ukraine as well as take out Finland before they join NATO.
Scott Ritter has a Russian wife but is not noted as a military strategist or expert in Soviet defences built in Ukraine. He is what he has done and above that he is Gonzalo Lira in his reading around the subject
I believe she is Georgian not Russian
You would appear to be right – Marina Khatiashvili
No reason to mobilize 1M+ troops when you can mobilize 1 nuclear bomb.
I go even further , no need to mobilise 1million troops or one nuclear bomb. Just ring the Ukro gov and military,” all your gov buildings, bases, your own (politicians’) homes, airports, oil refineries, railway electro terminals etc are plotted for destruction by Kinshals and Kalibrs in exactly 24 to 36 hours” “ Surrender or get all civilians out , NOW! “ War over.
Russia will only have brownie points with the watching Poor South and the Third World if they win. Noone likes a loser. Even its supporters in NATO like me , will fade away if they (Russia) are crushed and NATO has a unipolar World again .I cannot see Russia winning if it keeps fighting with one arm behind its back. I think it was a humane and honourable intention that they wanted to spare civilians- to give time for Ukro armies to surrender and form new governments – but this has not worked. Own it now and ramp up the war and kill it. Russia is giving radiotherapy to the already quickly- metastasing cancer when it should be quickly amputating the whole leg to save the body. Do it!
The majority of the fighting isn’t in the cities any more, it’s on the open countryside between population centers.
What NATO forces call a free fire zone for artillery.
Regarding Russia’s frozen reserves, I would have given similar terms to Switzerland and any other holding to ransom my country’s rightful/legal property.
I never lend money to family or friends, if I can afford it they can have it, it’s written off as charity. However, if someone stole my money then they’d never get the chance to enjoy/spend it. I always considered this to be similar to the Russia way. Release my money or my good friends, Sergei Kinzhal and Dmitri Kalibr come knocking.
My US is the country that is being bled dry, and it’s by our own excessive spending. Natural gas = fertilizer, diesel = food and transportation, and the dollar trembles whenever another pipsqueak nation (intentional irony) dares to purchase these from RF using Rubles.
Our leaders (sarcasm) talk tough, but in my neighborhood, the peasants are sharpening the pitchforks and greasing the guillotine.
Time is not on our side.
“Who predicted early on that this would last 3 months+? ”
The counter-question is who predicted that Russia would start SMO with only about 150000 fighting?
I agree with others getting irritated with concern trolls. In talking about land or cities that Russian has or hasn’t clalimed and in talking about the timeframe, nearly all of you show no interest in how many ukronazis are being destroyed on the battlefield – a very important thing to be considering when accessing how the war is going and the relevance or western military assistance, and which hints at your overall dishonesty.
You’ve seen how it takes immense effort just to regenerate Crimea during peacetime. Imagine while fighting a war in a big country with a huge army – the technical, financial and logistical challenge to now do the same for Kherson Oblast, large parts of Zaporizhia oblast and the liberated parts of LDNR as was done for Crimea ? Thats 3 million people. The concept of Russia “going slow” here is nonsensical
The Russians are killing and wounding 1500 Ukies per 24 hours.
Can you do arithmetic?
Multiply that by 30 days. 45,000 out of action.
There are 50,000 Ukies in Donbass cauldrons. They will be decimated by mid-June.
Milestones? Mariupol is Russian, and the best Brigade, Azov, is totally destroyed with 600 wounded and maybe 400 left in the bottom of the 6 level tomb at Azovstal. The Russians did that in 50 days. The nazis hid in civilian apartments and hid behind women and children. No military could do that cleaning of a city of 400,000 with so few civilian casualties.
Nothing is going slow except your perceptions because they are filled with BS propaganda.
Ukraine is being demilitarized and denazified. Donbass is being rescued from genocide.
These were the mission goals.
It’s going extremely well. General Dvornikov has increased the tempo of the missile and artillery and air strikes to a rate of 5x the action in stage one. Stage two is so intense, the Ukies are surrendering at an astounding rate. Where they don’t surrender, they die. They are very low on fuel, oil products, ammo for artillery, trained specialists for large weapons systems, drones and radars.
Believe crapola or look clearly at the facts. The reality is overwhelmingly indicating a Russian victory.
“Believe crapola or look clearly at the facts.”
In a “wilderness of mirrors”, how does a non-military and/or intelligence specialist determine what the facts are? How does one determine who to trust?
Truth is the first casualty of war.
It is true that US/UK neocons and their disciples and allies have been using psy/influence ops and “cognitive infiltration” (see also: Professor David Ray Griffin’s excellent book of the same title) in a hitherto never been seen before scale. [Aside: it was around the time that Prof Griffin started writing about certain things other than his academic specialty, which is theology (specifically, process theology, his having been inspired by Alfred North Whitehead), that I began to follow him, and begin to get a sense of the scale these ops, and how successful they are, but that’s a story for another day]
Yet, having a sense of who *not* to trust does not necessarily lead to better decisions when it comes to deciding who *to* trust. // For me, “trust but verify” becomes “don’t trust. verify. still don’t trust, verify again, and again and again”
At some point the dust will settle, the operational tempo will reduce, the big guns will be silent. All (hot) wars end, or, at least, reduce to LIC.
When? Could be a week, a month, three months, a year, many years.
And as cherry on top of the Russian cake, economy. If this continues for another month Europe’s population might finally wake up and question the actions of its leaders. Ofc the actions of some Ukrainian refugees in some cities are not helping either.
Russia attacked Azovstal today either with thermite bombs or white phosphorus bombs. Does anyone know which? Either way, the end may be near for the Azozs inside.
Incendiary shells 9M22S (МЗ-21) with magnesium basis.
Thanks for that clarification: the Russian incediary shells were magnesium based. Use of white phosphorus chemical warfare to burn peoples’ lungs from the inside is an Anglo-Israeli warcrime speciality; they call it “Bake and shake”.
Is there anything to the idea of time-and-a-safe-space-for-Ukrainians-to-rebuild-in-their-west that Scott Ritter is worried about? I do read about Russian missiles destroying infrastructure and military supply deliveries there now.
Well, we live in TikTok times. 10s without a new victory message feels like defeat.
Only the military (and top politicians) are really knowing the truth. Is Russia grinding down Ukrainian forces and it is just a matter of time? Is Russia defeated near Kharkov or does Russia just does not want that Area according to the original stated goals? Or it is a trick to get the troops out of the city to fight with less casualties?
Short and sweet today. However, don’t be alarmed nor dismayed at people that don’t understand how the Russian government and it’s military operates for even nato nor the USA hasn’t grasp the concepts, neither do they teach them well to our military members.
I’m sure Russia would be in trouble if we were to be their guides in warfare. But I have to admit; I also want this to be over, but I think it is the Ukrainian army and their families, who will decide when that happens.
They are paying the highest price.
Russia has to understand the objectives and strategy of its opponents, the U.S stated it long ago, to bleed Russia.
So the Ukrainian will fight a war that will last, a guerilla war.
Russia has to load up the Crimea with armour units, let all the spies in the sky see it move them around when the spy footprint isn’t watching and force Ukraine to move troops in reaction, when the gaps open in the east be ready to exploit with mobile units.
Don’t wait for ambush…that will be deaths by a thousand sorties.
But surely you see the Catch 22, outside the fact that after eight years and 14,000 dead Ukrainians, killed by assorted NATO trained neo nazi shock troops, someone had to act….or what, another 14k dead over the next eight years….sorry, the Catch 22 joke, NATO is running out of arms, there is little to no procurement, ramping that up takes time and skilled labour, EU countries crawling on their bellies, such poor public optics, are opening accounts in Russia to buy Rubles for energy, must be like getting kicked in the balls for being belligerent assholes….sorry, the joke, them EU bought rubles, put millions of Russians to work, keeping the lads at the front well supplied with shock troop elimination munitions. And the EU is underwriting it….does it get more pathetic than that? Paying someone to make bombs to kill your guys….a pure ROTFLMAO.
Cheers M
There is lately not merely a deluge of trolls but a genuinely confused mass of commentators who think the SMO is Hollywood CGI or has US/NATO methods and motivations. Hysteria is setting in. Underlying the confusion of purpose and pace is growing societal and personal angst and fear of a demonically-led Zone A going to hell in a hurry. The games of poking the Bear have turned existential for the golden Billion, facing lack of energy, food, jobs, and any wholesome future prospects.
They badly want Russia to quickly beat the Fourth Reich / Khazarians / Anglo-Zionists through the Ukraine, and so misread Russia. Yet Russia is not in the Ukraine to save Zone A. That dirty job of cleaning one’s house needs to be done internally, and here we can all agree – done QUICKLY, before the Sarmats fly.
Confusion of purpose?
It looks like Russia simply wishes to save whatever Zone that will pay most for it’s weapon systems
https://vpk.name/en/501575_the-sun-in-the-desert-saudi-arabia-used-tos-1a-against-the-houthis.html
“The ground forces of Saudi Arabia began to actively use heavy flamethrower systems TOS-1A against supporters of the Ansar Allah movement.”
Rather your post appears a distraction of purpose.
This selling of hardware to desert nomads is as effective as selling them fighter jets and tanks by USUK.. absolutely inconsequential.
Have you seen Yemenis fighting on their mountain terrain? How many empires over the many millennia defeated Yemenis on their mountains? Afghans are a cake-walk in comparison.
These fire-throwers would need to get close in. How long would they survive or have manpower available to face the counter-force? Have you seen the countless videos of GCC mercs and recruits running in panic from the battlefront and abandoning hardware? Peruse South Front over the last 7 years..
The reality is Russia is entering the arms bonanza of the GCC with the same expectation as USUK before them. They will be parked indefinitely in air-conditioned storage and will be no use at all, except as earnings for the manufacturer. This is the way security is bought in the cowed GCC from the superpowers.
And the article is dated. GCC is desperately suing for peace currently and in a ceasefire. Remember oil depots and refineries throughout KSA getting banged like Congo war drums? They long lost this war, just as the Ukraine did.. but the same demonic forces want interminable war for profit and to cull both belligerents. As Martyanov instructed in a recent video, the real battlefield attrition is neither symmetric nor linear and wholly unsustainable. How’s that working out for the GCC and the Ukraine?
Absolutely inconsequential?
So was Agent Orange in terms of the final outcome. Wasn’t so good for the reported 400 thousand who succumbed to it.
Agreed! Russia have gone through it- now it’s our turn!
The majority of the fighting isn’t in the cities any more, it’s on the open countryside between population centers.
Russia isn’t getting bled dry,. NATO IS.
Pentagon says that the cupboard is down to the bare essentials and no more weapons in U.S. inventory can be sent to Ukraine without significantly sacrificing U.S. security.
The problem I see in Russian tactics is they went in with the wrong attitude, there is no such thing as limited war because the defendants will not limit their defence, its either all out war or don’t go in.
Its time for Russia to stop mucking around, don’t limit the type of general needed for the job to be done, and set objectives to be achieved in a timeline and use all available force to achieve it.
This pussyfooting around on emboldens countries like Finland.
Satellite tech and other Western assets are legitimate hacker targets since they are used in war against Russia, disrupted communication, food delivery systems in Ukraine. Its all out war now.
Add about 3 jiggers of good Russian vodka in a small glass, top off with Orange Juice and drink it, seriously. When finished the first, take a second, and third. That should pull the knot out of yer knickers.
Russia is playing a very Asian style of war here, setting up to rule the territory permanently. Bomb infrastructure like the UAF is doing and you piss off the peasants – they will never forget. Burn the fields and steal the food, like the Ukrainian government is doing, and you piss off the peasants who will never forget. Kill a Babushka, like the Ukrainians are doing, and the family will never forget.
So by letting the UAF piss off the people they were supposed to protect, by doing a slow grind to completely annihilate the neo-nazi’s and the military weapons stock of Nato, by rebuilding the infrastructure in the rear echelon and distributing food, by letting the Euro-rat-ic governments ignore the democratic will of the peoples, by spiking inflation in the western world, Russia is accomplishing everything Russia needs to do.
I simply don’t understand this need by people to constantly criticize a professionally led military when the strategic, logistic and tactical objectives have never been published other than broadly from a political perspective but I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
We are too used to PC games and instant gratification. We want everything done 10 minutes ago.
But it seems that very few of us realize that war work on a different timescale. And so it should be. You are not buying take-aways.
And we have access to a deluge of information or disinformation. As we choose. It ‘looks’ as if we have all the information. And we never do. We don’t even have all of the information about WWII yet. Why would we have all information about what is happening now?
But most people never realize that the soundbite on the news only tell you where the news are. It is too short to give any real information. So we keep having opinions about things we have very little knowledge of. It is unfortunately our reality.
There is a growing awareness, a dawning of a revolutionary idea, taking hold across the world. It all began for me with Putin’s speech at the Munich security conference in 2007. There he first made the call for a new European-wide security structure incorporating the needs of all. He was ignored.
Then came the Maidan Coup of 2014 when the Russian loss of Crimea and its Black Sea naval base was narrowly averted. The Donbass tried to join Crimea as part of Russia, but the time wasn’t right. So a frozen conflict was established with much loss of Ukrainian/Russian life. A much reduced Donbass line held to await further development’s, while the Minsk Agreements were first agreed to and then ignored by Ukraine and the collective west.
At the end of 2021 Russia again made repeated pleas to the west to consider Europe’s collective security. These were not only ignored, but early in this year evidence emerged that Ukraine was planning an offensive on the rump Donbass republics and on Crimea. There was even talk of Ukraine acquiring nuclear capabilities.
And throughout all this time, NATO kept advancing toward Russia’s western border. Pushing! Pushing!
Finally all that became too much, so Russia got in first and mounted what we now know as a Special Military Operation in the newly declared independent republics of the Donbass and in Ukraine itself.
And the world held its breath. What would be NATO’s response? Just how hard would they go in? Just how severely would they put Russia and Putin back in their little box?
And here comes the growing awareness – NATO is a busted flush. Perhaps not in lack of warehouses of armament and silos of missiles , but in the collective certainty of “one for all and all for one”.
I suggest that Russia will carry this day, and most importantly that Europe and its parts will come to accept that collectively and individually she/they is/are part of Eurasia, not part of the Americas.
And the world will be a better place for it.
On Twitter, JewTube and other mass media, Ukraine is “beating up Russia” but the reality is that the disaster is already beginning to be smelled on the Ukrainian side. Normally a good general does not change his horse during the battle because it is a sure disaster then:
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3484143-zelensky-appoints-new-commander-of-ukrainian-territorial-defense-forces.html
Another in a growing list of indications this will not end well for Russia’s adversaries.
The objetives, the occupation goals, the attraction of peoples hearts and minds here and not there,all this is a hidden secret, and subject to change according to the dynamics of both the war and of the western attitudes…
Which makes it a distressing G U E S S I N G game for Langley and the white house to grasp. And perhaps an amusing one for Vvp.
Excellent analysis Andrei, blessings in the name of Christ.
As usual, Andrei is pretty much right on. My position builds from this:
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/is-the-uaf-gaining-ground?s=w
I am a Canadian analyst living in Japan and see things from a slightly different perspective. Putin is quite right to insist that this is not a “war” as most of the world thinks it; it is a special operation — with the emphasis on “special”, basically a police operation with soldiers risking their lives to save civilian lives and preserve the basis for livelihood. The “west” thinks “war” and it thinks Dresden, Hiroshima, Fallujah, or maybe Vietnam” : wars against the “Other”, people who look and think differently and therefore are not really people. But the Ukraine is culturally Russian, except maybe Galicia. And even Galicia is less different from Russian than, say, Arkansas is from New York State or New Mexico. Putin sees a conflict whose resolution cannot be just military, and in that sense the Russians broke the UAF in the first two weeks as surely as the Americans did the Japanese at the Battle of the Philippines in 1944. The Japanese kept on fighting and did a lot of damage, but after 1944, defeat for them was never in doubt although they claimed to be winning — even after Hiroshima. Even at the end, the Japanese still had weapons, some of them quite good — but not good enough–nor the right ones. They had the world’s two largest and best battleships, but no carriers. They developed great aircraft, but didn’t have trained pilots to fly, nor adequate tactics.
Why Dresden and not Hamburg or Cologne or Tokyo ?
Because Dresden, Hiroshima, Fallujah got firebombed/ destroyed including their inhabitants. The way the criminal inhuman westerners commit war.
Ukraine cannot handle the losses Afghanistan incurred in terms of dead civilians and Pashtun Taliban
Maybe starvation and droning wedding parties could be tried in Ukraine ?
You are ignorant of Afghan losses or losses in Korea or Vietnam to gain US defeat
Afghans like many others in the neighbourhood have social and cultural structures to live what to the west is “Nothing” . Ukraine not so much.
All the same I dont think Russia is going to go that route.
All that excellent but old Soviet infrastructure is not going to disappear in a hurry. Food wise ( for survival )Ukraine might have plenty as it is a major exporter.
However it cant be guaranteed as colonial govts can turn that into famine conditions for local populace by insisting on export of food and local high prices. If Farming becomes loss making thats when you have a mexico like problem.
Hamburg was melted at 1000C
Tokyo was repeatedly fire bombed
You should research use of air mines followed by incendiary sticks in Hamburg and Cologne and visit them and Dresden where Albertstat the military citadel was unscathed
This gets repetitive.
1) Rooskies need to stop the Kabuki theater and get serious. Take down the ukie power grid. No modern society functions in the dark without lighting, internet, communications. This is easily accomplished by taking out the 50 to 100 major substations with missiles. Add another 10 million refugees for the euroweanies to support. Let the rest live in the dark and eat their pets.
2) Russia supplies most the electricity for the natoized baltic state power grids. Throw the switch and let them live in the dark also. They can all relocate canada or new jersey.
3) Cease all sales of ural light sweet crude and nat gas to nato members. Why sell to an enemy?
The Russian Federation spans 11 time zones and sits atop 1/4 to 1/3 of the world’s resources if they can avoid being looted by the usual suspects as in the early 1990s. Build up domestic industry and add value to those resources, rather than trade them fiat dollar ass wipes or bonds that inflation will make worthless.
“Why sell to an enemy?”
Well that’s repetitive…
Have you ever heard of get to your side the ‘hearts & minds’ of the people?
Russia knows better how to do it…They are not interested in scorched earth…not even in more territories…
They prefer to educate, to convert, to show how to live, feed & warm better in Europe, their vicinity, and elsewhere…
With principles, law & order…
The people there are not their enemies, not entire countries, only the same group as you already know…
They don’t want more problems at their doors, indeed they’re proposing a “Security for All”,
willing to do business with all of them in peace, after of course Europe & the world liberate themselves from the grip of the dying beast…
You do better learning how they think, not the old media lies…because that’s repetitive!
Many people in the west are incapable of being educated,they have been lobotomized by decades of Goebbels propaganda,i know here in Britian i meet these people every day.
“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”
― George Bernard Shaw
But taking out non military infrastructure would be a war crime.
Evening everyone, good to be in the company of others who make the attempt to understand the situation in a more nuanced manner, something increasingly hard to come by in the United States.
As someone pointed out above, NATOs bluff was called when Russia initiated the SMO, NATO has in many ways already lost this round. They can keep sending weapons but they are just prolonging the inevitable, without actual effective ground personnel to battle the Russians in the east, who will win militarily is a foregone conclusion, only a matter of time for the Ukrainians.
I would argue as others have done above, that it is in the Russia’s best interest to take it’s time. Clearly they have planned for this situation ahead of time and are executing their plans very well for the most part. I have to admit I see some parallels to strategies used in martial arts(I do not practice but my son does and I have sat through years of his practice). Some may not realize it but I am of the hard belief that Russia is using the West’s military and economic strength against the the ideological/moral/economic/legal underpinnings of the Western system itself.Everyday I see the US/NATO/EU escalate unnecessarily both in words/actions against Russia with no clear benefit of hurting Russia at all but rather blowing away at ideologic/moral/economic/legal precedents that we western citizens/population had been told had been sacred but we can now see most of it was lies.
I didn’t understand the NAZI references and justification for the SMO at the beginning at all and frankly they sounded farfetched to me at the time, even independent commentators who I trust in the U.S system laughed it off at the beginning. However, the more the SMO goes on the more information and especially pictures/video of AZOV and other NAZI ideologically based groups makes its way online. It makes it undeniable even for Western audencies. Here is where the the judo like tactic comes in , once confronted with these images, Western citizens have been told is all Russian lies, they have to make a choice, even if it is unconscious, they can either admit their country(USA/NATO/EU) has lied to them and then start on the path to learning more about the conflict(this is a very very small percentage, but there are some such as myself). The vast majority will not admit it but will claim Russian disinformation, incorrect context, a small percentage, etc. but in their heart they know it’s most likely true, yet but by denying it, it chips away at their confidence in the system which is actually already quite low unconsciously. This effect on Western populations should not be discounted.
Somewhat related, I am actually shocked about how brainwashed I was about how a just honest military conducts itself based on the experience of watching the US military in action both in Iraq/Afghanistan. You can still see on some of the comments above this comment on how people are still calling for the Russian military to get “serious” and start blowing up Infrastructure/Command Centers/Villages/Cities, etc. Their frame of reference in calling for outright destruction is probably largely based on U.S military conduct in Iraq/Afghanistan which we can now see very clearly was ghastly against civilians/combatants when compared to the current SMO. I now can see past the US media propaganda of the last 22 or so years and see very clearly how the U.S military/government as a whole(I’m sure at the individual level many US soldiers did care) didn’t really care about the civilian population of both Iraq and Afghanistan at all, they were just in the “way” at best, the enemy at worst. It’s also clear the U.S military is unwilling to sacrifice 1 US service members life for 10/pick a number of Iraqis/Afghani civilians and that realization brings up another difficult to swallow thought. The Western empire views others not of the empire in practice as disposable/in the way at best and as inferior at a human level at worst. This realization knocks the “We are all created equally” out very viscerally. Members of the western system should pay very close attention to this attitude towards the “other” very carefully as I see it more and more everyday in practice in the USA more, it’s only a matter of time before this is applied wholesale internally( it is already in practice but not as whole). I first had this realization when I saw the Russian soldiers making an effort to take Ukraine POWs even at great danger to themselves in some instances, I saw humanity in those videos. In one video the Russians could have just thrown grenades/shelled the small shack the UKR soldiers were in but instead they threw a smoke grenade and captured 6-7 UKRs, in general I see humane treatment as a whole of POWs. When you contrast it against UKR treatment of POWs the difference is ghastly and it reminds me a lot of Western militaries attitudes towards their enemies in Iraq/Afghanistan.
The SMO I believe is a showcase for the rest of the world, Russians are showing that what the West(primarily the US) did in Iraq/Afghanistan was barbaric and had no moral justifiable basis, they are blowing apart the moral standing of the US military by showing that they are willing to take extra casualties if necessary to protect civilians even the enemy/pow in some cases. In other words they show that USA views the rest of the world especially non members of NATO as inferior, perhaps this is already apparent to most of the world but this is visceral especially the videos/images which are not as censored/hidden in other countries such as Latin America/Asia. In other words a Russian serviceman’s life at least as far as this SMO goes is just as valuable as the villager, in other words “we are all created equal/humanity for the other”.
Is Putin doing this out of the kindness of his heart? I don’t know and part of me doubts this. However, this is a powerful message and will further complicate US military deployments in the future as the Russians are setting a new standard for the rest of the world in how it is possible to deploy without scorched earth tactics. The Ukrainians are showing the exact opposite with unbelievable levels of Western support.
As humans we have compassion for other humans and fundamentally we are a social species and to see a modern military acknowledge that in practice in 2022 is a sight to behold, especially when we have been told that those forces were morally bankrupt and would reduce themselves to any action.
“The Western empire views others not of the empire in practice as disposable”
No that’s NOT true: In fact they view everyone NOT in their socio/psicopath group as cannon fodder, disposable untermensch, manageable asset, and even a menace to their own cherished delirant brainprinted objectives…
Beautifully written. Bravo 2 U.
Thank you for putting my sentiment into prose. My way of getting here is different, but we share the same view on the present situation.
I have been following some Russian activist educating drivers in the streets of Moscow (and some)for many years, and it surely don’t show the best of Russia, but it help you see the universal human.
They even had a Ukraine subsidiary- but the last video was uploaded feb 24.
watch and learn https://youtu.be/YEuILNBe5hU
Is this true? First a Canadian Major General, now an American (USN) four star admiral:
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/reports-u-s-admiral-surrenders-to-russia-in-mariupol-ukraine
Comments on ZeroHedge:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/10-largest-nuclear-explosions-ever-visualized
3 hours ago
He looks pretty emancipated doesn’t he?
2 hours ago
Wait for the “after siberian gulag” pics. He’s going deep into Russia, no seal team six is gonna osama him out for a burial at sea.
2 hours ago
After all that stress and eating dead bodies it can take a toll on one
3 hours ago
It was pretty obvious that the whole steel plant situation was to hide who was inside (without regard to the lives of the civilians used as shields). So I’m not surprised to see the link you posted.
3 hours ago
There’s more to come, Russia knows exactly who is hiding in the basement 😉😀
3 hours ago
Closer and closer to WWIII.
“Incompetent people” is right.
Too many unqualified people being employed.
But I have to also wonder if all of this is as part of the usual undefined backup plan – a reliance on causing chaos to see what emerges from it.
They obviously dont care what happens to UKN soldiers or civilians.
The density of Trolling is today specially High…
mmm… looks like they are gettin’ despaired in foggy bottom…
Write Trolls, write!
double speed…
Drummer, ramming (writing) Speed!
Boom-Boom,Boom-Boom, Boom-Boom…
“sorry MODs I couldn’t avoid it, an Image of Mr Austin whipping the Trolls in frustration, Ben-Hur style, after his call to Mr Shoigu comes to mind, maybe I write another one with this theme for the next days”
As usual, Andrei’s explanation is compelling. And, I have updated my recent article in light of them.
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/is-the-uaf-gaining-ground?s=r
I see a lot of comments about the slowness of this “war”. It’s slow because as Andrei points out it is not actually h a “war” but a special operation, more like a police action. The military part of the conflict is just one part. The UAF lost in the first two weeks of the war, when it lost mobility and air supremacy, and ended up having to hide in towns and villages using civilians as hostages, losing whatever credibility it had with the civilian population. Draconian repression of the population and conscription of anybody how could hold a rifle did not help. The Russians demilitarize by destroying UAF assets or capturing them. They denazify by letting the Nazis destroy trust. Ukraine is valuable. It has resources and a talented population–as long as it is not exploited by the West. It will be an asset for Russia, whether it becomes part of the RF, or a “union state” like Belarus. Of course the Ukraine is just one part of WWWIII which is an economic global war that started more than a decade ago. Western sanctions have done nothing but make Russia and China stronger and more independent. So, Russia has already won.
I’m sorry, but there’s no such thing as a “special military option”. If you intend to enter another country and one if your primary objectives is to demilitarize them so they are no longer a threat, then you go all in, especially when your enemy massive foreign support in the form of money, ammunition, weapons, logistics (NATO intelligence) and command. America started soft in Vietnam, and then kept sending more troops and started drafting. North Vietnam was getting endless support from China, much like Ukraine is getting from NATO. Even when Russia achieves liberation of the DPR and LPR, it won’t end there. Ukraine will continue to fire artillery at civilian positions, and they will get arms via NATO and stage a counter attack. Unless Ukraine is crushed absolutely, the war will be endless.
You should look at Indo-China more closely. In 1945 the British fought in Saigon using Japanese troops and field artillery over open-sights. France tried to recover its assets and was defeated at Dien Bien-Phu even with US airdrops. US entered – as US does – because “US is bigger, better and badder than anyone else”………and they still lost even though US casualties were modest Vietnam lost millions and USSR 16.
If you think you know how to wage war in Ukraine you are clearly American. Only Americans have the supreme self-conceit to invade Iraq and leave chaos – just what has US repaired in Iraq, rebuilt and improved ?
@Rufus Remember it was a Moderate Special Military Operation the Russians entered, to liberate the innocent Ukrainian civilians to freedom. Gotta copy paste some times :-D.
It seems really surprising that the RF is finding it so difficult to achieve her war aims.
First of all, we should agree with all those who say that the West has succeeded in arming Ukraine quantitatively and qualitatively, combined with the indoctrination of a hateful Russophobic ideology. They had 30 years to do this. And they did it successfully with increasing intensity.
The question is, was the assessment correct that one can attack on 4 fronts simultaneously within the framework of a SMO? The Russian troop movements indicate that they are correcting their assessment and concentrating on the main task: the consolidation of the Donbass region and the already liberated part of southern Ukraine.
What is really deplorable is the necessary abandonment of Russia-friendly villages whose inhabitants were then slaughtered by the Ukronazis.
Since Russia is not yet ready to wage a full-scale war, with good reasons (in view of the BRICS countries and the non-Western part of the world), the war of attrition will necessarily last longer.
In any case, it is necessary to install a huge re-education programme in the already liberated parts of Ukraine, comparable to Germany after the Second World War (unfortunately interrupted there by the Cold War), which will have to last for decades.
So let’s be patient!
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Ukrainian soldiers records plea to elensky:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Nv5gxSrUcMmw/
Hard to run with the big dogs when you pee like a puppy.
This fellow is delusional thinking they can go forward. One thing did strike me though, his mindset suggests the neonazis outside of the Ukraine will never give up on their delusions of taking back the current borders of Ukraine.
Dear Brother Ma,
Allow me to respond to your words:
“Russia will only have brownie points with the watching Poor South and the Third World if they win. Noone likes a loser.”
We, the “Poor South and the Third World” support Russia and SMO in Ukraine because:
1) Russia stand up to the gang of bully (USA and its western gang),
2) Russian Military uphold a high standard of doing their job, targetting only military and military establishment (or militarized civilian establishment). I believe there are civilian casualties. But they are not targetted.
3)They treat POW with dignity.
For those reasons above, we will always support Russia, regardless of the outcome of SMO.
After 30 years of watching USA and the gang doing indiscriminate bombardment, killing and torture in the Middle East, West Asia and Norht africa, it feel so surrealistic watching the news about how Russian militery behave in Ukraine. After some weeks, I am convinced, it is real. What a difference.
I suggest, you stop treating people with disdain. We are not all stupid and illiterate.
I agree with you. No one like loser.
Russia and Russian is not a loser. USA and the gang is the loser lover. Especially the loser who is willing to be their puppet.
As for your words
“.. .ramp up the war and kill it”
Oh My God….I am happy you are not the one who is sitting in Moscow and directing this SMO.
Regards
PS: I apologize for typos and lack of sophistication in my english.
Thanks for your sincere words, Ms. Somebody!