How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[JonS]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The reasoning here is that if the right to self determination is decided by who was there first, the expression of that is for them to decide.

The Iroquois nation appreciates your support.

[kevinkin]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Some of the absolute worst people on this planet become police officers because they seek power. 

Power: Isn't that an major factor in the human condition regardless of the individual's profession e.g. politicians? Sure, the police have weapons and the instruments of state behind them. And I agree, unraveling a police state into a democracy takes far longer than converting a democracy via revolution into a police state. But frankly, I have known many an officer off the job, and they are just as fallible as the meek laboratory scientist. Orwell: "Beware the technicians". Chicken or egg. Did they become power hungry as police officers or before they took the oath? There in lies the rub. In some respects, the police are frustrated having little power to help solve the ills they find in the belly of the beast day in and day out. Lives thrown overboard  in senseless acts of stupidity. Are there rotten apples? Yes. Are officer's behaviors generally more consequential? Yes. But that is just the nature of the terrain they battle in each shift. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by kevinkin

[NamEndedAllen]

3 hours ago, Lethaface said:

So if Cuba invades Florida and claims it is Cuba now because many Cubans live there, will a referendum, among the mainly Cuban people remaining in Florida after the invasion, be 'legitimate' ?

Absolutely! It’s covered by the long recognized international agreement and supervised by the United Nations that illegal immigrants can vote in all elections. And since 2014, if their home country of citizenship chooses to do so, it’s legal to chase the local citizens out first. Or if feeling generous, deport them. But it still isn’t legal to eat the locals. Yet.

Edited April 22, 2023 by NamEndedAllen
“and”

[Artkin]

On 4/19/2023 at 8:46 PM, Zveroboy1 said:

Another pet peeve: human waves attacks.

I don't even know how you would describe what Russians and Wagner in particular are doing when they send these squad or platoon sized elements forward with barely any support at all but for me that's not really what a human wave attack is. Soviets in front of Moscow sending companies or whole battalions of conscripts yelling hurrah at German positions (instant cmbb nostalgia) en masse or Iraq-Iran war okay.

Or in the Kerch peninsula during 1942, apparently it was a catastrophic horror show fighting over some empty fields.

I think the idea of Russian wave attacks comes primarily from the employment of their tank formations. The infantry would advance right alongside the tanks to the German positions.

Also operations like the Kotluban or Rzhev offensives, where the Soviets attacked along a massive frontline nonstop for months at a time, attempting to attrit the Germans. They took massive casualties during these operations but they had the manpower to spare.

[danfrodo]

9 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Or in the Kerch peninsula during 1942, apparently it was a catastrophic horror show fighting over some empty fields.

I think the idea of Russian wave attacks comes primarily from the employment of their tank formations. The infantry would advance right alongside the tanks to the German positions.

Also operations like the Kotluban or Rzhev offensives, where the Soviets attacked along a massive frontline nonstop for months at a time, attempting to attrit the Germans. They took massive casualties during these operations but they had the manpower to spare.

Speaking of fighting in Crimea.... Robert Forczyk's WW2 crimea history, Where the Iron Crosses Grow, is free if you have audible.com membership.  Good book on the subject.  I read it some years ago.

[billbindc]

3 hours ago, JonS said:

I get your point, but it's possibly a bad example? AIUI, the mass of Cubans currently in Florida are there because they don't want to be art of Cuba as it is currently constituted. So, a plebiscite after your hypothetical invasion would probably come back overwhelmingly to stay as part of the US.

If, say, Putin had declared back in 2015 that Russian policy henceforth was that anyone unhappy with Russia could move down to Cuba, with their relocation costs part-funded by the state and accommodation and employment provided on arrival, and then there was a plebiscite over whether Crimea would stay part of Russia or revert to Ukraine ... then the analogy would hold, I think. But that poor thing is getting pretty tortured by now, worse than the random civilians picked up and deposited in Guantanamo Bay, to circle back to Cuba.

It is deeply, amazingly, hilarious to imagine a referendum among Florida Cubanos to vote to be back under the Cuban government. 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

It is deeply, amazingly, hilarious to imagine a referendum among Florida Cubanos to vote to be back under the Cuban government. 

Their delusion about  BEING the Cuban government is a separate issue.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Marinka is an apocalyptic wasteland.

[Vanir Ausf B]

For whom the bell tolls.

 

[dan/california]

14 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

For whom the bell tolls.

 

If those laser equipped Strykers work they should be rolling out of the factory and into a C-5 bound for Ukraine before the paint is dry. 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, JonS said:

The Iroquois nation appreciates your support.

It's an argument that is lost on post of the people in the US who complain about immigration, that's for sure

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Power: Isn't that an major factor in the human condition regardless of the individual's profession e.g. politicians?

For sure.  However, the discussion (which was already off topic) was about police specifically so that is what I was addressing.  To expand upon that context, it was politicians (i.e. the NSDP led by Adolf Hitler) who converted otherwise benign police units into murder machines.  And the powerful men behind German industry put Adolf Hitler into office because they thought it would give them more power.  At the grass roots level, the average person who supported Hitler often did so for their own sense of gaining power.

Get enough power hungry people together from various disciplines and it's pretty easy to see how quickly things turn to crap.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

ISW had a fairly short first section in their April 21st report.  Only three items, two of which are worth posting:

Quote

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) appears to be conducting a large-scale overhaul of domestic security organs. Russian state-controlled outlet TASS reported on April 19 that the FSB and the Main Directorate of the Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) have been conducting mass checks at the Moscow Central District Internal Affairs Directorate and several Moscow district police offices for the past several weeks due to “the leakage of data from Russian security forces at the request of Ukrainian citizens.”[1] Another Russian source noted that the FSB and MVD have already detained police officers as part of this investigation.[2] Russian outlets reported that the suspected police officers leaked personal data on Russian security forces to external individuals, some of whom are Ukrainian citizens.[3] The reported FSB and MVD raids on the Moscow police departments are occurring against the backdrop of a series of arrests and dismissals of prominent members of Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard) leadership.[4] The Kremlin may be pushing for such arrests and investigations in order to conduct an overhaul of the domestic security apparatus to oust officials who have fallen out of Kremlin favor and consolidate further control internal security organs.

Yeah, if the above doesn't scream "purge" nothing does   No doubt there are many leakers within Russia's security services, but it is highly probable that many of the targets of these raids were on the hit list for reasons other than leaking information.

 

Quote

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported on April 19 that Ukrainian forces are already conducting some counteroffensive actions. Malyar stated that Ukrainian forces will never preemptively announce when the counteroffensive starts and reiterated that Ukrainian forces aim to liberate all Ukrainian territory.[5] Malyar also reported that Russian forces are concentrating on offensives in the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka directions and that Russian forces have concentrated weapons, equipment, and all professional units – including Wagner Group forces, Spetsnaz, and airborne forces (VDV) – around Bakhmut.[6] Malyar noted that Ukrainian counteroffensive actions will be both offensive and defensive in nature given the complex nature of the battlefield.

It is obviously deliberately unclear what any of this means.  We certainly have seen evidence of fairly small scale, modest Ukrainian counter offensives in the past few weeks.  But they were, I feel, within the boundaries of normal behavior.  It is likely this statement was made to sow some confusion rather than to boast about activities.

Steve

[kevinkin]

Got it. I took "some of the absolute worst people on this planet" the wrong way. 

[Battlefront.com]

37 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Got it. I took "some of the absolute worst people on this planet" the wrong way. 

Yeah, I could have worded it better.  The point is that some professions attract the very worst that Humanity has to offer.  Need I mention lawyers to prove my point? 

Steve

[dan/california]

Speaking of the worst humanity has to offer, Prigozhin is running his mouth more than the pickle.

Which is saying something, since the pickle seems to practically be begging to demonstrate whether or not he can fly.

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by dan/california

[panzermartin]

6 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

1. What countries recognize Crimea to be within the international borders of Ukraine?

2. What countries recognize Crimea to be within the borders of Russia?

 

BIG HINTS. Also from Wikipedia:

1. Nineteen. Guess which ones, and how many are democracies vs dictatorships

2. One hundred and twelve. Guess how many of the most democratically governed nations in the world are included.

19 still better than 1. We are forgetting Turkey, a precious NATO member that 50yrs ago invaded and occupied northern Cyprus in a Donbas scenario type intervention "to protect the Turkish population" .

Who Recognised Northern Cyprus?

 

In 1983, a Turkish-controlled area located on the northern section of the island declared its independence, calling itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Turkey has been the only country in the world to recognize the TRNC, however.

 

Who talks about northern Cyprus anymore? It's like nothing ever happened, It's gone for the Greek cypriots. 

 

 

[Fernando]

11 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I agree that Cuba is a bad example for the reasons you sate, but there really isn't any example I can think of that works because generally people relocate from Country A to Country B because they don't want to be in Country A.  Therefore, they are not likely to want to rejoin Country A after getting to Country B.

A better analogy, I think, is if the Cubans fled Cuba, got to Florida, claimed they should be able to decide Florida's status (i.e. because they were there before the current mix of people), and voted to become part of Spain or voted to become independent altogether.  The reasoning here is that if the right to self determination is decided by who was there first, the expression of that is for them to decide.

Steve

 

I agree with you and I am afraid that it is going far away from  the topic, but it reminds me of the Puerto Rico case as a short of American Crimea. When it was military conquered by the United States in 1898, there was almost no movement for independence. the island was politically calm, almost no Porto Ricans felt oppressed, and had had political representation in the Spanish parliament for almost a century (16 representatives from Puerto Rico and 30 from Cuba out of 401 representatives in the Spanish Parliament in 1898)  ( https://adelantereunificacionistas.com/2020/03/16/diputados-provincia-de-puerto-rico-1809-1898/ ). Puerto Rico remains today an Spanish-speaking country with more or less the same population mix they had in 1898. Less than 5% of the Porto Ricans speaks English as their main language, while 95% speaks Spanish. 

Thought things seem to move more to statehood (in 2020 52,5% of Puerto Ricans voted for statehood, but at the same time 47,5% voted against it), there are a small independence movement (AFAIK they have never been more than 5% of the population)  and there is even a small, residual group who defends integration in Spain as Spain's 18th "comunidad autónoma" (a comunidad autónoma is an autonomous region with their own government and parliament, not much different from and U.S. state or a German Land and obviously with full representation in the Spanish Congress and Senate) ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/30/puerto-rico-movement-pitches-solution-to-economic-woes-rejoin-spain )

Spain has never shown any interest in recovering the island or confront the US. but let's see an highly hypothetical scenario where Spain, this time with a very nationalist government, wants to recover past glories, and has strong political and military support from a more unified and aggressive EU who want to act in an independent way. The EU thinks that recovering Puerto Rico and getting a foothold in the Caribbean Sea is an strategic must and there is a window of opportunity for doing it, because the U.S. is in a persistent internal political crisis which makes USA politically and militarily weak for some time. Then they do cover moves for a decade or so that the States cannot counter. The hybrid action unfolds until a referendum is fully won in a legal and democratic way, so 75 or 80% of the Puerto Rico people vote to become an independent country in order to be free later to integrate in Spain and the EU. No need for the EU to send little green men.

In this case Puerto Rico plays Crimea, the United States plays Ukraine and the European Union plays the Russian Federation (a less military aggressive one, so there is no need for little green men)  

The questions for this absurd, crazy and highly hypothetical scenario would be:

The United States would accept the democratic decision of the Puerto Rican people? Would be OK for the U.S. that Puerto Rico became a part of the European Union?

AFAIK from an American point of view  and according to the Property Cause, it was the U.S. congress who should decide, no matter what Porto Ricans said and the EU wanted., so, would an American military intervention to avoid it be sound and politically OK? I think not.

OTOH, if the EU had forced things too much and had sent little green men to take Puerto Rico from the US, would be ok to send the US army to restore the status quo broken by an aggressive and unlawful move of the UE? I think in that case it would be OK, even if the population were mostly for the independence/annexation to the EU.

I think there are limits for everything, there is no universal rule for all cases, and every one is different from each other, so all cases must be taken one by one. No general rule works or is needed. It may sound a lot nihilistic, but I think that is how "Realpolitik" works. Every situation is different, so we should behave ourselves according to the circumstances, even is the situation seems the same.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Fernando

[Haiduk]

Taras Chmut, the head of Back-and-Alive volunteer fund, commenting the news about Latvia handed over to Ukraine all own Stingers, said that MANPADs now is one of biggest deficites in troops.

 

[Haiduk]

13 hours ago, Seminole said:

In light of that it's important to examine what did the polling suggest before Putin's little green men showed up?

The United Nations Development Programme conducted a series of polls in Crimea between 2009 and 2011 about the question of leaving Ukraine and joining Russia with a sample size of 1,200:

Quarter	Yes	No	Undecided
2009 Q3[35]	70%	14%	16%
2009 Q4[35]	67%	15%	18%
2010 Q1[36]	66%	14%	20%
2010 Q2[36]	65%	12%	23%
2010 Q3[36]	67%	11%	22%
2010 Q4[36]	66%	9%	25%
2011 Q4[37]	65.6%	14.2%	20.2%

Ukrainian sociologists criticized methods of some pollings (GfK, Gullop) because they polled only in towns with 20000+ population and only via stationery phones (most of their users are people 50+). Many of Crimean Tatars and other citizens more loyal to Ukraine lived in rural area, so results of 1000-2000 not enough representative polling extrapolated on whole Crimea. 

In 1991 during Independence support referendum 67,5 % of Crimean Autonomy Soviet Repuplic participated in referendum and 54,19 % voted "yes" (42,22 % - "no").

Separately in Sevastopol (the city had own constituency) participated 63,74 % and 57,07 % voted "yes" (39,39 % - "no"). Such result in Sevastopol, the city filled with many of retired Soviet officers, who moved here after retirement from all USSR (mostly from Russia) turned out like cold shower for Soviet and later Russian authorities. 

Alas, Ukraine up to 2014 had been remaining in Russian orbite of influence, so it can't provide own policy in appropriate way in most of south-eastern oblasts, giving situation to local "elites", borning from alloy of criminal business and so-called "red directors" (chiefs of industrial eneterprises, who often didn't hide own soviet nostalgia), who exploitated idea of "Russia is our all, evil L'viv nationalists and NATO want to enslave us" among miners, metallurgists, engineers in order to keep own power in regions and to rise these people if central power will do something against. 

Crimea, having own legitimate authonomy turned out under almost direct influence of Moscow. And Russian propaganda was making own work  properly. Especially ridiqulous were statements about "violent ukrainisation of Crimea", where only three schools with education in Ukrainian language existed in 2014. Most high peaks of anti-Ukrainian hysteria was in 1994, during first Crimean crisis, when in some cases it came down to shooting and entering Ukrainian National Guard to Crimea to cool separatism. Second peak was in 2008-2009  on background of Georgian war, attempts of Ukriane to interfere of using Crimea as base of aggression and plans of combined trainings with NATO on peninsula. Victor Yushchenko, turned out very weak politic and didn't risk to challenge influence of Russia.

Most of pro-Russian moods in Crimea is a result of Russian agenda, their propaganda and "stomach interests". Most of pro-Russian Crimeans just though with Russia they will be wealthy. Now most of them dissappointed in very tough way. The same with pro-Russian moods you can observe even in some districts of western Ukraine. For example, inhabitants of some districts of Rivne and Ternopil oblasts have some "anomaly" pro-Russian sympathies. Even now many of them didn't recognize Russia as aggressor. Reason? Activity of Pochaiv Lavra - largest "influence point" of Russian Church (formally Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but it anyway under power of Russian) in western Ukraine. It's lucky its influense expands mostly on rural population of several districts. But if we take Transcarpathia or to some less degree Bukovyna (Chernivtsi oblast), where influence of Russian Churh is also enough big we maybe can't see such pro-Russian religious fanatism, but more degree of indifference about this war.  "Give me a people and I will turn them in a herd of pigs" (Goebbels).     

[DesertFox]

50% fuze failure rate for russian bombs? Belgorod.

 

 

[Kinophile]

32 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Ukrainian sociologists criticized methods of some pollings (GfK, Gullop) because they polled only in towns with 20000+ population and only via stationery phones (most of their users are people 50+). Many of Crimean Tatars and other citizens more loyal to Ukraine lived in rural area, so results of 1000-2000 not enough representative polling extrapolated on whole Crimea. 

In 1991 during Independence support referendum 67,5 % of Crimean Autonomy Soviet Repuplic participated in referendum and 54,19 % voted "yes" (42,22 % - "no").

Separately in Sevastopol (the city had own constituency) participated 63,74 % and 57,07 % voted "yes" (39,39 % - "no"). Such result in Sevastopol, the city filled with many of retired Soviet officers, who moved here after retirement from all USSR (mostly from Russia) turned out like cold shower for Soviet and later Russian authorities. 

Alas, Ukraine up to 2014 had been remaining in Russian orbite of influence, so it can't provide own policy in appropriate way in most of south-eastern oblasts, giving situation to local "elites", borning from alloy of criminal business and so-called "red directors" (chiefs of industrial eneterprises, who often didn't hide own soviet nostalgia), who exploitated idea of "Russia is our all, evil L'viv nationalists and NATO want to enslave us" among miners, metallurgists, engineers in order to keep own power in regions and to rise these people if central power will do something against. 

Crimea, having own legitimate authonomy turned out under almost direct influence of Moscow. And Russian propaganda was making own work  properly. Especially ridiqulous were statements about "violent ukrainisation of Crimea", where only three schools with education in Ukrainian language existed in 2014. Most high peaks of anti-Ukrainian hysteria was in 1994, during first Crimean crisis, when in some cases it came down to shooting and entering Ukrainian National Guard to Crimea to cool separatism. Second peak was in 2008-2009  on background of Georgian war, attempts of Ukriane to interfere of using Crimea as base of aggression and plans of combined trainings with NATO on peninsula. Victor Yushchenko, turned out very weak politic and didn't risk to challenge influence of Russia.

Most of pro-Russian moods in Crimea is a result of Russian agenda, their propaganda and "stomach interests". Most of pro-Russian Crimeans just though with Russia they will be wealthy. Now most of them dissappointed in very tough way. The same with pro-Russian moods you can observe even in some districts of western Ukraine. For example, inhabitants of some districts of Rivne and Ternopil oblasts have some "anomaly" pro-Russian sympathies. Even now many of them didn't recognize Russia as aggressor. Reason? Activity of Pochaiv Lavra - largest "influence point" of Russian Church (formally Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but it anyway under power of Russian) in western Ukraine. It's lucky its influense expands mostly on rural population of several districts. But if we take Transcarpathia or to some less degree Bukovyna (Chernivtsi oblast), where influence of Russian Churh is also enough big we maybe can't see such pro-Russian religious fanatism, but more degree of indifference about this war.  "Give me a people and I will turn them in a herd of pigs" (Goebbels).     

Very well put. 

[womble]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Get enough power hungry people together from various disciplines and it's pretty easy to see how quickly things turn to crap.

 

Since we're being a bit philosophical: if power corrupts, we should withhold power from as many people as possible, so that they aren't corrupted into evil ways...

Please don't ignore the smiley...

[panzermartin]

1 hour ago, DesertFox said:

50% fuze failure rate for russian bombs? Belgorod.

 

 

Could these be a failure of the newly introduced gliding kit for older bombs? Otherwise it's strange it's the second one falling in friendly territory. 

[DesertFox]

38 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Could these be a failure of the newly introduced gliding kit for older bombs? Otherwise it's strange it's the second one falling in friendly territory. 

Hard to tell without knowing anything about the actually used fuze mechanism in this case.