Maquisard manqué

And folks wonder why BFC never touched the Arab-Israeli wars....

Afraid as in the sense of 'unlikely to happen, but if it would be very bad'.
Any (hypothetical!) ethnic cleansing inside Ukraine would very seriously damage the image of Ukraine. That would be the worst long term political damage that could happen.
You didn't listen. The West forced Ukraine to this war. So Ukraine (as the puppet of the West) has already declared it.
Tssk, comrade come on. It's easy to understand.
 

I won't engage anymore in the conversation as it was a couple of pages ago but this is actually a difficult and interesting  question. Some points: 
1. Donetsk and Luhansk populations have already dropped and will spike downward in any sovereignty change. 
2. Minsk Agreements are a dead letter.
3. Ukrainian politics in every other oblast will have a powerfully anti-Russian unity for a long time to come.
4. Oligarch influence is diminished (look at Kholomoisky). 
5. Speaking Russian and a fierce Ukrainian identity is now a routine thing.
Should Ukraine take back those oblasts, you are going to see a significant voluntary return to Russia of the fiercest NovoRossiya elements and a very different Ukrainian political culture than those that remain knew before the war. You will also likely see a tidal wave of investment that was completely absent in the years Russia ran it. It won't necessarily be easy but there are lots of reasons to see why it could successfully be reintegrated into the state.  
 

It’s quite predictable and invariably one dimensional. Almost like what an algorithm might generate. Content seems to tend to two classifications: Russians are subhuman evil things, or jokes about Russian incompetence.

So what is the root of the problem? Arabs? Russians? And you have a final-solution in mind for that root cause?

Come on, noone said anything like that. Noone blames any Ukrainian for hating the guts of every Russian soldier who commits war crimes. Or any Russian soldier in Ukraine for that matter. Hell, I'd probably hate the whole of Russia myself in that situation. That was never point and noone is being called a racist for that.
What some of us take exception to is when it comes to the point of somehow every Russian being a (real or potential) murderer and rapist because that is just how they are and what they can never ever change. Maybe I can even find that humanly understandable. But I don't have to condone it and I can and will say (because I have the luxury of being able to think more calmly about!) that it is factually (!) wrong and leads nowhere good.
 

I don't think this comports with history in a real way, nor is it a useful or moral way to look at the struggle in which we are engaged. 
A general note from Nietzsche: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."

Sure, and throw these leather b**ch goblinettes on there as well....
But wait, isn't Dmitri an 'orc' too, even though he grew up in Estonia?  But it doesn't matter, murder and rapine is in his blood.
...After 6 months, this goes beyond 'angry.'  It's an ideological programme, aimed at justifying the violent expulsion of Russians, or anyone deemed to be Russian, or 'disloyal' or 'maybe disloyal' (all those are the same btw), from Ukraine.

Did you read what Butschi said? It is possible to condemn russian atrocities while warning against going too far and becoming just as bad as the Kremlin propagandists. 
What about the Russians who are horrified by the war and are organising against it? What about the Russians fighting for Ukraine right now?
We must not become the monster we condemn.

I think everyone here understands bitterness and even hatred Ukrainians feel towards Russians. Maybe "understands" is the wrong word because we others sit more or less comfortbly far away from the war.
Anyway, while a lot of hard feelings are totally humanely understable, we don't have to condone everything. It is possible to understand things and still say they are wrong. A red line for me personally is racism. Not just out of principle but also because it leads nowhere useful for understanding the situation and hand. I think the latter is something we strive hard for, here. I won't go as far as calling kraze a racist. But he is at least putting his toes dangerously close to that line.
Why do I say that? Because he repeatedly ascribes certain attributes, like being murderers and rapists or at least condoning such things, to each and every single Russian. He also denies them even the possibility to ever change their behaviour. Maybe he has good reasons to feel that way. And that is not direct racism up to this point. But if you think it through to the end, if a people is unable to change certain attributes that every member of that population has, then it can't be cultural because culture always changes over time. Then it has to be genetic. And that is effectively what would be defined as racism.

...Yes, and allowance has been duly given throughout c1400 pages of discussion. In general, I don't address him unless he addresses me.
However, he also uses his righteous anger to push a quite nasty view of the irremediably barbarous nature of ALL Russians, now and forever, polities, groups or individuals.
.... While all Ukrainians absolutely should be preoccupied right now with the high velocity killing of all armed Russians occupying their country, a lot of our discussion here also circles around the fate of Russia and Russians postwar.
And whether some people here like it or not, Ukraine (and the world) is going be living and interacting with Russians long term. No sane adult is about to back some vile crusade to exterminate them, to occupy Russia, to wall Russians off from 'civilised' humanity, or any other such lunacy. They don't disappear into a flaming pit (unless most of us come with them....).
But sadly, there will be people who will try to pull that kind of thing within Ukraine after the victory, taking it upon themselves to decide by force who is an 'orc' or collaborator, on what will become increasingly thin evidence. Blood libel and collective guilt. First, it won't work. Second, it will utterly foul the fruits of victory, especially in Crimea.
IMHO, Crimea needs to go back to Ukraine (Russia's historical claims are now forfeit due to its terrible crimes, frankly) but WITH the population who lived there in 2014 enjoying the full rights of citizens. Regardless of their native tongue, which happens to be mainly Russian.
FWIW

It’s quite predictable and invariably one dimensional. Almost like what an algorithm might generate. Content seems to tend to two classifications: Russians are subhuman evil things, or jokes about Russian incompetence.

It’s quite predictable and invariably one dimensional. Almost like what an algorithm might generate. Content seems to tend to two classifications: Russians are subhuman evil things, or jokes about Russian incompetence.

Sure, and Dem Deutschen Volk, similarly, had no excuse not to know better before enlisting en masse in Hitler's death cult.
That all had little to do with my original point, but our friend chose to beat his usual drum, as he does on cue whenever anyone suggests some kind of future where any (*shudder!*) Russians might actually dig out of their current civilisational rut.

Soldiers don't make for a heavy load. For one thing, their density is so low they float in water, and on the other hand they just will not stop complaining if the packing ratio gets too high.

“His crew were the only people he knew in his unit” - that is not small.  It means that his unit was not integrated beforehand, or he was an augmentee who was not fully integrated.  Either way it points to at least one unit where you are talking about half-built teams, which means there is a risk they will fight the same way.  Here is where the NCOs are key, they become the integrators of replacements or in a hodgepodge rebuilt unit they quickly pull it together. This matches observations of a poor or non-existent NCO corps in the RA.
Nothing definitive, and could easily be a an anomaly or one-persons perspective.  But it does line up with the overall qualitative problems the RA has been reported to be having.  Cohesion is key to morale, and morale is key to sustaining a will to fight.

102? I thought she was one of the daughters. Indomitable fighting spirit. She makes a Ghillie Suit no worries, lady the sniper got the eyesight. Somewhere there is a story of an old woman who gives her last penny. 
 

Compared to the evacuation and treatment of Ukrainian wounded throughout Europe.
 

Well here is Perun's spin - have not watched it all the way through but his track record has been solid:
So the question, I think, is - the UA has solved for offence, but have they solved for all offence?
First off I am not sure how many casualties they have taken in Kherson.  Report of "mass casualties" are likely overblown, or very localized, mainly because the offensive itself it continuing.  Sure the UA is taking casualties but I do not think we are talking the opening of the Somme here.
So what about "prepared defence"?  The Maginot Lines that Russia has been able to throw up all over the place?  Thoughts:
- This war is asymmetric, and has been from day 1.  The UA has access to much, much, better C4ISR, and its logistical lines have never been challenged in any meaningful way by the RA. [Aside: I think it is safe to discuss now; however, the only shot Russia had at winning this war was way back in Feb.  IF the RA had made the main effort of the war Lviv, and to cut off the western support corridor by land - I think we would be in a very different reality.]  Russia has had access to mass, beyond manpower - for which there has been rough parity - the RA has significant advantages in just about every other metric of military mass; tanks, IFVs, guns, EW/support vehicles.  The thing is, the UA advantages once they were given access to western smart-weapon systems (by 'smart' I mean weapon systems that can sustain approaching -1:1 shot to kill ratios through a much better organic TA and lethality designed to offset RA protection) and combined it with the C4ISR asymmetry - they effectively dislocated all that RA mass.  And did it with largely 'light' forces - Phase 1 of this war was mind-blowing, frankly, it was far more that 'Russian's suck'.  In reality the UA managed a hybrid distributed defence along ridiculous frontages that made the RA "suck more" - to the point of failure.
- So building on that asymmetry, over the summer the UA were able to expand their options significantly when they gained more access to deep precision strike capability.  I will say it loud and proud - HIMARS were an absolute game changer.  It gave the UA something akin to ersatz airpower without the bother of airfields and infrastructure.  They have employed this system, along with others, in both deep strike and CAS-like roles - there has been hand wringing over the tank but I would think air power advocates should take note of this as well.  With this capability they did pretty much what they did with SOF and Light infantry in phase 1, but much further and faster - they corroded the entire Russian operational system: logistics, C4ISR, EW and morale, to the point that the RA never were able to regain offensive initiative after the summer in the Donbas.     
- Then we saw the very visible result/end-state of this work in Kharkiv, which appears as much about RA taking insane risks to shore up other areas of the front - they did so because their system is in failure.  Kharkiv was "easy" because of this...slow....until it is not.  Kharkiv is an obscenely fast advance and an RA collapse, it will likely be the blueprint for the course of the rest of this war.
"Ok that was great but what about...?!!"  War is not a fast food industry - quick, cheap and tasty; we have become addicted to quick short wars, followed by an insurgency hangover in the west since 1991.  It is dangerous thinking and we needed a lesson on what a real war looks like - brutal, long and all up in your face.  No more of this video-game warfare nonsense.  You want to get into a peer fight?  This is what you get - except now with nuclear apocalypses hanging overhead.  A lesson both China, and I hope the West walk away with.  We have been sold on the idea that war is an inconvenience - to the point that they are teaching this in some academia circles to future policy workers and government leaders.  Some unpleasantness to get over with and then put the military back into a box and get back to the "real business".  Pinker was, and is wrong - this is the business of humanity, history backs me up on that one.
So back to Ukraine, well the UA is well ahead of force generation estimates, the double operation Kharkiv-Kherson demonstrates this, so I am not sure where they really are at to be honest but "well ahead" is a good place to be.  The next question is "how far behind is the RA?", and how fast is that getting worse? - it is getting worse.  The UA has been very smart, and they learn faster than the RA - I go on about options being a key indicator of how things are going; however, collective learning has to be another.  Both sides in this war are learning, it is that kind of experience, but the side that can learn faster and more broadly has a clear advantage - that would be the UA.  So the UA will likely go back to slow, until the conditions are ready for them to go fast.  As to Kherson, it does not take a military genius to know that fighting with a river to your back is likely the worst position to be in.  We know the RA supply lines are heavily damaged and the troops in those "hardpoints", know it too.  In the end the Maginot fell with a whimper because it was totally dislocated - RA hardpoints in Kherson will likely go the same way - it is the biggest vulnerability of a 'hardpoint', it cannot move.  However before that happens the RA needs to be further corroded until the holes outnumber the metal and, like Kharkiv the whole rotten house collapses.  
"How long can the RTA hold out" - see my para on real war: no freakin idea.  It is not forever, based on how hard the UA is still pushing, they think the RA will fail before the weather changes.  Does Kherson have the only decent RA General and leadership?  Did they stockpile more than we thought?  How bad is the RA system in that area?
We do not know.  But I will put one thing out there - time is on the Ukrainian side, not Russia.  Which is what this is really about - we need to move past that myth.  The UA could sit back and hammer the RA positions with impunity in Kherson.  They could do it during the muddy season and into the winter - they can find, fix and finish target from well outside of RA retaliation capability.  Precision means they do not need an ocean of ammo to do it either - 1000 rounds equals 1000 effective hits, kind of thing.  Russia could not mobilize anything that looks and fights like a real military on the scale they need for years and western resolve should get us well into 2023, particularly once the Dark Winter is over. 
My guess is that Ukraine wants a short war because their people are dying, but they can win a longer one as well.  They are pushing hard and up-close at Kherson because they are assessing it will fail soon.  Ukraine will likely win this thing enough (all war is negotiation) in 2023 - assuming it does not happen sooner - if the current paradigm holds.  If we get a major strategic shift then we would have to re-asses.  How they are going to do it is to likely stick with the same game they have been playing all along - exhaust the RA operational system and then kick it in the walnuts from multiple directions at once.  Watch the RA collapse - meme the hell out of that, document the war crimes the Russians were stupid enough get into and show them to the world, get more western support while Russia and its cronies make quacking noises and write bad fiction, rinse and repeat until one hits the Russian border or someone finally puts a piece of metal into one 70 year old's brain pan and the Russians leave sooner.  It is the winning recipe so far.

I could probably write a book:
Forcing function - The US and west have been the the worlds hyperpower for at least 30 years.  Any conventional matchups come with so many caveats that only non-state networks have really been dumb enough to take them on in the CT/VEO space.  In fact the last time a nation state fell out of line the Gulf War happened and any great power outside of the US/western sphere took note.  So a revisionist state was trapped between the devil of nuclear warfare they could not win, and the deep blue see of being vastly overpowered in the conventional space.
Our History.  We understood our power early.  While interventions and CT work kept us busy in reality the west has not faced an existential state-based threat since the fall of the USSR.  As such, we let things slide in the famous "peace dividend days".  Everyone was counting mothballed tanks and ships, but we also mothballed the NS architecture capable of waging global scale political warfare.  Sure we kept intelligence and the like but funding went way down as we all figured "well who would mess with us".  It got a major boost after 9/11 but it was built to hunt humans in and amongst other humans, not deal with larger scale nation states.  So our ability to actually conduct counter-subversive and pre-emptive political warfare campaigns has atrophied over the last three decades.
Our reality.  Unlike autocratic societies, we lay our internal social divisions and friction-points out for everyone to see, we celebrate and fund them.  Further we have laws that enshrine freedoms and an open society based on the value of each and every citizen.  We doubled down on all of that after the Cold War ended.  What makes our nations strong a great are also some of our biggest vulnerabilities in this arena - not advocating for anything different here, this is just our reality.  Free press, free enterprise, free academia and freedoms "from and to" are what makes us the most powerful versions of humanity that ever existed; also leaves us very open to asymmetric strategies.
Their reality.  The revisionist power states, like China and Russia, were largely left out, or at least feel like they were left out of the re-writing of the global order.  They understand where they stand in the pecking order, and while it took awhile, they figured out that they 1) did not like it, and 2) had to start moving the needle to change it.  Direct confrontation with the west was impossible, so they went sideways.  They all have long histories in the subversive space, hell one could argue the Chinese invented it.  So they renewed old doctrines that leveraged energy resident within our systems to work for them - classic reflexive control.  This was done with long above-water campaigns of influence as they picked up steam.  Cyber and information space meant that societies became connected, but they also became "seeable" in extremely high resolution.  Like the invention of the microscope, this opened up new observable phenomenon, which we could not see in the Cold War.  States and corporations - often overlapping - went to town on this.  They collected data and developed theories of how humanity worked at micro-social scales that did not exists 30 years ago.  They could map those spaces and that could gauge cause and effect.  We used to sell stuff and collect "likes and subscribes", they, the other lost powers, used it to create "options".  Ones that are very hard to attribute and are aimed at what is both our greatest strengths and vulnerabilities - our open society.  These options were not legal acts of war, responses lay outside of our legalities and policies, and they were designed to hit us where they knew we would never even be able to agree at what happened - classic negative and null decision space.
Russia out front.  Russia has a very long history of playing these games and decided to flex first.  China has always been quietly waiting and watching in the background - stealing IP, buying off politicians and power brokers, colleting information and re-drawing maps.  Russia is not that nuanced, never has been really.  They were far more blunt and began act on their new theories - Gerasimov Doctrine/Russian Hybrid Warfare - whatever.  It was an ability to exercise strategic options outside of what we understood as war or peace.  Russia tried things out in Georgia and Chechnya - learned some hard lessons and then went prime time in 2014 in Ukraine.  No big conventional war, they just undecided Donbass and Crimea, and then made it too hard for us to really decide anything about it.  They pulled off wins in Syria and Africa (that no one really noticed) and kept getting free lunches while we in the west sat back and scratched our heads "how did they do that?"  Seriously, as I have told some senior people, "I am tired of admiring the other team".  China was doing all the same stuff, just much more nuanced and quietly - they called it unrestricted warfare/systems warfare but it basically amounts to the same thing; however, China appears much more adept at leveraging the rules and laws of the international order, while at the same time playing outside of them.
Unprepared and paralysis.  We really were in a kind of strategic shock in the west.  Both Russia and China had worked hard to make sure that they played out internal divisions and that groups in our own societies became indirectly invested (ignorantly in some cases) in their interests.  Our national security and defence architecture was too busy chasing "snakes" and was dislocated in dealing with state-based threats.  In many cases we had no policy or legal frameworks for what these new threat theories could do, and we sure as hell did not have counters/pushbacks.  So while we were basically strategically dislocated both Russia and China made great gains while we dithered and argued with each other - and I do not mean solely in the US.  North America, Europe and Pacific partners, all yelling and divided.  NATO was on the ropes, many nations had grown tired of GWOT, and we saw (are seeing) the rise of nationalism and isolationism.
Russia poops the bed - and modern war is in the wind.  For reasons I still do not understand Russia decides to drop its A-Game and fall back on an open conventional military power approach in Ukraine.  I have never heard a good reason why this is, and why they took this risk but here we are.  So China is sitting back watching, again as all this unfolds and what does it see?  Well first thing is that modern conventional warfare is upside down.  By our old metrics/doctrine Ukraine should have lost this, even in the face of Russian crappiness.  The war was going to be longer and grinding but eventually Ukraine would fold under the weight of a military machine that was an order of magnitude larger by some metrics. And then "boop"!  So what the hell happened? - well personally I think the 3rd offset (out of favor now) actually came into it age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_strategy) in doing so it is re-writing conventional war as we know it.  Russia is running into a brick wall but China is watching and noting it. China was feeling strong, by old metrics it was catching up and rising to challenge the West - particularly when one considers our aversion to sacrifice.  Unless China is a complete idiot, and nothing I have seen suggests they are, then this war completely blew up their pre-war estimates.  Modern warfare just got insanely more lethal and expensive - harder not easier.  And once again western warfare looks like it leaped ahead, this was not the plan.
So What?  Well, despite all the sabre rattling with China over Taiwan, I suspect the Chinese are conducting a serious re-think (they should be).  Everyone in the bar is armed and sizing each other out.  A big guy draped with guns and ammo, looking like Rambo, picked a fight with a little guy who just punched Rambo's teeth in with his own ammo belts. A conventional conflict with China just got less likely, if China has been paying attention and I suspect they have.  The metrics by which China was gauging things just shifted and they are not going to pull "a Russia" blindly.
So, So what?  Well China is likely going to do a few things 1) re-set its conventional military power metrics, likely better than we will - we are going to bask in "well there you go, we win!", 2) Keep to its A-game longer and double down and what has been working - it saw what happened to Russia.  We on the other hand are likely to go back to arguing and losing the bubble, making us even more vulnerable.  That is the biggest unknown and question "how do we re-gain internal integrity in our systems, without breaking them ourselves?"  All the while China and very likely what is left of Russia will work in helping us to break us.  We are likely to see a lot more proxy actions done this way because invading is a dumb idea.  China has a decades head start on us, so we face major challenges getting better in this space - it is the one area that China's options are expanding and ours remain stagnant. 
Cold War, Hot Peace, Tepid Status Quo, it all really ends the same; more political warfare happening where the terrain favours the opponent - we need to get over ourselves and agree that in this area we are all of one mind: create equilibrium and expand options, while compressing our opponents.  And this is not all on the US, which has its own problems, we have seen pressures and threats here in Canada in ways that we do not have any response to other than "togetherness and resilience".  Every western country has a micro-social space, and it is largely lying wide open to direct influence, which in a democracy is incredibly powerful and dangerous.  I strongly suspect that this war will be a watershed moment for whatever comes next - likely a Coldish War but one where the lines are far more blurry and a significant continuing of the trend of the re-emergence of political warfare as a primary theater in pursuing national interests while blunting an opponents.     
Finally, my instincts tell me, "don't think 1960", they are telling me "think 1900".  There are a lot of similarities between now and pre WWI with respect to great power competition/conflict.  Accept now we have nukes and cyberspace - and the history of WWI to learn from.  Regardless, we need to win this war, put Russia back in a box and then everyone sit down and have  a serious conversation on how we let this happen and how we need to close the spaces between us or someone is going to use that: one second to midnight at a time.

When I was in the 82d, one mission we practiced over and over and over was the 2 gun raid, a fast quick hitting mission for a 105mm battery. I was the Fire Direction Officer for our battery as one of my assignments in the Army. Best job in Field Artillery (I may be biased). 

The "raid" was to move 2 guns forward by UH-60 to a position close to the front lines to fire at a lucrative target in the enemy rear. Since a 105mm is relatively short ranged compared to a 155mm, we needed to move up close, get dropped off, lay the two guns, fire the mission, pack up, call our rides and get out of dodge. In a hurry. But it was a quick strike at an important target of opportunity. These guys are firing at a leisurely pace. In a pinch, a 105mm can be fired almost as fast as a mortar. Almost. The gunner in the video is checking his sight on the aiming stakes to make sure the gun hasn't shifted with each round. We'd have a crew of 6 or so too, so the new rounds would come fast. It's cased ammo so loading is very quick, as you can see. Much more effective once we got UH-60s to replace the UH-1H choppers. 2 UH-60s could sling a gun under each with ammo strapped onto its trails, the gun crew, and me and my assistant one of us each in one of the choppers, and the "Smoke" (Chief of the Firing Battery - a SFC, the senior NCO in the battery next to the 1SG). 
As the FDO, I also had to act as XO on the spot and survey the guns while my "Computer"  (E-5 SGT who normally calculates elevation and time), set us up a temporary FDC to calculate from  - just me and him - and then after surveying in the guns run over and finish the calcs and safety check them.  The XO stayed back with the battery of 4 remaining guns, and my FDC team sergeant (a SSG), stayed there to run the full FDC back in battery. A lot of action in a real hurry, we'd be in and out in about 20 minutes after slinging 10-20 rounds per gun out. 
I don't know what these guys are doing but a M102 and this comparable UK howitzer are highly mobile and versatile. The shells don't pack the punch (about 1/3 the weight) but this is what they shine at. 
Note: No one checked the barrel between rounds. Bad form, and potentially extremely dangerous, although a little less so with cased ammo than separate. Need to check there's no obstruction in the tube.
Dave

Depends what you mean by “free”! As others have said, tomorrow you’d not get much difference from the last election. There’s been decades of propaganda and oppression undermining the freedom and fairness of debate in Russia politics. So what people think and know is so conditioned they couldn’t really vote otherwise. 

"A Ukrainian soldier comes to the aid of an injured comrade on the road in the liberated territory of the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Monday, September 1, 2019. KOSTIANTYN LIBEROV / AP"

It is extremely sad, but I don't believe this to be the case.

(Sorry guys, I'll stand down a bit. But the refs just write themselves...)