danfrodo

Very enlightening, thx for sharing

yes, "bullying" so much worse than "enabling serial mass murder and child kidnapping and city destruction".

I remember when iron curtain was falling thinking that Coucescu in Romania could never fall, he had such tight control -- then bamm! -- it seemed like it all flipped nearly overnight. Interesting point on how succession helps stabilize things. In RU, everyone w a shot at the throne has to be thinking they could end up in charge, which means they might be working behind the scenes to destabilize.

Great post, TheCapt. I did understand that the BTG could do things, but as you said it was very much not a tool that could do the job for which is was asked. What do you think of the point that the BTG was a ripe for corruption, since one could keep just 1 of 3 in the regiment working and use the other two for personal profit? Seems like just about any organization would be vulnerable to this?

Eulogy on the BTG, doomed from the start. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/26/2155061/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-s-BTG-was-always-a-joke-and-now-it-s-dead

Is it just me, or is that the most punchable face on the planet? Every time I see him I get this zombie like physical response "punch this", it's weird.

From tank museum. so very beautiful.

Yeah, I agree. NATO is not losing its will. Reading between the lines of every single statement made by every single official and journalist every hour is nonsense. And there was just a UN vote that went insanely wrong for Putin, yet everyone is talking how so much of the world is pro-putin.

So, heavy fighting around Bakhmut w UKR counterattacks trying to push back some very menacing RU gains. Maybe UKR will evacuate the city? But this all gets back to the big question, in my mind: how strong is UKR military, offensively? Are they doing Bakhmut w economy of force in order to build up units & stockpiles for spring offensive? Or is this actually UKR doing its best? And for RU, is this RU firing off every shell and using every soldier to get as much land as possible before a hoped-for ceasefire? Are these also spoiling attacks? Does Putin think he'll have a month or two to recover & refresh & reposition before the ground dries? We just don't know. I do know that knocking out RU's very vulnerable supply lines via those bridges would be a game changer. Yet no ATACAMS. I wish the west would stop w the 'boiling the frog to avoid escalation" and quit holding back weapons that can make a difference. The best thing for the world is to get as much UKR land back so that the war can 'end' w a mostly whole UKR that is strong enough to easily repel any of Putin's future adventures.

I hope they can counterattack the northern side at least to help get the guys out, if necessary. This went south fast.

I think China is just posturing. They are playing RU for cheap oil, playing the US for concessions of some sort, while looking both troublesome and a source of conciliation. It's all just Xi playing some cards. I do think, probably quite naively, that China doesn't actually want to see any chinese made suicide drones hitting UKR preschools anytime soon. Some surveillance drones, sure.

no no no it wasn't them, it was the Judean People's National Front for Liberation

This is a myth. Itcaught on in social media and other places, it's not true. It's based on some flawed, rushed early pandemic report that was used to make extraordinary claims on flawed evidence. This is similar to the flawed report that led to belief in hydroxochloroquine being a magic bullet against covid. Everyone grabbed onto the early, flawed study and then never noticed or chose to ignore that the data didn't hold up under scrutiny. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41533-021-00223-1 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(22)00258-2/fulltext https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2022/smoking-associated-increased-risk-severe-covid-19-outcomes As Carl Sagan said, the spirit of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence -- saying that doing constant damage to one's lungs makes them less vulnerable to a respiratory infection seems absurd and would require quite a bit of proof, one would think. But sadly, as Twain said "a lie can go around the globe twice before the truth even gets its shoes on".

I am still confused as to how deaths outnumbering births is an issue in short term for china. Their issue is too many old people relative to young people, which is why I was confused about their zero tolerance covid policy. Xi et al should want to as many pensioners as possible to die ASAP. Since every chinese male smokes then covid would clear out a huge number of elderly, lung-vulnerable males -- why wouldn't Xi want that?

Yes, I look elsewhere, I have other sources . The summaries here are normally good and clear and succinct w a bit of content that's I'd not seen here on the forum. That's why I share them here sometimes. It's waaaaay liberal and I actually read very, very little of the content, though there's a few posters there I like that are smart w proven track record of being correct over time. Overall it is admittedly what it is: a 100% pro-progressive politics community site. It doesn't pretend to be unbiased, it's super biased -- it wants progressive dems to win. Unlike propaganda sites masquerading as objective news organizations. I don't go here for information -- I go to journalists and professors and experts and historians, you know, evil people that actually 'know things'. Sadly, for example, I am simply not smart enough to get my science knowledge or medical advice from FB comments section, but maybe one day I'll reach that intellectual pinnacle. That doesn't change the fact that the UKR summaries are actually quite good. For me on a work day, it's a quick spot for me to go for UKR updates, after quick perusal of the overnight forum posts.

There was talk here recently that RU economy is just fine & dandy. This fellow from Yale says this is just RU propaganda that's taken as fact and then used by IMF & world bank to say sanctions aren't working. I've listening to this guy before and I believe him, but again it's confirmation bias.

An ode to logistics today: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/24/2154211/-The-Ukraine-war-is-a-story-about-logistics-and-it-s-still-playing-out-one-year-in

Ah, yes, I should've been more clear. "in the field" meant all the pieces that go into having a trained & supplied and operational battalion sized unit, ready for battle w proper logistics tail. Delivery & crew training could be happening but maintenence & logistics systems need to be set up in theater.

Today I am a very proud and happy German-American. I am guessing these would be in the field late summer at the earliest? Delivery, crew & maintenence training, logistics, unit training. Hopefully can't get into the fight for at least September/October before the mud hits. It's gonna be weird in June to see bradley/T72 combined arms units but hopefully at least that will be ready soon.

So no big RU murder-missile attack to celebrate the anniversary?

I think Sojourner perhaps was just being succinct. He's not usually very verbose. Maybe he was being snarky, I just didn't see it that way. So there's a new YT video by Task & Purpose guy talking about new US bases in Phillipines. Do you think there's US buildup in your neck of the woods?

W all due respect, LLFlank, I think he was just making a valid point. I need a $100k AA missile to knock out your $50k attack missile, but your attack missile will cause $2M in damage if it hits. That's still a win -- isn't that what he's saying? I didn't see anything snarky in it.

This was complement, yes? no?

Not that I think everything is about us (mean US version of 'us'), but I wonder if China is looking for some kind of concession from the US in exchange for not helping Putler. Actually that might be a good play on China's part in the short term, getting something of value for literally doing nothing. But I think it would poison relations going forward so that when/if China decides it wants to play nice that it will find zero good will or desire to engage.

that gun has some kick! shoves him backwards. Maybe wasn't well braced to start?