How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[kraze]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

I generally agree w all things Kraze, but I don't think I see this the same way.  I think you mean that Russia has a collective insanity -- I agree, but this insanity starts at the top and is distributed via propaganda from the top down.  Does Putin care about and represent the interests of the russian people -- doesn't seem so as he's oppressed them, economically and politically, for 20 years while making himself and his cronies crazy rich.  The population mostly believes this is due to bad foreigners, of course.

Blamin Putin is also very handy for the future, where removing Putin gives Russian a way to start to make amends w the world.  W Putin in power, there is no way forward.

Ah but that's where you are wrong. Here's just a recent random YT comment on one of our local channels by an absolutely typical russian liberal that hates putin with all his heart:

"Should russians take part in protests against the war? No, it should be a protest that demands "wage war properly, f***" instead.
Since the beginning of the war I help russian soldiers however I can. From outside it's very hard to understand how hard it is for them to advance against a numerically larger enemy, due to lack of equipment and president and government, which constantly strike you in the back.
Ukrainians are being helped by half of the world, russians aren't being helped by anyone, but other russians.
More so russian government (especially presidential administration) constantly gets in the way, makes concessions and tries to lead everything into a draw. We can only thank Ukrainian people for the lack of compromise in their position, which made any treaty impossible. Or it would've been yet another "sovereign anti-fascist Ukraine" with Medvedchuks (me: our famous pro-russian traitor) and other fa**ots sitting on our heads. Just thank you. And the more cuckolds-"I'msorry" will leave russian cities - the better. Thank you again.

War will be long, no matter how many "cease-fires" there will be. The process of reunification of russian people will continue, even if it will be slowed down or frozen, in 2014 they already tried to freeze it - and it only led to more victims and escalation...
But Ukrainians can end the war at any time - just give us back our russian lands and live in your western-nowhere as long as you want. There's no other option. It's our, russian cities, they were founded by our russian ancestors and we will be damned, if we won't do everything we can to liberate them from separatists, traitors and other Ukrainian Mazepas."

 

You just don't know how many comments like these are there. They are countless and they aren't being written by some faceless bots, but by people (who are also for some reason genuine subscribers), who genuinely hate putin.

Putin isn't a real problem, he's just a road bump. Because before 2000 there was no putin. There was literally anyone else.

Edited June 27, 2022 by kraze

[dan/california]

 

10 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

I don't believe in Russia fixing itself. Let's not repeat that mistake. Russia should be weakened in every possible way. Even more important is that the countries opposing Russia will strengthen their miitary in such a manner that aggression is simply not an option anymore for Russia. Ever

NATOs eastern border is going to have to be massively fortified for at least a generation...

[sross112]

41 minutes ago, poesel said:

I don‘t want to disagree with you but I don‘t think that that is completely right.

I‘d like to take post-WWII Germany as an example how you can convert a fascist country into a working democracy. That was not Germany fixing Germany - at least not in the beginning. It was a decisively lost war, no questions open. Then there were trials which judged the most obvious criminals and especially those who ‚just followed orders‘.
After that, something happened what many probably wouldn‘t like to happen in Russia: there is a country to run and you need people for that. If every German who deserved it would have been hung or imprisoned, the country would have collapsed. So those got away because a functioning Germany was needed against the Soviets.
But: from then on it was impossible to publicly state nazi ideas so a new generation without those ideas could be raised. The old thinking died when the people who had them died.

So, Russia can fix itself but only after some outside help makes this process possible.

The biggest difference is that Russia will need to fix itself whereas Germany was "fixed" by the occupying nations. Russia is not going to be occupied and a western style constitutional republic type government applied to it by an outside force. 

Not saying it couldn't happen. There are those here that know vastly more about the dynamics of the Russian population but that would take a pretty radical turn and have to come from the people and not just a replacement head to a corrupt regime. Something along the Maidan lines would have to happen where the population has had enough and does sweeping democratic reforms. Possible, but not sure how probable that outcome is. 

Personally I think if Russia suffers a resounding and unquestionable defeat in Ukraine we are more likely to see the collapse of the federation before a revolution. The revolution may follow that when Russia proper is about all that is left of the federation and it is looking a lot like North Korea. Even then, who knows? Could just be a little bigger North Korea with Putin or Putin's replacement dictating over the starving masses.

[Letter from Prague]

2 hours ago, Grigb said:

I suspect this is how it will be done at the end - everything will be blamed on Putin. They gonna put Navalny as president and then launch campaign to lift the sanctions. They will label sanctions amoral and might succeed in lifting them. A dozen years later there will be a new Putin.  

Given his stance on Crimea and Donbas before 24th Feb, Navalny already is new Putin, he's just not in power yet.

...

No, I'm sure Kraze is right - Ukraine and Yanukovich proves that a dictator will be overthrown when people don't like him enough. It immediately put into question any dictatorship around the world, past, present and future - showing if not proving, that dictators that don't get overthrown are actually doing what people want or at least are apathetic enough.

It is pretty bleak view of humanity of course.

...

Russia getting away with this by Putin dying and Russia continuing with new leader without really changing anything, would be a terrible result. Even if their army will be in tatters and economy destroyed, they would still have nukes and they will still shoot down airliners, fund despicable political parties and manipulate social media to destroy democracies worldwide, assassinate people abroad and everything else they are doing.

I'm beginning to think that Russia falling apart as Galeev suggested in a bloody civil war might be the best case scenario for everyone except Russia. Which is pretty bleak thing to hope for.

[dan/california]

And Ukraine should be ON THE NATO SIDE!

 

[kraze]

2 hours ago, Grigb said:

I suspect this is how it will be done at the end - everything will be blamed on Putin. They gonna put Navalny as president and then launch campaign to lift the sanctions. They will label sanctions amoral and might succeed in lifting them. A dozen years later there will be a new Putin.  

Navalny is literally the same as putin. There is no difference between them. Navalny doesn't consider Ukraine a country, similar to putin. He is absolutely pro-war and pro-occupation. He just wants putin's throne and that's the only reason he's imprisoned - nobody likes competition in there.

So it's another huge mistake by the West due to glaring misunderstanding of how russians tick. Just because someone hates putin - doesn't make him any less fascist. See a good example above.

Or see Yeltsin. He wasn't considered "putin" by the West, but he was "putin". War in Moldova, war in Chechnya, war in Georgia, helping Serbians do the massacres, massacring Armenian parliament using russian specops and replacing the government with pro-russian traitors, war in Azerbaijan. Hell his warlist is larger than putin's right now. And yet he wasn't considered "putin".

Edited June 27, 2022 by kraze

[holoween]

3 minutes ago, poesel said:

There were only 14 years between the Kaiser and the 3rd Reich. Not much to build a tradition on. Also the Weimar Republic was seen as a failure because of the economy which led to a view that democracy itself was a failure and wouldn‘t work in Germany.

Ever heard of the 1848 revolution? Or aware that the individual german states and then the empire had parliaments? They werent in full power but the tradition was decades old when they overthrew the emperor.  Also outside pressure doesnt turn a nation friendly. The weimar republic was also revanchist and wanted to reverse ww1. Economic wellbeing for the masses was the key differentiator. The marshall plan was far more important than the denazification.

[dan/california]

7 minutes ago, kraze said:

Ah but that's where you are wrong. Here's just a random YT comment on one of our channels by an absolutely typical russian liberal that hates putin with all his heart:

"Should russians take part in protests against the war? No, it should be a protest that demands "wage war properly, f***" instead.
Since the beginning of the war I help russian soldiers however I can. From outside it's very hard to understand how hard it is for them to advance against a numerically larger enemy, lack of equipment and president and government, which constantly strike you in the back.
Ukrainians are being helped by half of the world, russians aren't being helped by anyone, but other russians.
More so russian government (especially presidential administration) constantly gets in the way, makes concessions and tries to lead everything into a draw. We can only thank Ukrainian people for the lack of compromise in their position, which made any treaty impossible. Or it would've been yet another "sovereign anti-fascist Ukraine" with Medvedchuks (me: our famous pro-russian traitor) and other fa**ots sitting on our heads. Just thank you. And the more cuckolds-"I'msorry" will leave russian cities - the better. Thank you again.

War will be long, no matter how many "cease-fires" there will be. The process of reunification of russian people will continue, even if it will be slowed down or frozen, in 2014 they already tried to freeze it - and it only led to more victims and escalation...
But Ukrainians can end the war at any time - just give us back our russian lands and live in your western-nowhere as long as you want. There's no other option. It's our, russian cities, they were founded by our russian ancestors and we will be damned, if we won't do everything we can to liberate them from separatists, traitors and other Ukrainian Mazepas."

 

You just don't know how many comments like these are there. They are countless and they aren't being written by some faceless posts, but by people, who genuinely hate putin. Putin isn't a real problem, he's just a road bump.

 

4 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Given his stance on Crimea and Donbas before 24th Feb, Navalny already is new Putin, he's just not in power yet.

...

No, I'm sure Kraze is right - Ukraine and Yanukovich proves that a dictator will be overthrown when people don't like him enough. It immediately put into question any dictatorship around the world, past, present and future - showing if not proving, that dictators that don't get overthrown are actually doing what people want or at least are apathetic enough.

It is pretty bleak view of humanity of course.

...

Russia getting away with this by Putin dying and Russia continuing with new leader without really changing anything, would be a terrible result. Even if their army will be in tatters and economy destroyed, they would still have nukes and they will still shoot down airliners, fund despicable political parties and manipulate social media to destroy democracies worldwide, assassinate people abroad and everything else they are doing.

I'm beginning to think that Russia falling apart as Galeev suggested in a bloody civil war might be the best case scenario for everyone except Russia. Which is pretty bleak thing to hope for.

Kraze seems to be proving Letter From Prague correct. There doesn't seem to be any solution to except to ship CARGO 200s back by the trainload until Russia gets the point, or disintegrates. Eastern Europe needs to be massively reinforced.

[Letter from Prague]

I think that "fixing Russia" would be very difficult.

I think for that you would need people who are at least somewhat patriots, but aren't crazy nationalists and imperialists.

To help turn a country around, you need to believe that it is possible to fix it. And you need to believe that it is worth to fix it. Have some kind of patriotism where you actually truly think it can be turned into good place to live, to something to be proud of. That it can be improved.

But Russian patriots, at least the ones you read online, seem more interested in how their country can destroy, conquer and subjugate, not in how their country could be made better.

There are of course Russians who aren't crazy bloodthirsty nationalists, but from what I've seen, those have mostly given up on Russia and fled either long ago, or after this all started - at least the few ones I know personally, my employer contracts lot of IT work to EPAM and I've seen like ten pretty good IT dudes and ladies pack their things and move away in March.

In short, it seems to me that the type of Russians who could turn Russia around have already given up on Russia and left.

EDIT: you can't improve squat with "my neighbour has a cow, instead of wishing I also had a cow, I wish his cow dies" thinking.

EDIT2: but I am in really dark mood today, so take my rambling with a grain of salt

Edited June 27, 2022 by Letter from Prague

[dan/california]

20 minutes ago, kraze said:

Navalny is literally the same as putin. There is no difference between them. Navalny doesn't consider Ukraine a country, similar to putin. He is absolutely pro-war and pro-occupation. He just wants putin's throne and that's the only reason he's imprisoned - nobody likes competition in there.

So it's another huge mistake by the West due to glaring misunderstanding of how russians tick. Just because someone hates putin - doesn't make him any less fascist. See a good example above.

Or see Yeltsin. He wasn't considered "putin" by the West, but he was "putin". War in Moldova, war in Chechnya, war in Georgia, helping Serbians do the massacres, massacring Armenian parliament using russian specops, war in Azerbaijan. Hell his warlist is larger than putin's right now. And yet he wasn't considered "putin".

Not saying you are wrong. But if Putin were to expire, with or without some 9mm/novachuck assistance the new bleeping bleep in charge might withdraw at least to the 2/24 borders and seek a medium term ceasefire. Whatever faction came out on top would probably have a large project with internal consolidation and spoils redistribution as the mansions got seized and then handed out to the successful faction at the expense of the others, and a whole bunch miscellaneous murdering. IF, BIG IF, Russia withdrew to 2/24 borders and offered a REAL ceasefire it would allow Ukraine to reequip with all NATO gear and become too strong for them to ever try again.

Edited June 27, 2022 by dan/california

[G.I. Joe]

47 minutes ago, holoween said:

While i generally agree youre ignoring some things. Germany had a democratic tradition. The biggest difference between the weimar republic and west germany was one git a major economic depression in its formative years and one a massive economic boom.

Good point, Japan also had its own democratic tradition during the Taishō Period to build upon.

[poesel]

9 minutes ago, holoween said:

Ever heard of the 1848 revolution?

Yes, didn’t sleep through history classes.

But your are right. Russia ‘22 isn’t Germany ‘45. Each country has its own history. But I took it as an example that a) a country can be ‘fixed’ and, b) you might need external help for that.

If Twitter had existed in ‘45 the posts by German nationalists wouldn’t have looked much different from Russias today (Hitler did everything wrong, we just need to do x, bla bla…).
So I don’t agree that the existence of those kind of postings make Russia unfixable per se. With what I agree is the necessity of Russia loosing this war very clearly and the following dissolution of the federation. If Russia stays in its current form nothing will happen for a very long time.

[Haiduk]

UKR Air Forces command claimed for today 12 sorties, including by groups. Su-24M and Su-25 struck positions of two Russian BTGs and hit ammunition depot. 

Locals on RUMINT level write Russian fighter engaged UKR Su-24M over Apostolove area (Kryvyi Rih - Nikopol direction) and launched AA missile at it, but the crew of our bomber conducted evasive maneuvers and saved own jet.

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Haiduk

[G.I. Joe]

2 minutes ago, poesel said:

If Twitter had existed in ‘45

Somehow, that gives me the mental image of 4:00 AM Winston Churchill drunk-tweets...

[Vanir Ausf B]

9 minutes ago, G.I. Joe said:

Somehow, that gives me the mental image of 4:00 AM Winston Churchill drunk-tweets...

Except with Churchill it would have been 4 PM drunk tweets.

[Vanir Ausf B]

 

[Billy Ringo]

Maybe I'm naive, but opening up Russia to free and uncensored media, TV, music, internet, news, etc. may do more to change behavior and mindset than putting a gun to their heads.   Eliminate or temper the uber ultra-nationalistic talking heads on their TV. 

Then again, a Kardashian Regime Change strategy may prove to be counterproductive.  

[FancyCat]

theres little point in talking about seeking to end the current regime in Russia, cause it will never happen (nukes). Best thing Ukraine needs to focus on is regaining her pre-2014 borders, joining EU, NATO and then it probably does not matter if Russia comes back for round 2, as Poland-Ukraine and co could probably hold them off quite well if NATO/EU ever fell apart. 

 

 

[FancyCat]

long thread but basically Def Mon thinks Russia has a huge artillery mass in the region of SD and Popsana, etc, that will force Ukraine out of the remaining salient but Russia is exposed on the other fronts, Ukraine will try and focus on strangling that mass from being deployed effectively thru long range fire, and launching attacks on other fronts to try and draw Russian focus away from Donbas. 

 

 

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Billy Ringo said:

Maybe I'm naive, but opening up Russia to free and uncensored media, TV, music, internet, news, etc. may do more to change behavior and mindset than putting a gun to their heads.   Eliminate or temper the uber ultra-nationalistic talking heads on their TV. 

Then again, a Kardashian Regime Change strategy may prove to be counterproductive.  

Unfortunatelly, problem with Russia is not only form of government and pluralism in media but Great-Russian imperialistic mentality. I can easly imagine Russia that is better governed, less cleptocratic and with partially functioning civil society that is still waging wars of conquest. In such society ultra-nationalists, pan-euarsianists and agressive conservatists of all sorts backed by Moscow Orthodox Church can actually be even more important than they are now.

Pleasant feeling of being strong and important does not go away easily...it would need several generations even under most favourable conditions to make it dissapear.

 

It appears Kremienchuk strike will fortunatelly be less bloody than Zelensky projected- exaggerated figure of 1000 people inside will no doubt be used by Russian propaganda.

Meanwile, In the shadow of Kremienchuk mall strike there was another one, in Lysychansk. It seems 8 dead and 20 wounded.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Beleg85

[keas66]

With the arrival of all this modern Western Artillery on the battlefield - what is the likelihood that Western Allies will be able to coordinate targeting information from  other Western Assets above the Battlefield and supply the Ukrainians with  accurate targets . I mean it would seem to be a perfect opportunity in a target rich environment  to really hammer the Russian backfield  hard  .

[Huba]

1 minute ago, keas66 said:

With the arrival of all this modern Western Artillery on the battlefield - what is the likelihood that Western Allies will be able to coordinate targeting information from  other Western Assets above the Battlefield and supply the Ukrainians with  accurate targets . I mean it would seem to be a perfect opportunity in a target rich environment  to really hammer the Russian backfield  hard  .

It was more or less answered during today press briefing at the Pentagon. Here's the relevant fragment:

Quote

Q: Hey, good morning. Thanks for your time today.

Wanted to ask about these strikes, mostly by way of what you think they may be targeting, you know, that the -- what weapons deliveries are obviously getting spread out across the country, there is some sense the depots are being at least targeted. Have you seen anything hit in terms of depots? And do you get the sense that that at least an aim here?

SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Thanks for your question, Dan.

Well, first of all, I'd say, you know, we -- you know, we are apathetic, if that's the right term in terms of the targeting. What I mean by that is, the Ukrainians are determining the targets that they shoot at. So we have provided the systems to the Ukrainians. They were pretty amazing in their training and have been in all sorts of training that's going on outside the country. And then based on that, they're determining the targets that they need to hit. This is their fight. And they're doing that.

So basically US gave Ukrainians access to the targeting systems (satellite ones I presume, there are hardly any other that are applicable) and they are doing the work themselves. O'Brien tweeted about all of this a moment ago:

 

[kraze]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

Not saying you are wrong. But if Putin were to expire, with or without some 9mm/novachuck assistance the new bleeping bleep in charge might withdraw at least to the 2/24 borders and seek a medium term ceasefire. Whatever faction came out on top would probably have a large project with internal consolidation and spoils redistribution as the mansions got seized and then handed out to the successful faction at the expense of the others, and a whole bunch miscellaneous murdering. IF, BIG IF, Russia withdrew to 2/24 borders and offered a REAL ceasefire it would allow Ukraine to reequip with all NATO gear and become too strong for them to ever try again.

Problem is - they will try again. They will always keep trying because they have nukes and we don't - or at least until we get a nuclear umbrella. But unless we are in NATO we aren't getting that. And try getting into NATO fast enough. But hey - I agree it's better than nothing.

BUT!

The war will happen much sooner than later if the West will decide to play ball with the "new" russian government. It's very obvious that russian mentality and culture are that of an invader and unless those change - there will always be trouble.

What should happen is a controlled disintegration of Russia while taking away their nukes. Like if you want sanctions lifted - give away nukes. Period. Anything less - is another war. Maybe not with us - but who cares when it will result in mass suffering again for somebody else?

And then it can finally disintegrate, become just another bloody page of history and leave the area in peace.

Edited June 27, 2022 by kraze

[Cederic]

36 minutes ago, Huba said:

So basically US gave Ukrainians access to the targeting systems

You could as easily read that as the US provided the [weapons] systems to Ukraine.

That would make more sense. There's minimal benefit and a lot of risk in giving Ukraine direct access to the US satellite network, especially when US analysts sat safely in the US can do the same target identification as Ukraine, and merely pass the results over.

"There's an ammunition dump just here. Entirely up to you what you do with that information. Oh, btw, here are the precise coordinates."

 

 

[Huba]

11 minutes ago, Cederic said:

You could as easily read that as the US provided the [weapons] systems to Ukraine.

That would make more sense. There's minimal benefit and a lot of risk in giving Ukraine direct access to the US satellite network, especially when US analysts sat safely in the US can do the same target identification as Ukraine, and merely pass the results over.

"There's an ammunition dump just here. Entirely up to you what you do with that information. Oh, btw, here are the precise coordinates."

 

 

I'm pretty sure you're right, giving UA raw data instead of processed target lists would be really counterproductive. What the guy giving the briefing meant was that US is not coordinating the strikes, it's up to UA to decide what targets they want to hit, probably they know better anyway. What's important is that it seems to work

Edited June 27, 2022 by Huba