How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[keas66]

Some ideas of  possible ZFU  Operational moves   going forwards :

 

 

[Lethaface]

18 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Even the Russians themselves agree - if they believed there is threat to Russia and that Russia is worth fighting for, they would be lining up for the mobilisation themselves right now. Like the Ukrainians did - you know, including grandmas making molotovs and people not living in Ukraine for years going back so they can fight.

Instead the Russians are running.

Voila 

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Lethaface

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, panzermartin said:

I read everything, from ISW to pro UKR Twitter, this forum and russian sources. 

Why US is never to be blamed, they are very much benefiting from all this,while Germany, Europe and Russia are committing suicide. Is this russian propaganda? 

Yes.

[sburke]

9 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

For God's sake. His country is under attack. His people are dying. Use the ignore function or shut up. All of you.

In a word, no.

 That his country is under attack is not a carte blanche for the proposals made here.  This thread is supposed to be about the political/military situation in Ukraine and to voice support for Ukraine's resistance.  It is not a thread to support the eradication of whatever he decides in his next post to call Russians.  Sometime there are Russians and sometimes they are a fiction - he can't seem to make up his mind.  

[Lethaface]

39 minutes ago, IanL said:

Sound like a solid plan to me.

I haven't read anything better either, although it's sort of an 'best case' / 'happy flow' scenario imo. I'd sign the dotted line for it without much pause. 

[sburke]

13 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

FWIW I reported the post, there is plenty more to add to what you and TheCapt wrote but I don't think it's productive here. And that's coming from someone who probably posts more offtopic than ontopic; I like to play with thoughts. 
But somewhere there are lines and principles and recognizing a duck as a duck.

fair enough.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck... you must be drunk.  Ducks don't talk.

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Did you really find my idea that ridiculous?

cmon, Live And Let Die.

[dan/california]

11 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Even the Russians themselves agree - if they believed there is threat to Russia and that Russia is worth fighting for, they would be lining up for the mobilisation themselves right now. Like the Ukrainians did - you know, including grandmas making molotovs and people not living in Ukraine for years going back so they can fight.

Instead the Russians are running.

All you need to know about the state of the war, and we need to get back to that.

2 minutes ago, kraze said:

Except there was never a vicious circle. Before 2014 russians were treated absolutely like friends and everything was seemingly forgiven in 1991.

Just like it was in 1917 when Ukraine broke free from Russia - our ancestors immediately tried to make friends with "soviets" - and.... in 1932 alone russians murdered 5 million of our people.

Ukrainians were falling head over heels for that "brotherly" BS of theirs. Up until 2014 88% (no joke) of Ukrainians were against NATO even. Heck I ceased any contact with "more adequate" russians only in March of this year after realizing it is absolutely pointless.

So I have no idea what "hate begets hate" because hate for russians is a very recent thing, caused mostly by them proudly dismembering live Ukrainians for 8.5 years straight, because, as it turns out - at some point they decided we simply shouldn't exist. Again.

Kraze, I UNDERSTAND how you feel. It is understandable how you feel. The Russian attack on Ukraine is one of least justified wars in human history. They have behaved whatever is two degrees worse than barbaric, off the scale bad, literally. I am completely down with the entire upper layer of Putin's government being crucified with extras, on live TV. The point a number people on the forum are trying to make is that applying that to Russia, and Russian's more broadly is worse than a crime, it is a MISTAKE! There are too many Russian's to kill them all, the Germans tried and the results were poor. What we HAVE to do break the break the broader Russian populace free from its current awful government The more they feel existentially threatened the harder that is to do. 

Fortunately the the current *&$%$$& are so bad at it they seem to be actively trying to make our point for us in regards to the the Russian populace. What is need is to put the biggest possible chisel in that crack, and hit it as hard as we can. Calling for revenge on the broader Russian populace makes it harder to win the war and  the peace. It  might not be fair, but it is the truth.

[danfrodo]

I think this is on-topic, so will post.  There's a kid that I linked to in post a couple days ago.  he's been posting on YT since war started about life in Russia -- Petersburg, specifically.  I kept thinking SHUT UP because I figured FSB would not like his posts.  Then I starting thinking GET OUT as he started posting about the mobilization exodus.  And then in recent post I thought "why is he posting in a hotel??".  

Now I know.  He was trying to flee.  He's got a YT that will go live soon, but he indicates that he is already out of RU.  I am actually really glad for this kid.  He's harmless and is an example what Russia should be -- peaceful people wanting to cleanup their own country.   So I am posting this an anecdote to illustrate the exodus is not just RU nats that are avoiding the fight but also just scared kids that didn't want the war in the first place.

 

[Lethaface]

8 minutes ago, sburke said:

fair enough.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck... you must be drunk.  Ducks don't talk.

They quack rather distinctively though. Guess my ears are a bit sensitive. 

[sburke]

Russia's Mobilization and Plunging Oil Prices Weaken Putin's Economic Hand (msn.com)

[Letter from Prague]

2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Did you really find my idea that ridiculous?

I don't think it is impossible, but it does seem somewhat unlikely. We're talking pretty deep underwater demolition that was done sneakily enough that we're discussing it instead of looking at satellite photos of whoever did this. How many groups can pull something like that off?

I guess some private actor could stop a ship with transponder off nearby, but yeah. The scale and sneakiness of it seems to point to a state level actor for me.

[sburke]

'I'll die in prison but I can't stay silent': Mum among thousands trying to flee Russia (msn.com)

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, kraze said:

If a russian has a citizenship of Russia, pays taxes, which are used to arm his soldiers - he is directly responsible for everything his army and government does.

Thats fundamentally ridiculous and completely off the rails, logic-wise.

To be clear, I'm from a country that was invaded and oppressed for about 800 years, suffering very intensive and determined cultural eradication efforts, many many deliberate massacres of civilians, brutal repression of rebellions, exploitations as serf-like domestic servants and military cannon fodder, colonisation and economic exploitation, deliberate official neglect during multiple famines, intolerance of religion, execution of POWs and supression/extinction of the native language.

In some ways I'm probably more aware of it than many of my compatriots as I'm a fluent Gaelic speaker, through primary school and secondary in Gaelic immersion, and so I'm more aware of what has been lost and destroyed. Its like with the dinosaur fossil record - what we find and see is but a tiny fraction of what actually existed. So with indigenous Irish culture, what's left, what's survived to here and now is very likely just a sad echo of what was and what could have been. That's one of the unending tragedies of every colonisation process, the denial of what-might-have-been, to the eternal loss of human culture in general.

For eight centuries.

So my bona fides, as far as I'm concerned, are unassailable.

But it would be stupid for me to equate a Staffordshire farmer, paying his taxes and trying to muddle through from one season to the next, with the relentlessly brutal and imperialistic policies of the regime of the time.

A British Army officer suppressing a rebellion with wholesale slaughter of rebel prisoners, yup, hang 'em high. They were directly and deliberately implementing the HMG policies/attitudes¹.

But they're not the same person, the Farmer (and his family, by implication and actual effects) and the Officer,  and deserve very different fates. 

You're not a stupid person. You're very articulate, your English is excellent and you have very salient points which you're able to cogently argue through. You have enormous grounds for hate and anger and which, as I've stated before (and my paragraph above will help support), I fully agree with why you'd feel that. You have every right as a Ukrainian to hate Russians.

But this is frankly hate for hate's sake, and that just breeds more death. There's no thought in a sentence like the one quoted above, just emotion and ranting. And like I said, I get it. I've absorbed enough accounts and writings from history to feel the intense anger of my people through the hundreds of years of English/British rule. So I'm no stranger to your sentiments.

But the point stands and, for this leprechaun-sounding paddy, you're doing yourself a disservice and ruining your own arguments and credibility with this death spiral of useless, vacant vitriol.

This is not the place (you'll achieve nothing here) and your energy is far better spent helping your country or relating what's going on there than this cul-de-sac argument over how to properly punish "the Ivan".

I beg you to stop.

 

 

_{¹ The rebel atrocities were just as heinous and damnable and, crucially, further solidified the "savage peasant"  image of the Irish. Later on, in the 19/20th centuries that helped make rebellion "uncool"  for many middle class Irish.  It took some blatant whitewashing and outright denial to help clean the idea of independence from the stain of Irish crimes against civilians.} 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Kinophile

[Bulletpoint]

4 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

I don't think it is impossible, but it does seem somewhat unlikely. We're talking pretty deep underwater demolition that was done sneakily enough that we're discussing it instead of looking at satellite photos of whoever did this. How many groups can pull something like that off?

I guess some private actor could stop a ship with transponder off nearby, but yeah. The scale and sneakiness of it seems to point to a state level actor for me.

Yes I'm wondering what it would actually take to pull it off. If the pipes were 70 metres below the surface, you wouldn't need any special diving suit. And I don't think the pipes were particularly hardened - they are made of steel with a thin concrete layer, but not dug into the seabed as far as I know.

So I guess you'd need:

1: a small boat of the kind without transponders. Plenty of those around.

2 A couple of guys with scuba gear

3: Some underwater explosives with timed detonators.

4: A GPS and the exact locations of the pipes.

 

Not 'easy' to source, but not something that could only be done by a state actor, I think.

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

I don't think it is impossible, but it does seem somewhat unlikely. We're talking pretty deep underwater demolition that was done sneakily enough that we're discussing it instead of looking at satellite photos of whoever did this. How many groups can pull something like that off?

I guess some private actor could stop a ship with transponder off nearby, but yeah. The scale and sneakiness of it seems to point to a state level actor for me.

some conjecture

Nord Stream sabotage mapped: How Putin could have carried out the attack (msn.com)

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

For God's sake. His country is under attack. His people are dying. Use the ignore function or shut up. All of you.

Disagree.  I also get his impulse, we have all had it. However, his "only good Russian, is a dead Russian" rhetoric is:

- Promoting hatred and violence of an entire society - he has never discriminated for or against non-combatants in this conflict, in fact in his last post he has basically openly declared that there are no non-combatants.

- Rarely if ever providing any new facts - it is just a steady stream of the same hatred note that has frankly gone on far too long in my opinion.

- His attitude is apparently pulling in other like minded folks, which risks us sliding into polarized discussion forum - the hints of which we have already seen.

- His narrative actually will erode support to Ukraine from the audience, largely western, by representing his nation this way - the less informed may believe that all Ukrainians are thinking like him.  This will have the exact opposite effect he appears to be looking for as we begin to wonder if all Ukrainians are genocidal - which they clearly are not.

- To the point, Russian counter-IO would be employing exactly these sort of over the top narratives using false identities to try and sour western support: "See Ukrainians are really all a bunch of extremist Nazis!!!" - an attempt to re-shift the narrative, something the Russians are very adept at.

I am not saying that this individual is actually working for the Russians; however, his narrative is.  

Edited September 28, 2022 by The_Capt

[acrashb]

3 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

2 A couple of guys with scuba gear

3: Some underwater explosives with timed detonators.

A couple of guys with specialized scuba gear and significant experience, specifically "deep dive".

"some" explosives looks like 100kg per boom.  Explosives are controlled goods in every country; stealing 220 pounds or more isn't smuggling out a stick of TNT in your pocket.

So I'm not buying the "private actor" argument, it's too unlikely.  

Russia has been found mapping underwater communications cables as early as 2015; could use the same capabilities on underwater gas pipes; is clearly unconcerned with Interntional condemnation / sanctions of any kind; and may have just sent a clear message about what it can do if it wants to.  

It's possible that this wasn't done by Russia, just very unlikely.

[billbindc]

12 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes I'm wondering what it would actually take to pull it off. If the pipes were 70 metres below the surface, you wouldn't need any special diving suit. And I don't think the pipes were particularly hardened - they are made of steel with a thin concrete layer, but not dug into the seabed as far as I know.

So I guess you'd need:

1: a small boat of the kind without transponders. Plenty of those around.

2 A couple of guys with scuba gear

3: Some underwater explosives with timed detonators.

4: A GPS and the exact locations of the pipes.

 

Not 'easy' to source, but not something that could only be done by a state actor, I think.

Or an underwater drone (like the Swedes found a couple of years ago) and the exact location of the pipes (which you built) relative to NATO jurisdiction.

[Grigb]

RU prospects of long war

Quote

I'll tell you what they [FAS - RU Antimonopoly service] will do -nothing!

We have had a shortage in most military positions from clothing to silencers, barrels and uniforms for a long time. There are too few plants producing military equipment in the country, producing tanks, boots, thermal jackets, satchels, and anything else.

Because for six months, it did not occur to anyone [in the Gov], to gather even behind closed doors all military manufacturers who survived years of an efficient economy [sarcasm], and ask: guys, do you need anything?

How many tank factories do we have now, one? How many companies are engaged in sewing high-quality uniforms, three?

Silencers are made by a single factory. SUVs are made by one factory, and it is just assembly of [most probably imported parts]. Etc.

No, FAS will not help here in any way. Prices are rising due to the complete inability of our industry to provide a supply for the military.

And during these times, no one has thought of spending a billion dollars and bringing everything they need from China.

 

[acrashb]

10 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Disagree.  I also get his impulse, we have all had it. However, his "only good Russian, is a dead Russian" rhetoric is:

- Promoting hatred and violence of an entire society - he has never discriminated for or against non-combatants in this conflict, in fact in his last post he has basically openly declared that there are no non-combatants.

[...]

I am not saying that this individual is actually working for the Russians; however, his narrative is.  

All true.  Even the Romans didn't kill every Carthaginian (Scipio agreed to take prisoners on the last day of street fighting).

I just blocked Kraze a long time ago; the responses to his rants let them leak out.

Edited September 28, 2022 by acrashb

[billbindc]

4 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I am not saying that this individual is actually working for the Russians; however, his narrative is.  

Funny...I just got done typing something quite similar.

Kraze...you can either have your just war or indiscriminately hate every Russian. You can't have both.

[Butschi]

19 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Thats fundamentally ridiculous and completely off the rails, logic-wise.

To be clear, I'm from a country that was invaded and oppressed for about 800 years, suffering very intensive and determined cultural eradication efforts, many many deliberate massacres of civilians, brutal repression of rebellions, exploitations as serf-like domestic servants and military cannon fodder, colonisation and economic exploitation, deliberate official neglect during multiple famines, intolerance of religion, execution of POWs and supression/extinction of the native language.

In some ways I'm probably more aware of it than many of my compatriots as I'm a fluent Gaelic speaker, through primary school and secondary in Gaelic immersion, and so I'm more aware of what has been lost and destroyed. Its like with the dinosaur fossil record - what we find and see is but a tiny fraction of what actually existed. So with indigenous Irish culture, what's left, what's survived to here and now is very likely just a sad echo of what was and what could have been. That's one of the unending tragedies of every colonisation process, the denial of what-might-have-been, to the eternal loss of human culture in general.

For eight centuries.

So my bona fides, as far as I'm concerned, are unassailable.

But it would be stupid for me to equate a Staffordshire farmer, paying his taxes and trying to muddle through from one season to the next, with the relentlessly brutal and imperialistic policies of the regime of the time.

A British Army officer suppressing a rebellion with wholesale slaughter of rebel prisoners, yup, hang 'em high. They were directly and deliberately implementing the HMG policies/attitudes¹.

They're not the same person, the Farmer (and his family, by implication and actual effects) and the Officer.

You're not a stupid person. You're very articulate, your English is excellent and you have very salient points which you're able to cogently argue through. You have enormous grounds for hate and anger and which, as I've stated before (and my paragraph above will help support), I fully agree with why you'd feel that. You have every right as a Ukrainian to hate Russians.

But this is frankly hate for hate's sake, and that just breeds more death. There's no thought in a sentence like the one quoted above, just emotion and ranting. And like I said, I get it. I've absorbed enough accounts and writings from history to feel the intense anger of my people through the hundreds of years of English/British rule. So I'm no stranger to your sentiments.

But the point stands and, for this leprechaun-sounding paddy, you're doing yourself a disservice and ruining your own arguments and credibility with this death spiral of useless, vacant vitriol.

This is not the place (you'll achieve nothing here) and your energy is far better spent helping your country or relating what's going on there than this cul-de-sac argument over how to properly punish "the Ivan".

I beg you to stop.

 

 

_{¹ The rebel atrocities were just as heinous and damnable.}

 

+1, we really need more likes...

[Aragorn2002]

12 minutes ago, acrashb said:

A couple of guys with specialized scuba gear and significant experience, specifically "deep dive".

"some" explosives looks like 100kg per boom.  Explosives are controlled goods in every country; stealing 220 pounds or more isn't smuggling out a stick of TNT in your pocket.

So I'm not buying the "private actor" argument, it's too unlikely.  

Russia has been found mapping underwater communications cables as early as 2015; could use the same capabilities on underwater gas pipes; is clearly unconcerned with Interntional condemnation / sanctions of any kind; and may have just sent a clear message about what it can do if it wants to.  

It's possible that this wasn't done by Russia, just very unlikely.

I fear we're in for a lot more trouble and misery before all this is over. Russia may be losing on the battlefield, it can still inflict a lot of pain on the West. 

[billbindc]

23 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Thats fundamentally ridiculous and completely off the rails, logic-wise.

To be clear, I'm from a country that was invaded and oppressed for about 800 years, suffering very intensive and determined cultural eradication efforts, many many deliberate massacres of civilians, brutal repression of rebellions, exploitations as serf-like domestic servants and military cannon fodder, colonisation and economic exploitation, deliberate official neglect during multiple famines, intolerance of religion, execution of POWs and supression/extinction of the native language.

In some ways I'm probably more aware of it than many of my compatriots as I'm a fluent Gaelic speaker, through primary school and secondary in Gaelic immersion, and so I'm more aware of what has been lost and destroyed. Its like with the dinosaur fossil record - what we find and see is but a tiny fraction of what actually existed. So with indigenous Irish culture, what's left, what's survived to here and now is very likely just a sad echo of what was and what could have been. That's one of the unending tragedies of every colonisation process, the denial of what-might-have-been, to the eternal loss of human culture in general.

For eight centuries.

So my bona fides, as far as I'm concerned, are unassailable.

But it would be stupid for me to equate a Staffordshire farmer, paying his taxes and trying to muddle through from one season to the next, with the relentlessly brutal and imperialistic policies of the regime of the time.

A British Army officer suppressing a rebellion with wholesale slaughter of rebel prisoners, yup, hang 'em high. They were directly and deliberately implementing the HMG policies/attitudes¹.

They're not the same person, the Farmer (and his family, by implication and actual effects) and the Officer.

You're not a stupid person. You're very articulate, your English is excellent and you have very salient points which you're able to cogently argue through. You have enormous grounds for hate and anger and which, as I've stated before (and my paragraph above will help support), I fully agree with why you'd feel that. You have every right as a Ukrainian to hate Russians.

But this is frankly hate for hate's sake, and that just breeds more death. There's no thought in a sentence like the one quoted above, just emotion and ranting. And like I said, I get it. I've absorbed enough accounts and writings from history to feel the intense anger of my people through the hundreds of years of English/British rule. So I'm no stranger to your sentiments.

But the point stands and, for this leprechaun-sounding paddy, you're doing yourself a disservice and ruining your own arguments and credibility with this death spiral of useless, vacant vitriol.

This is not the place (you'll achieve nothing here) and your energy is far better spent helping your country or relating what's going on there than this cul-de-sac argument over how to properly punish "the Ivan".

I beg you to stop.

 

 

_{¹ The rebel atrocities were just as heinous and damnable.}

 

This, all damn day.  Lamh-laidir aboo!