How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

I would love for Carlson & Fuentes discussion to go on & on & on, cuz they are both disgusting snakes, but hopefully we can follow Steve's advice & drop this.  There's a war on, after all.

I just read the NYTimes article Steve linked earlier about RU economy.  Sounds like short term Putin weathering the storm but there's big issues ahead in the short/medium term.  And in the long term RU is going back in time relative to the rest of the world.  And they'll never get an export market for whatever ~1980/90s tech they manage to produce.  There's a difference between 'vintage' and 'junk'.

 

[Beleg85]

Did you know that Russian MoD labelled today's attack on military airfields as acts of terrorism?

Destructions are apparently limited, but it hit them hard where they feel the most- at ego.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Destructions are apparently limited, but it hit them hard where they feel the most- at ego.

It's worse than that... it makes Putin and the military look weak.  Ukrainian strikes deep within Russia definitely don't inspire confidence that this war is going well.  The Russian capacity to come up with excuses for everything bad that happens to them is not infinite.

That said, the Russian resolve to wipe Ukraine off the map is likely not going to be phased by this latest evidence of Russian military impotence.  It will make some, at least, more determined than ever to hit Ukraine harder.  That's been the pattern so far anyway.

However, Putin has a problem.  For past embarrassments they've launched waves of missiles at Ukraine.  With Ukraine's air defenses getting better and Russia's missile capacity getting worse, it indicates that Russia will have to come up with something else to "punish" Ukraine.  What that might be I don't know, as I'd say the missile terror campaign seems to be all they can do.

Steve

[FancyCat]

Talk about diluting the term terrorism. That said, it’s more for domestic consumption than internationally In my opinion.

[Battlefront.com]

NY Times article about researchers identifying at least some of the recent KH-101 missiles were made since the war started.  Whether they were assembled from stockpiled parts or part of some sanction dodge, so far no evidence either way.

If they are launching brand new manufactured missiles, maybe this indicates they don't have the sort of functional stocks Western intel thinks they have?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/us/politics/cruise-missiles-russia-ukraine-sanctions.html?campaign_id=249&emc=edit_ruwb_20221205&instance_id=79392&nl=russia-ukraine-war-briefing&regi_id=77867169&segment_id=115112&te=1&user_id=06eb42ecc9056dd32ea63af0c30707b6

Steve

[Beleg85]

35 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It's worse than that... it makes Putin and the military look weak.  Ukrainian strikes deep within Russia definitely don't inspire confidence that this war is going well.  The Russian capacity to come up with excuses for everything bad that happens to them is not infinite.

That said, the Russian resolve to wipe Ukraine off the map is likely not going to be phased by this latest evidence of Russian military impotence.  It will make some, at least, more determined than ever to hit Ukraine harder.  That's been the pattern so far anyway.

However, Putin has a problem.  For past embarrassments they've launched waves of missiles at Ukraine.  With Ukraine's air defenses getting better and Russia's missile capacity getting worse, it indicates that Russia will have to come up with something else to "punish" Ukraine.  What that might be I don't know, as I'd say the missile terror campaign seems to be all they can do.

Steve

Yup. However, it should be remembered that Russia has very weak internal coherence between regions- people outside of danger zone do not care that much what happens outside their neighourhood. Could be a liability, but also an asset depending on circumstances. That is why absolute humilation that was "accident" at Kerch Bridge did not change much in general strategic attitude to war. Kremlin is loudmoth, but it was already hit in the abdomen so many times the incident probably will not mark any significant milestone. Also, as you said, they simply run out of options below WMD.

Also note how quickly RU identified missile that hit them as this old Soviet drone; unlike at Saki airbase, this time they were quick to cut speculations. It aligns very well with Russan propaganda effort stressed at Putin's hate speech before the war as Ukranians supposedly "stealing" Soviet engineering and industry.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Beleg85

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Technically speaking, *any* pressure on species within an environmental niche causes selection, an evolutionary process. *We* as a species are still evolving genetically - not just culturally - as evidenced by a great amount of research over the past decades describing the differential frequency of gene frequencies, various alleles among population groups across the planet. (Another chapter in the metaphorical book, “Rust Never Sleeps”!)

If any interest:

https://www.science.org/content/article/team-uncovers-new-evidence-recent-human-evolution

https://sciencing.com/humans-are-still-evolving-heres-the-evidence-13719181.html
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/10/12/humans-still-evolving-evidence-age-survives/

True but I think we may be the only species capable of creating an entirely artificial environment that then creates pressures.  War is very much an environment, and it is very much human-made.  Not sure any other animals do it to this scale - ants maybe.  We create our own pressures to the point we could extinct ourselves.  I can’t tell if this is a natural filter to scrub out dangerous higher life forms or a way to propel a species to become more dangerous higher life forms - see Three Body Problem series.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

2.  Tula-Ryazan is the 'home' of the VDV, including the Ryazan Airborne Higher Command School and other institutes.  Not coincidentally, it's also one of the RUAF airbase complexes, which is true back to the 1920s, and was a key defensive point in the 1941-42 battles around Moscow.

It is also the base town for the 106th Airborne Division which is basically Russia's 'RDF'; historically one of the first units to get deployed overseas.  And during the fizzled coup of 1991, it was the unit that rolled its BMDs into (nearby) Moscow to support the praetorian Taman division (and ensure they did their job, if ordered to. They weren't, thankfully).

Basically, if there's rationing (or food stamps) in Tula, that's pretty important. It's one of the strongholds of the regime.  If Putin loses the paras, he's done.

(aside, the Russians ought to be upsizing all their independent VDV brigades into divisions. They are the only formations that have been able to fight like Ukrainians once they stopped being given suicide missions)

3.  Slightly OT, but interesting:

https://wavellroom.com/2022/11/09/when-russia-used-an-atomic-bomb-nuclear/

Look!  Proof positive that the post-Stalin Soviets MUST be Nazis... or Swiss Army fans.

Edited December 6, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

It's worse than that... it makes Putin and the military look weak.  Ukrainian strikes deep within Russia definitely don't inspire confidence that this war is going well.  The Russian capacity to come up with excuses for everything bad that happens to them is not infinite.

Tsk tsk O ye of little faith

Hast thou forgotten these past many months of Igor Yevgenyevich Konashenkov and his baldy-faced gibberish?

[Kinophile]

33 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

True but I think we may be the only species capable of creating an entirely artificial environment that then creates pressures.  War is very much an environment, and it is very much human-made.  Not sure any other animals do it to this scale - ants maybe.  We create our own pressures to the point we could extinct ourselves.  I can’t tell if this is a natural filter to scrub out dangerous higher life forms or a way to propel a species to become more dangerous higher life forms - see Three Body Problem series.

 

Chimps raid, and it's horrifically barbaric. Like, pile-on and rip their jaws off is a standard tactic, I was once told. But that's more raw opportunistic violence than a structured approach to conquest.

I...did not care for that book series. The basic logic was brutally sound - treat the universe as a jungle that will kill you, so kill anything you meet because it is impossible to tell who is truly friend or foe and the penalty for not being zero-sum is the destruction of your entire civilization. Some scenes/set ups were interesting. But holy crap was he unutterably bad at characterizations (especially women), had no clue about human society under pressure and ridiculously, RIDICULOUSLY chauvinistic and paternalistic. 

Aside from that basic concept, T3BP read like an old sci fi book from the 50s. And not a great one.

Give me Simmons, Asher, Greg Bear (RIP) any day.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kinophile

[billbindc]

1 minute ago, Kinophile said:

Chimps raid, and it's horrifically barbaric. Like, pile-on and rip their jaws off is a standard tactic, I was once told. But that's more raw reactive violence than a structured approach to conquest.

I...did not care for that book series. The basic logic was brutally sound - treat the universe as a jungle that will kill you, so kill anything you meet because it is impossible to tell who is truly friend or foe. And some scenes/set ups were interesting. But holy crap was he unutterably bad at characterizations, studies of human society under pressure or ridiculously, RIDICULOUSLY chauvinistic and paternalistic. 

Aside from that basic concept, T3BP read like an old sci fi book from the 50s. And not a great one.

As a matter of policy, I won't buy a book from anyone who has a favorable take on how the PRC treats the Uighers or the  democratic yearnings of its youth. 

[fireship4]

A recent YouTube piece on ideologues influential on modern Russia, in particular: Ivan Ilyin, Lev Gumilyov, and Carl Schmitt.  It provides context to why the influence of Dugin is considered overstated.

Quote

 

And for some pushback/criticism on how much Putin himself is in fact an acolyte of Ilyin:

Quote

Edited December 6, 2022 by fireship4

[NamEndedAllen]

59 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

True but I think we may be the only species capable of creating an entirely artificial environment that then creates pressures.  War is very much an environment, and it is very much human-made.  Not sure any other animals do it to this scale - ants maybe.  We create our own pressures to the point we could extinct ourselves.  I can’t tell if this is a natural filter to scrub out dangerous higher life forms or a way to propel a species to become more dangerous higher life forms - see Three Body Problem series.

 

Interesting speculations indeed. I tend to agree with you about the tendency towards humans rendering the environment increasingly unfit. But that is far more a case of cultural evolution than biological. Which you may be implying?  CULTURAL evolution takes place by far at a more visibly rapid pace. I would place your sadly legitimate concern there, where you are seeing before your eyes the selection pressure on weapons systems that destroy other weapons and artificial structures. And unfortunately the collateral damage to human cultural centers: the cities, towns and villages where must people live. Much of the content here in the forum is speculation on the evolution of counter weaponry and human strategies in this war, and in tine frames of weeks and months. Of course all war is taking place destructively within natural environments, whether on land, at sea or in the air. 

Conversely, biological evolution - genetically speaking - is apparent over longer time spans due at least in large part to the long human pregnancy and then the time to reach sexual maturity. The selective pressures on humankind take place on all humans, now 8 billion and growing, everywhere on earth. The research I see in the journal literature is on long term adaptations. For instance,  such the Tibetans’  adaptation favoring a mutation for greater oxygenation, a reproductive advantage at altitude. There is a tremendous amount going on, but I think the speed of war time cultural evolution combined with the already changing environment is the context for your darker concerns.

 

PS Good name check on “Three Body Problem” book and series by Liu Cixin! Soon to be a movie

https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/the-three-body-problem-netflix-season-1-everything-we-know-so-far-10-2022/

[acrashb]

4 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Humans stay the same, the tech evolves. 

As far as I can tell from reading several thousand year's literature, human _nature_ has remained the same.
But when you say 'tech evolves', there are two kinds of technology- physical and social.

Both evolve.  In the Oddessey, Odysseus returns home and slays the suitors.  Today, we hire a lawyer.  That's social technology; just like we no longer have honour duels because we can sue for defamation.

So human nature intersects with social technology - to the extend that the social technology works, we no longer need be savage.

[acrashb]

On another note:

Russian military gear insufficient for harsh winters, leads to soldiers dying from hypothermia | Fox News

Cold-related deaths already.  Winter is Ukraine's friend.

Oh, and "caution, non-liberal site, enter at your own risk".

 

[kevinkin]

16 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

describing the differential frequency of gene frequencies, various alleles among population groups across the planet.

I think the article mentions 60K years worth of physical selection. That is 3000 generations which is a reasonable amount of time for selection pressures to weed out the weak so deadly genes to the individual slowly fade away. War is a behavioral phenomenon that is expressed through culture.  Genghis Khan was not born a warrior. His culture molded him into one. 

Inheritance
This component has been one of the most contentious among those who reject the application of Darwinian principles to explain artifact variation; artifacts don’t reproduce like biological organisms and thus cannot inherit anything. Evolutionary archaeologists argue, however, that the learning process, in which information is passed from one individual to another, what archaeologists call cultural transmission (Boyd and Richerson 1985), is analogous to biological inheritance. Cultural transmission is learned and can occur between parent and offspring (vertical transmission), between learners and relatives or other more experienced members of society (oblique transmission), or from peer-to-peer interaction (horizontal transmission). 

Biological and cultural traits resulting in a fitter human population can evolve to meet a changing environment. What is not clear is if cultural evolution can be detected in corresponding genotype changes. War is not a biological trait and to rid populations of its horrors requires cultural evolution which can't occur via biological natural selection. At least the mechanism has not been found. Cultural evolution is faster due to the speed in which "lessons learned" can be taught and passed along to future generations. However, speed can be a slippery slope into more war-like cultures given lessons learned could teach violence is best under current environmental conditions. 

I think those interested will enjoy this even headed review:

https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-011-0351-4

And here is one related to modern slings and arrows:

https://www.newsweek.com/us-modifying-high-mobility-artillery-rocket-systems-himars-provided-ukraine-report-says-1764798

Edited December 6, 2022 by kevinkin

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

Chimps raid, and it's horrifically barbaric. Like, pile-on and rip their jaws off is a standard tactic, I was once told. But that's more raw opportunistic violence than a structured approach to conquest.

I...did not care for that book series. The basic logic was brutally sound - treat the universe as a jungle that will kill you, so kill anything you meet because it is impossible to tell who is truly friend or foe and the penalty for not being zero-sum is the destruction of your entire civilization. Some scenes/set ups were interesting. But holy crap was he unutterably bad at characterizations (especially women), had no clue about human society under pressure and ridiculously, RIDICULOUSLY chauvinistic and paternalistic. 

Aside from that basic concept, T3BP read like an old sci fi book from the 50s. And not a great one.

Give me Simmons, Asher, Greg Bear (RIP) any day.

It is the wide structure of war, which we also evolved having started in much the same way as chimps, that creates evolutionary pressure.  In order to do this at scale a species needs to pull out a lot more energy out of its environment.  Chimps do it but we took it to a whole other level.

As to the Three Body Problem series - definitely older school sci-fi and his characters were damned thin.  His logic on the Dark Forest is interesting but taken to extremes.  The faultiest issue was with the assumption that higher life forms would collide over limited resources while expanding - default interaction = wars of extermination. The level of energy available in the galaxy is enormous - albeit finite - to the point that only a Type III civilization would see other higher life forms as a threat.  And of course a Type III civilization would have the level of sophistication to simply box up lower civilizations - pretty much like what happened in the books.  Once boxed up a Type III civilization is simply going to ignore lower civs as irrelevant.  Only two or more Type III civilizations would wage such a war over “limited resources”, but of course with the technology levels they have they could simply move to another galaxy.  Unless Type III civilization is so common that every galaxy has one - and this completely disregards time dilation of light speed travel required to be a Type III civ - then the Dark Forest falls apart.

Xixin had to effectively push the whole collision central to the plot when in reality two Type I civilizations have no fundamental resources based reasons to pre-emptively destroy each other and neither do higher level civilizations.

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

As a matter of policy, I won't buy a book from anyone who has a favorable take on how the PRC treats the Uighers or the  democratic yearnings of its youth. 

Read the fiction of your competition and future adversary and you will understand how they think better.  There are a lot of insights on how the Chinese see the rest of the world in those books and how they view warfare.  Cixin is only one man but there are definitely shades and undertones in his writing.

[Kinophile]

23 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Xixin had to effectively push the whole collision central to the plot when in reality two Type I civilizations have no fundamental resources based reasons to pre-emptively destroy each other and neither do higher level civilizations

Yes, he created the Deus Ex Machina of the destruction of the TriSolarian system to artificially push the "aliens" out of their environment, with Sol being the closest & best option for them. Essentially they force a war of extermination as a means of civilizational survival, when cooperation would have lead to mutual benefit (and indeed does, in his books, after the first war). The TriSolarian autocratic regime(s) constantly view civilizational advancement in zero-sum frameworks, whereas Earth is a more cooperative/diplomatic and "honest" culture.

Interestingly, and as per your note about reading your opponent's literature, I've read regularly of how Chinese society views Americans/Westerners as extremely aggressive and self-destructive, destroying as we absorb and so always wanting more, which is what "truly" drives the tension between East & West. Supposedly. So then viewed through that fractured lens then the West is TriSolaris. 

To come back to the topic at hand (no, really) there is a strong apocalyptic thread in the modern Russian narrative about Ukraine, that it must be absorbed and subsumed to ensure the survival of Russia as a social construct because...Jewish Nazis? EH, ok... anyhow...

Fundamentally Russia has every resource it needs to survive and thrive, so it is the politically created perception of vulnerability and external threat that drives the aggressive push to subjugate the near abroad. An ideology constructed, maintained and expanded by a fascist/imperialist ideology whose true benefactors are the elite at the top (as with all fascist states).

I'm curious what non-propaganda literature is coming out of Russia these days...

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kinophile

[NamEndedAllen]

1 hour ago, kevinkin said:

That is 3000 generations which is a reasonable amount of time for selection pressures to weed out the weak so deadly genes to the individual slowly fade away.

Good, interesting post! A quibble about this statement. That isn’t how genetics and evolutionary biology work. Adaptations are fed by mutations and genetic drift. Those happen more or less by clockwork, whether they may be beneficial or damaging to reproduction.The adaptation occurs when any pressure in any environment makes it more likely for an organism to survive and reproduce. It may seem trivial, but can be anything that makes a male or female attractive to the opposite sex. Definitely NOT limited only to stronger vs weaker. Famous class example is the male peacock’s enormous and heavy fan of feathers it drags around. Slowly. Deadly. But not mathematically on average deadly soon enough to prevent the female of the species getting all hot and bothered enough to choose the bigger tail feather display and get, um, impregnated. Later, the guy gets eaten. But hey, he reproduced first! Deadly feathers! Bad outcome from his individual perspective.
 

We carry lots of recessive and deadly genes that get passed along and do not get weeded out. When only one parent has an inherited chromosomal disorder, the offspring are ok. But when both have one of the many genetic recessive diseases, the offspring has a strong likelihood of a very bad life and often early death. Cystic Fibrosis. Tay Sachs. Sickle Cell. Lots more. Complex subject, but fascinating.

Edited December 6, 2022 by NamEndedAllen

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, NamEndedAllen said:

But that is far more a case of cultural evolution than biological. Which you may be implying?

No, I think it may be more fundamental than that. Couple points:

Genetic evolution is pretty damned slow.  However it is not a static rate and for humans has accelerated greatly in the last 80k years - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0707650104. (To be honest this is not my field but the summary seems clear - they link it to population growth, which of course also creates stress).

Human cognitive evolution has not been a static rate either.  Because our brains are pliable, we are capable of programming them differently and it is argued that environmental pressures could be the culprit to evolving how we think.  This article proposes it went deeper than that to a genetic level as well: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-did-climate-change-affect-ancient-humans-180979908/  Environmental stress may be the culprit in how we evolved towards more complex thinking and speech.  This was before broad scope warfare but the link is theoretically possible.

Finally we have pushed ourselves to the point that we can essentially engineer our own evolution.  We have been discussing bioengineering people for years now and a lot of that discussion has been around its uses in warfare.  War has driven us forward along with other environmental pressures but it is one of the few we constructed artificially.  It has propelled technology contributing to the point that we may very well take a direct hand in our own evolution.

Cultural evolution, definitely but I argue it may go much deeper than that. 

[The_Capt]

21 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Fundamentally Russia has every resource it needs to survive and thrive,

All accept one - sustainable collective Will.  I argue that the Kardashev scale is incomplete - https://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scale-type-i-ii-iii-iv-v-civilization

Any collective intelligent species will need to develop unified and connected collective will before it is able to approach the K-civ requirements. If a species lacks collective will, even passive or implicit, they will never be able to leverage the required energy levels. We would need to unite human will to ever become a Type I civ for example.

Russia key missing resource is sustainable collective willpower and Putin knows this - that was what he was seeking in this stupid war, more collective willpower at his disposal.  Worse, Russias collective Will is fractured and poorly constructed from it foundation - it is baked into their identity issues.  My theory is that all these people are dying so Russia can hold it together for another few decades under another strongman ruler.

[NamEndedAllen]

18 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

No, I think it may be more fundamental than that. Couple points:

Genetic evolution is pretty damned slow.  However it is not a static rate and for humans has accelerated greatly in the last 80k years - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0707650104. (To be honest this is not my field but the summary seems clear - they link it to population growth, which of course also creates stress).

Human cognitive evolution has not been a static rate either.  Because our brains are pliable, we are capable of programming them differently and it is argued that environmental pressures could be the culprit to evolving how we think.  This article proposes it went deeper than that to a genetic level as well: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-did-climate-change-affect-ancient-humans-180979908/  Environmental stress may be the culprit in how we evolved towards more complex thinking and speech.  This was before broad scope warfare but the link is theoretically possible.

Finally we have pushed ourselves to the point that we can essentially engineer our own evolution.  We have been discussing bioengineering people for years now and a lot of that discussion has been around its uses in warfare.  War has driven us forward along with other environmental pressures but it is one of the few we constructed artificially.  It has propelled technology contributing to the point that we may very well take a direct hand in our own evolution.

Cultural evolution, definitely but I argue it may go much deeper than that. 

All good stuff! Thanks for taking this seriously. However in the scheme of population genetics, war is far too small to be *the* driver of genetic evolution on the chromosomal level. The only way it could rise to the top is if men who fought in wars AND reproduced AND had some inheritable difference from those who didn’t reproduce that was related to surviving in war AND had more surviving offspring than all other men on earth combined. AND, to be sure, those offspring in turn reproduced more total children than the rest of their generation.
EDIT : Most men do not fight in wars, and wars are extremely recent in evolutionary terms. Otherwise, conflict among groups is a common trait in many (if not most) species. War as we know it is a fraction of Homo sapiens existence, let alone ancestral humans and their interrelated cousins. But you know much more about the specifics of war in historical times than I do!

interesting article.  But afaik the established evidence linking any general inheritable factors to any thinking - intelligence is at best controversial. And that is the paper that suggested that centuries of European Jews were selected for a kind of intelligence because of family traditions for business:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-jewish-gene-for-intelligence/

People would like every group to be exactly the same,” Cochran says, “but they’re not.” The study claims that intelligence evolved in this genetically isolated population because, historically, Ashkenazim had cognitively demanding occupations such as financiers and merchants. Prowess in these fields provided prosperity and, so the theory goes, more success in reproduction. Thus, the “IQ gene” passed down through generations.

(Originally published in Journal of Biological Science)

Edited December 6, 2022 by NamEndedAllen

[Beleg85]

3 hours ago, fireship4 said:

A recent YouTube piece on ideologues influential on modern Russia, in particular: Ivan Ilyin, Lev Gumilyov, and Carl Schmitt.  It provides context to why the influence of Dugin is considered overstated.

And for some pushback/criticism on how much Putin himself is in fact an acolyte of Ilyin:

And that is why Timothy Snyder should not be taken as authority regarding Russian topics (not Central European ones) more than at medium level facts. First video is entirely basing on his book, which was heavily criticized for very loose connenction to reality. Ilyin was rather obsucre, moderately popular thinker which Putin probably didn't even read in extenso. Importance of political views of Lev Gumilev was waaay overblown here (he was a weirdo, but also serious historian- I still remember reading his books, in Polish, about Central Asia during my teenage years). I don't even know what Carl Schmitt is doing here, probably Snyder, who is staunch internationalist and antifascist (of non-tankie type), needed somebody from outside Russia for this enumeration. Even this is controversial, as Schmitt was rather hard conservative with occassional nazi chapter. Again, Putin probably barely heard about him. If ever.

 

On other note, it is good you pasted Vlad Vexler YT. I can only recommend his channels to everybody interested in Russia's culture, but also in wider political philosophy (or theory of music, on that matter). Very well balanced and thought of arguments regarding nature of recent war and Putin's regime, presented by former member of Russian intelligentsia. Frankly one of best channels on YT  I happened to discover this year.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Beleg85

[Artkin]

I for one am very interested in how the first Infrared Winter War will play out. It's my opinion that this is one of Ukraine's most opportune times to crush Russian defensive positions. 

I don't normally watch Perun (Because nobody can be smart enough to master every topic) but his latest on the winter summed it up well. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Artkin

[fireship4]

33 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

On other note, it is good you pasted Vlad Vexler YT.

I should have said that the author of the first video linked to the criticism himself in the comments section.