Astrophel
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Posts posted by Astrophel
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2 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:
Yest, and given that this is where the Freedom of Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps have been running incursions into Belgorod this could be a counter-leg humping leg-humping exercise.
From a distance it is difficult to see who is conning who. There have been provocative attacks into russian territory which Putin must have found provocative. Then again Putin and his entire "family" is visiting China right now and a "second front" is a handy diversion from the failure of his troops to make much progress in the last two years. Ukraine too is PR savvy and want to step up pressure in the West to maximise contributions. By the way did those Spanish Patriots ever get donated?
Standard Soviet doctrine is to give up some territory for strategic advantage. Otherwise known as writing history afterwards. Or as a friend of mind said, "the best strategic plans are written after the event". Ukrainians are also educated in the soviet way, for better or worse, and they have a huge amount of territory and many small settlements. At my distance I readily confess I don't know what is going on.
What seems to be indisputably true is that russians are gaining ground slowly but surely and at great cost in seemingly unimportant lives. Personally I am glad to see Ukraine learning the disciplines of retreat and valuing Ukrainian lives above territory.
Now we have to figure out how to win this war. My view has always been that the russians have to stop wanting to fight. It is beyond my comprehension to understand why people want to sacrifice their lives in an unjust cause and for the benefit of a mafia clan to which they will never belong. OK, russians have been lied to all their lives and by their mothers too. Can't we find some way to wake these guys up with a dose of truth?
A lot of energy is going into to making better drones. I would like to see us blowing the minds of the front line russian soldiers so they turn around and go home. This is the only way to win this war.
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7 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
Most serious incident before this took place in training center, where Tajiks shot out Slavic servicemen, which humilitated them. Usually only insults, bulling and browls between Russians and Middle-Asians. Though many of Middle-Asians are indigent low-educated Muslims and can be easily enlisted by many of Muslim terrorist organisations for not so big money. In the same way like they enlist to Russian army.
The choice of target in Moscow suggests that ideology is at least as important as money. Today I read an article in FT about Opus Dei - worth checking out and if you need a link let me know,
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2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
I am thinking that ISIL - who people really need to do some more reading on as we spent the better part of a decade fighting them in Iraq and Syria - or affiliate "ISIS-K," had some pretty obvious motives for the timing of this whole thing. All terrorism is about demonstration. And this is exactly what this was. ISIS-K is about creating a holy caliphate in the Stans (they are actually driving the Taliban nuts right now = zero sympathy and maybe there is a thing called karma). They took the opportunity after the Russian election to demonstrate that Putin is not "all powerful" and that Russia needs to back off while they create whatever it is they are pushing for. The entire action was more likely for their own regional support audience -"see we can strike at the heart of the Russian Empire".
More simply put, it may very well have had little or nothing to do with this war. ISIS-K may be taking advantage of Russian security being overstretched because of the war but their motives/objectives have little to do with the war itself.
Russia appears to be spinning this to throw crap at Ukraine by labeling them as "supporters" without giving Ukraine credit for the actual attack. This screams to me they are trying to salvage what they can from what is essentially a complete sh#tshow. People giving Russia credit for some masterful false flag conspiracy are simply playing into Russian narratives - "Look at how cunning and complex is our planning! You should re-think this entire war." Even when it makes absolutely zero sense to even try such an action.
It is a f#cking duck.
Very informative. Yet another perspective. For sure the Islamists are connected.
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42 minutes ago, panzermartin said:
The fact that these guys got so easily arrested and made no final stand makes them look less like the usual jihadist radicals. No Allah akbar no fight till death. Did this for 5k? Weird. Unless this arrest is all staged of course, and the real shooters are heading for some Stan now.
We have no evidence that the people being arrested had anything to do with the attack. People like Putin like to round up likely looking suspects quickly to show they are still on top of things. Tomorrow we find out whether they look like Tajiks or Ukrainians.
I just read in the Mail, alongside dramatic footage from russia, "RT propaganda chief Margarita Simonyan said the suspects had been stopped 100 kilometres [62 miles] from the border with Ukraine".
Really??????
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16 hours ago, The_Capt said:
During the Cold War almost every terror organization was influenced, supported or at least talking to one side of the other. So as we get deeper into whatever this thing is I suspect we will begin to see the relationship between terrorism and the state evolve beyond “we do not negotiate”. We will very likely see all sorts of backroom deals and “freedom fighters” in proxy nation struggles.
That said, ISIL is very likely going to wind up alienated by all great powers as simply too unstable - this is not the first time this has come up. The US spent a decade actively hunting ISIL down all over the MENA and any drug deals with them are pure political poison. Not to mention they are full fledged loons who really can’t be rationally negotiated with. So in this case I suspect it is simply a “duck”. What is odd is why ISIL is picking a fight with Russia now? Russia did side with the Assad regime and is no friend to ISIL or Islamist extremism; however, why wage a high profile attack now? Are they thinking Russia is overextended? Oddly, ISIL could become a point of cooperation between Russian and the US, much like some terror groups did during the Cold War.
This one is really kinda strange.
You are right, this one is kinda strange. The reason it is strange is because we understand so very little about russian internal politics. The timing cannot be coincidental - Putin having just been re-elected. As far as I have detected there was no conciliatory gesture to minorities, inviting Hamas to Moscow with friends and family achieved nothing, and the Christian dog fight in Ukraine continues to kill a disproportionate number of russian moslims used as cannon fodder. No wonder ISIL/ISIS or whatever you call them believe in their righteousness at this moment.
Perhaps Putin's attempt to drag Ukraine into the narrative is a crude and blunt warning internally that he is prepared to wage his civil war on two fronts.
There is too much we do not understand. What happened with the Wagner uprising is still a puzzle for me.
What seems clear is that this act of terrorism is not likely to remain an isolated instance. Executing an attack like this so successfully against a country at war and forewarned even is the first shot not the last. Putin has a second front whether he likes it or not.
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3 hours ago, The_Capt said:
From what we can tell..."not really". The modern Russian military system employed at the beginning of the war looked a lot more western in composition. Since then, it does look like Russia is rolling back to the Soviet Divisional construct at least for force generation. As to EW employment specifically...who knows, but I suspect the Russians are falling back on volume. They definitely appear to have upped their ISR game somewhat.
In the field both sides are down to multiple small unit actions to go anywhere - this is why Adiivka likely took months instead of days.
Why that is happening has nothing to do with the strengths or weaknesses of the Soviet era systems. It has to do with profile and time. We have seen plenty examples of detection of forces well back from the front line. So if one tries to marshal anything bigger than a company your ISR signature is going to get picked up very early. Hell the troop positioning movements alone will likely get picked up.
Second element is time. It takes maybe 30 minutes to get a company group or combat team lined up and into action. Less if you have drilled it. A Battalion can be an hour or more. A Brigade can take hours to days to get into position and lined up for an operation. An entire day sitting with a lot of highly detectable assets in range (now being +50kms) of strikes is suicidal on this battlefield...so neither side is doing that. This has little to do with upscaling ability, or Soviet era C2, and everything to do with battlefield illumination and long range strike at a tactical level. If you want to lose a Brigade, sure deploy it within 50kms of the front in concentration and try and get it shook out for a major operation.
So both sides appear to be de-aggregating in order to have some chance of actually getting forces to the front. This has resulted in corrosive tactical scatter in a lot of cases. In the few areas where we see concentration (e.g. Russian assaults at Adiivka and Bakhmut) we still saw small scale actions, just a lot of them repeated. We also saw horrendous losses.
There is a very real possibility that behavior on the battlefield is a result of the environment and not legacy shortfalls in C2. This scares the bejezzus out of the west as we have bet the farm on the superiority of our own system. The real lesson for the west is: "do not fight in a war like this one". Which is a great idea, unless all war is headed towards versions of this one, at least for the next while.
I strongly suspect we are headed for something even worse for the western system to be honest. The trends pulled out of this war speak to a completely different battlefield dynamics, much of which we have not figured out. We could have entire volumes of doctrine that have been overtaken by events, and nothing scares a modern military more than that.
I wonder how many lessons of this war are applicable to a potential conflict with the west. What we have surely learned is that drone warfare is the future, on land and at sea.
I doubt we are learning anything useful from the soviet style artillery duels that are turning the battle lines into a killing field made static by obscene numbers of mines. We are never going to fight this kind of war.
Were the West to be fighting this war we would be relying on air superiority and our long range accurate missile systems. We do value our soldiers highly these days because they are highly trained - imho conscripts would be more a danger to our own side than useful.
Macron's proposal to add western bodies into this antique warfare was ill-conceived to say the least. I hope the more fanatic among the Nato allies do not succumb to temptation. If we are going to fight this war - and I think we must - we need to return to the idea of compelling air dominance. The political narrative is clear cut - a peace based on recognition of the already accepted international borders.
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Pope Francis is 87. Surely there should be a retirement age for people claiming to be world leaders.
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1 hour ago, Tenses said:
You insist on suggesting that there are any problems with military and humanitarian support going through the border.
Anecdotal input. I have some Ukrainian friends who cross the border infrequently and am assured that the import to EU of home brew vodka is strictly limited. I never inquired whether a bribe might have helped with the very strict Polish customs, but my friends were more concerned to play by the local rules. So I have a smaller quantity than I might have wanted and am still not clear on the reasons why.
The vodka is excellent and the border opaque.
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21 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
I think every war is a combination of the two to be honest. Rarely does one side simply “want stuff”. They very often want people in that stuff to make more stuff, so that means “new rules”. Even imposing “gimme your stuff” is creating a new rule set - when I want your stuff, you give it…or else.
These really are shades of certainty. And then there are wars that make zero sense. Someone is afraid of someone else’s certainty, even if they completely imagine it. So they react to imagined stimuli and start a war. Then we get into religion, which could be a rule set but very often gets really weird and irrational as the dictation of that rule set is assigned to an imaginary higher power - one cannot sit God down at the negotiating table.
The most rare form of warfare is total extermination. They happen but in these cases an entire group of people no longer existing becomes the cause, and objective. Wars over rules happened all the time with stuff getting rolled in, or vice versa.
Entities who fight wars usually "have stuff" or they cannot afford a war. So perhaps they want "even more stuff", or they equate territory with potency, or they have some kind of religious drive. Or they are genuinely afraid.
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5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Not knowing the details of Ukraine's command structure, I suspect there is no other option. The last thing Ukraine needs is a Colonel with combat experience running the entire MOD. Promoting junior or mid level management to be the head of a large organization almost never ends well. Not in the military, not in private enterprise.
The problem Zelensky is talking about, which seems to be factual, is that the Ukrainian Army is in the tough spot right now in terms of battlefield experienced officers being in staff positions. Since the war has been going on since 2014 this should not be the case, but from what I've read it is largely true.
There's no easy way to solve this.
I can not comment on possible personal reasons for the dismissal, but I see plenty of good reasons for a "shake up of command". Whether Zaluzhny's replacement will do a better job or not is unknown at this point.
You are 100% wrong about this. Pretty much the ONLY reason Ukraine has had the level of support it has is because of Zelensky. If Poroshenko had still been President you'd have received far less aid, especially from every day people.
The loss of support was predicted by people here back in 2022 and early 2023 if there wasn't a major success in 2023's Summer offensive. And even then... the US support was on shaky ground for purely internal political reasons. Which, sadly, we are seeing on full display.
Zelensky trying to put on a brave face in front of the world is the correct thing to do. What would you have him do? Whine? Complain? Beg? None of that will make the Republicans in the US change their minds. Might even make it worse.
This might well be true. It won't take long to find out. But it could be the other way around, where that Zaluzhny was not listening to political reality and now Ukraine is stuck in a position where the old strategy is a proven failure and now options are limited for a new strategy.
There's a very old saying that goes like this: "No man is so important that he can not be replaced". Zaluzhny is not an exception to this. Whether he should have been replaced or not, whether his successor will be an improvement or not, whether the timing was right or not... these are questions that can not be answered for many months. Keep an open mind as time goes on. You could be wrong.
Steve
Super analysis! I would add that Zaluzhny had plenty of opportunity to take a variety of honourable exits but instead preferred to be fired - at least this is how it seems to me. In democracies generals do what the elected representatives tell them to do, not the other way around. I don't know the man or his successor but in my view Zaluzhny crossed the red line.
While I am on, the idea of rotating troops more and giving more front-line exposure seems eminently sensible, but what do I know.
The other thing in the West is you get paid by results or you make way gracefully. Zaluzhny did not deliver in 2023 if we are honest and it is time to try something else.
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@OBJ
I am convinced that Putin has no intention of stopping. At the most he would take a ceasefire to regroup and rebuild, but right now he probably thinks he is winning and will not look for a ceasefire. Any attempt by Ukraine to look for a ceasefire will be rejected - Putin is looking for a surrender, not a ceasefire. Why would Putin stop now when everybody is dancing to his music including the United Nations and the United States Congress?
Putin himself reminds me of Macbeth:
"I am in blood / Stepped in so far that should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er"
He has no way back.
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2 hours ago, Ales Dvorak said:
Is it true?
You refer to Ukraine arresting people for corruption.
Every country is vulnerable to corruption. What matters is whether the government takes action. UK is struggling with this at the moment and UK is supposed to be setting a lead.
Ukraine is taking action and arresting people. Good for them.
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16 hours ago, billbindc said:
85% chance Haley loses by 15% or so in NH and will be out after she then loses in SC.
14% chance she loses by single digits and then loses by double digits in SC.
1% chance she loses by single digits/barely wins NH and then carries that momentum through SC. After that, who knows?
It is very important to remember that Haley is middle ground...for the GOP. Her positions on abortion, spending, Social Security, etc is fairly far right relative to the general voting public. And her problem is that she's not in an election between her, Biden and Trump. She's in a GOP primary dominated by the 40% or so of its pro-authoritarian electorate. She's also not an elected official in any capacity. She has no ability to rally any votes in Congress and she has no political pull on any of them (as Trump does with that above mentioned 40%).
In the end, politicians win by persuasion. Have we seen any evidence of Haley persuading anybody? Any fired up crowds? No and we haven't seen it for a while. Trump has his rallies that are mostly carnivals for the most hard core MAGA folks but you have to go back to early Obama to see a crowd being inspired in a positive way. That's what a game changer looks like. She ain't it.
Thanks for your inputs. Your judgement is likely correct, more is the pity. Haley has neither the charisma nor the connections to run as an independent or pull the republican party back to its senses.
The good news today is that Nato has agreed to buy artillery shells for Ukraine to the tune of $1 Billion. Another gesture perhaps, signalling a direction rather than taking a firm lead. Hopefully the US voters can make a wise choice and soon.
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4 hours ago, billbindc said:
1. The question of aid will be concluded long before the election in November. The White House is already offering pretty much what Republicans want on the border in order to get aid to Israel and Ukraine. The Senate is pretty united on supporting that. Does the House GOP go along? It too would largely support aid but Speaker Johnson lives on a knife edge (the GOP margin is *2* votes) and has to get around the extremists who will try to over throw him when/if he goes for it. So...call it a toss up but we'll know which way it's going in the next four weeks at most.
It would be interesting to hear your take on what happens assuming Haley stays in the race after tomorrow's primary in New Hampshire. Haley is well positioned to take the middle ground against two very old men, both of whom look increasing unfit on occasion. Haley looks fit enough to do the job, whichever side you are on. Haley has stated very clearly the case on several occasions for supporting Ukraine and recognises the dangers of Putin winning. She is more hawkish than Biden and that will appeal to many on both sides who think Biden has been guilty of too little too late when it comes to supplying Ukraine.
To beat Trump she will have to find the schisms in the republican party and convince her South Carolina voters that she and not Trump has the most chance of beating Biden. Ukraine should be a part of this if she can rally enough votes in the House to help push through some bipartisan measures on the budget and immigration, for example. On her record she seems flexible enough to move her political stance at the appropriate moment. She now has to pull votes from Trump one way or another and build a base with those republicans who despise Trump and his politics and there are still many who do.
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1 hour ago, omae2 said:
The masses are usually not that bright.
The basic tenet of democracy is that the masses ARE that bright!
In recent human European history - since the Beaker People 5000 years ago - we have lived with the tyranny of the monarchs. The masses had little to say. There has been progress but it has been cruel, and painful, and inefficient.
More recently we discovered diversity.
The most successful organisations today enjoy consolidating diverse opinions - sex, ethnicity, achievement. The autocracy paradigm is bankrupt! We are developing ways of working together with the best insights and challengers. The "russian" way is a threat to humanity similar to the way an asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs.
The masses ARE that bright. We are learning that russian autocratic ideas. like the asteroid, are a threat to humanity. Survival means learning not only to iive together but learning together. Diversity is the key!
Like most wars in the past few thousand years we are in a conflict of values. Do we narrow our focus to a Putinesque prison cell of hetrosexuals, or do we embrace freedoms?
I know where I stand, do you?
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2 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:
The big difference between WW2 and now is that in 1942, the U.S. public realized beating Germany and Japan was not a given and were willing to make the personal sacrifices necessary to win the war including rationing, higher taxes and seeing their boys, brothers, friends go to war and possibly be killed or maimed.
Now, most western citizens will "support" Ukraine, but only as long as it does not cost anything: no inflation, higher taxes, restrictions on consumer goods and god forbid, losing a single service man/woman/non-binary/whatever. That makes it very hard for western politicians who are forever on the tightrope of trying to provide support while trying to argue the support actually does not cost anything.
I think you are wrong on this, at least from my essentially European perspective.
In the first winter of the war European citizens demonstrated an uncomplaining resolve to manage the energy blackmail and huge costs emanating from russia and their allies in Opec. Ukrainian women and children were sheltered from russian attack by being given a unique refugee status - millions of ukrainians have been adopted. An unintended side effect is that tens of millions of Europeans have had the opportunity to meet ukrainians at work, around schools and refugee centres with largely positive feelings resulting. I have heard no complaints about donating military equipment to ukraine, or about the economic subsidies being given generously.
In the second world war we had a different situation because war had been declared. In those days the majority of citizens felt it to be their duty to fight on behalf of their government decision. Having seen our citizens diligently conform to government orders in the Covid crisis, I rather suspect that the majority today would back any government decision to declare war on russia, or anybody or anything else for that matter deemed to be an existential threat. I was raised with the expectation that I, like my father and grandfathers, might have to fight should war be declared. It is the same sentiment that Putin is trading upon.
You are from Canada it seems. Maybe what you say is true for Canada - and I lived in Montreal for a couple of years so I doubt it - but please do not extend your "Canadian" cynicism to western europe. Many of us are well aware of the rights and wrongs of this situation, and the danger of tolerating russian fascism as Hitler was tolerated for too long.
We do not want a declaration of war but Putin better not provoke further. Nobody in their right mind would want a war and all the sacrifice that entails. But it is Putin and fellow travellers, not western politicians, who are walking the tightrope.
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Dumb questions for you military experts:
1) It appears from my own rumour mill that there is a lot of money washing around to buy msm journalists and influencers. None coming my way so far. Anybody have the same inputs?
2) And now a really stupid question. I had a christmas dinner with a marine who is just back from parachute training in Arizona - because the weather is optimal for training apparently. I thought "why not parachute over the mines"??. I said it was a stupid question but I would love to know the answer?
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15 minutes ago, Sunbather said:
Is it their nature now or their historical perspective? Or is nature history and history is nature? So many questions
Nature or nurture? On the DNA level we are all pretty much Homo Sapiens Sapiens, so we are talking mostly nurture. Russian culture today is the culmination of a 1000 plus years of contorted growth, influenced by a nasty climate, oppressive rulers, and shortages as a way of life.
I can't imagine anybody here in Netherlands rushing off to war with intent to rape the women and children and loot a refrigerator. Perhaps it is different where you live.
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1 hour ago, kevinkin replacement said:
Are there any other ethnic groups for which you would like to use such phrasing?
You introduce the word ethnicity which is in itself provocative. For me ethnicity is a cultural phenomenon. To cite the American Heritage Dictionary: "Of, relating to, or characteristic of a group of people sharing a common cultural or national heritage and often sharing a common language or religion".
So yes there are other groups influenced by russian ethnicity - some 15-20% of Israelis share this heritage. We are all familiar with Serbian sympathies. Bulgarians are not far removed.
At the end of the day we all should take responsibility for our actions. Ethnicity is not an excuse for setting up filtration centres, torture centres, brainwashing children, bombing hospitals, or genocidal intent.
To return from your engaging distraction, the russian "ethnicity" over the past few hundred years has regularly engaged in unreasonable domination of neighbours and cruelty.
Coincidentally I spoke today with a senior diplomat who spent several years in Moscow - "In russia human lives don't count" - she said. This would seem to be true on current evidence and constitute a huge ethnic divide between them and us.
This war is 100% caused by russia - they invaded. Your attempts to share the blame are frankly disgusting.
Sorry to talk about ethnicity, but you brought it up.
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49 minutes ago, kevinkin replacement said:
I don't think either side is 100% to blame when it comes to the road to war.
I disagree. Russians are 100% to blame. Perhaps not consciously because a lot of it is in their nature and driven by their historical perspective. They like to dominate what they believe to be their space and it has been this way for a few hundred years. They are always looking for someone to fight.
In my lifetime I do not know of any one serious thinker or politician on the western side who even engaged seriously with the prospect of invading and conquering russia. The policy has been one of containment. Even after the fall of the soviet union nobody seriously suggested taking over in russia, and it was NOT because we were afraid of the nukes. Nato is a DEFENSIVE alliance. There are no protocols for attacking anybody. We would not know how to organise an attack even.
So please stop playing the victim card. There is only one victim currently and that victim is Ukraine.
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20 hours ago, Butschi said:
Well, the numbers say Taiwan is already not far behind (in supplying Russia). But why should Taiwan be better at scaling production than China?
Surprised you can state Taiwan is already supplying volumes of drones to russia. I would like to see your source. For one thing Taiwan is likely to be building its own reserves of weapons at home, and for another they are relying on military support from US and some other western countries who would be not amused if what you say is true.
Why do I think Taiwan is a manufacturing force to be reckoned with? Well you do know Foxconn is a Taiwanese company? Taiwan taught China how to do high volume manufacturing. Since 2010 thousands of Taiwanese component companies have been disinvesting on the mainland and lots of production has been brought back to Taiwan. The trend is continuing apace. An additional factor to consider is that Taiwan is a key supplier of all advanced technologies needed and has been innovating around them for two decades or more.
Taiwan and Ukraine should buddy up more. There is no excuse not to now China is exposed for selling weapons to russia.
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1 hour ago, Haiduk said:
UKR servicemen warn that Russians more and more use newest night FPV drones with cheap NV cameras, which allow to operate in dusk or night on 10-15 km behind frontline. For example on Bakhmut direction on the one of frontline section each night there are reports about 1-2 night FPV attacks. But several days ago Russians conducted "NV swarm drone attack" on one of directions and they could take out about dozen our soldiers and four pick-ups. This is very dangerous tendency - we also use night FPVs, but this is mostly Mavics with thermal cameras and they are too expensive for such single usage, when Russia already ordered direrctly in Chima dozen thousands of cheap FPV with NV cameres, much more cheaper, than thermal. And since some time this can cause huge problem for out logistic, because most of movements in close rear is conducting in darkness. So, our soldiers demand from officials immediately to find solution for quick development and mass production of EW assets, capable to supress video channel of drones.
We already have some working models, but not all of them showed itself good, and all of them developed for some particular tasks. ANd both we and Russians already try to pass on new control frequensies, so this race can be endless.
More universal solution will have bigger dimensions and development of suchg things demand many money, qualified developers, IT-specialists etc. But I have met more than once stories like this: "You came to enlistment center - by free-will or being mobilized and say - I xxxx specialist, I know English, I have experience in YYYY, I will be effective in ZZZZZ. Enlistmet officer says, oh, that good. You come to training center and became usual riflelman to assault next tree-plant since a month"
Here is diagram, from where Russia imports spare parts for own drones production (it's unknown either assembled drones included or not)
China - 54.29 %
Taiwan - 20 %
Honkong - 5.71 %
UK - 4.29 %
Turkey - 4.29 %
USA - 2.86 % (special thanks to NVIDIA for their AI video chips for Lancets)
Canada - 2.86 %
Chili - 1.43 %
Bulgaria - 1.43 %
Uzbekistan - 1.43 %
So, China is a growing monster of drones production and spare parts and I afraid, western countries one time can encounter with painful reality...
When China plays this game, Taiwan will not be far behind and likely better at it.
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1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
I am going to repost this excellent Russian perspective on why there's strong support for the war pretty much everywhere but St. Petersburg and Moscow. This is nothing new to regular readers of this thread, but it is still an excellent review of reality in Russia's vast rural areas:
https://russiapost.info/regions/majority
Basically, it lays out the case that Russians in rural areas were already living at the poverty level and so they aren't noticing anything really different than before the war started. The message is someone won't notice something taken away if they never had it to begin with.
Closely linked to this is Russia's massive financial incentives for volunteers to fight in Ukraine. Earlier in the war Russia tried to avoid doing this and instead went with the partial mobilization. That didn't go over so well (see my post a few pages ago with polling data) and it wasn't cheap to have all those police running around grabbing people. So it seems that someone at the top finally figured out it was more efficient and cost effective to bribe people into joining. And for Russia's rural poor it doesn't really take all that much to get them to sign up because they have so little prospects of earning more any other way.
So Haiduk's point is if there was a way to cut off the money supply used to induce volunteers to fight, the war would collapse immediately. There's two ways to do that:
1. force the Russian government to prioritize other spending priorities over paying volunteers
2. collapse the domestic value of the Ruble so that inflation makes it increasingly difficult to come up with the cash (basically a variation of #1)
There is no direct way for anybody to make this happen. Sanctions help. Blowing up expensive infrastructure helps. Causing Russia to divert major spending into replacing things like tanks and AD systems helps. But ultimately it is Moscow that determines spending priorities and if they can rob one part of the economy to pay for volunteers, there's nothing anybody can do to change that. Hopefully over time people will notice a decline in public services, in particular health, that even by Russian standards is unacceptable. That will take a LONG time.
Steve
Thanks for the link. I will read it a couple more times before the day is finished
Russia is splashing the cash for mercenaries and they have cash to spare for the time being. Last time I looked their debt to GDP ratio was very sympathetic for ramping up domestic spending - well prepared, as I said, with several years of preparation..
The war will not be won via financial pressures - at least not short term. Ukraine has to win on the battlefield which looks both difficult and ill advised - the lines are frozen whether we like it or not. The remaining option is to get inside the russian heads. Even in Siberia being dead is less preferable than having a new car?
Your point on forcing the russians to spend elsewhere is a good one, despite their reserves. One way would be to foment insurrections. Another way would be to destroy vital infrastructure. A third way would be to attack profit making enterprises. Probably these three would deliver higher dividends than appealing to ukrainian troops to attack russian trenches through the minefields.
The ideological battle needs to be fought actively. Hearts and minds! The future looks a lot brighter when russians have the same impulse as happened in USA after Vietnam.
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2 hours ago, billbindc said:
Don't regret Kissinger's passing. He was of the realist school and did not hesitate to endorse a breakup of Ukraine and it's consignment into a Russian sphere of influence. He only changed his tune when it became untenable in the face of the unified disgust of the foreign policy establishment in DC. Being Henry Kissinger in the end was a business and Kissinger Associates takes money from everybody.
I would also disagree that US intelligence agencies are being passive at all but that's not something we will understand fully for a decade or more. We do know right now that Putin certainly wouldn't agree with that depiction.
I hope you are right concerning the active engagement of US agencies. I agree about Kissinger - he created a wall of opposition to western policy, unintentionally perhaps, but he was always focussed more on next week than next decade.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
The Canadian Ambassador is doing what she can to persuade russians to stop fighting and my conviction has always been that this is the only way to win this war. What else should she be doing? Insisting on unconditional surrender would not be taken seriously by anybody.
One plausible way to end this war is for Putin to be "retired". It is in essence Putin's war. The rest of the russian management might welcome the chance to get back to enriching themselves and taking nice holidays.
There is a lots we do not know about the military facts on the ground. Maybe the russian retreat is just around the corner. I believed that for a while after listening to experts. Dealing with the realities in front of us it would be a bold expert predicting a military victory right now.