How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Teufel]

22 minutes ago, Carolus said:

The attached clip seems a bit bizarre. Don't know why a group of children would spontanously start singing a national anthem, or in response to border guards searching a vehicle - usually children tend to just wait silently when adults scream at them or something.

Can think of several reasons but let’s keep it to moral courage? They were indeed group of children that were going to visit folk music competition(?). Singing would come natural and should be perceived as peaceful protest in worse case if you ask me. How adult men can be provoked by children singing the national anthem I don’t know. Perhaps xenophobia has something to do with that, you tell me.

Note - there is no point taking leaf out of their book and reference to Hungarians on group level. The original post specifically referred to the individuals as border guards of Hungarian nationality, the last part is relevant as to where it happened. No explicit reference to Hungarians as group, thus no need to defend actions of entire nation because of few morons. We all got those regardless of nationality, put me on top of list by all means.

Nothing wrong in singing the national anthem, of any country for that matter. Ok, let’s exclude first verse of the German, e.g. the verse of “Deutschland über alles”, and we good.

[Carolus]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3229654/chinas-latest-drone-export-curbs-may-be-signal-west-it-neutral-russia-ukraine-war

China has apparently begun to limit drone sales to Russia and started showing some video clips of speeches of Zelensky on their state media outlets. This, possibly, could be seen as a slight change in China's stance towards Ukraine.

- >Praying that the first part is true in particular and not too much damage has been done because Russia is now already saturated with Chinese drones for the next weeks or months.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Carolus

[kevinkin]

Thanks for pointing this out. China has this tendency to play good cop/ bad cop in how it positions itself on some issues. Disciplined but easy to see through if you watch close enough. 

[Seedorf81]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I agree most people are not brutal, but the majority of people are selfish.  The way totalitarian regimes work is that the few (brutal) convince the majority to mind their own business (selfish) instead of opposing the regime's activities.  That is how the Putins and the Kims and the Xis of this world stay in power, not because the majority of people are kind and altruistic.

I've got a few thousand years of documented history to back me up on this

Steve

Perhaps it is my naive positivity again, but It looks to me that for most people FEAR comes before selfishness.

It is fear that drives us to make "bad" decisions. And with "bad" I mean bad for the long term collective. Which is selfish, I agree, but the reason is fear.

Being afraid of getting into trouble, afraid of being different, afraid of failing, afraid of being an outcast.

Afraid of not having enough money, not getting enough appreciation, not being pretty or sporty or intelligent enough.

Scared of being alone, of speaking one's mind, of lacking of basic needs, of lacking love, and so on and so forth.

 

I believe that if we humans could, or would, be a little less scared, selfishness would lessen considerably. And as a weird by-product of that being less afraid, dictators would have less grip on people.

But I know, current times do not reduce fears at all, and the global ****show gets worse before things get better. Eventually though, things will get better again.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Seedorf81

[The_Capt]

17 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:

Perhaps it my naive positivity again, but It looks to me that for most people FEAR comes before selfishness.

It is fear that drives us to make "bad" decisions. And with "bad" I mean bad for the long term collective. Which is selfish, I agree, but the reason is fear.

Being afraid of getting into trouble, afraid of being different, afraid of failing, afraid of being an outcast.

Afraid of not having enough money, not getting enough appreciation, not being pretty or sporty or intelligent enough.

Scared of being alone, of speaking one's mind, of lacking of basic needs, of lacking love, and so on and so forth.

 

I believe that if we humans could, or would, be a little less scared, selfishness would lessen considerably. And as a weird by-product of that being less afraid, dictators would have less grip on people.

But I know, current times do not reduce fears at all, and the global ****show gets worse before things get better. Eventually though, things will get better again.

It is because of who we were…middle of the food chain.  Prey animals are driven by fear because it is necessary programming to survive.  We were right in the middle until we figured out how to 1) leverage energy, 2) communicate, and 3) lie to each other and ourselves.  Our big juicy brains allowed us to do this at an evolutionary escape velocity rate.

Good/bad, altruistic/selfish have no real scientific meaning - an eagle swooping in to kill another animal is not being anything morally, it is simply surviving.  We built social frameworks that allowed us to create social metrics such as good and evil…which are basically metrics of relative behaviours.  We are in fact both and will leverage them based on context.  In frames of certainty and safety we will act altruistically and “good”.  Pump in enough uncertainty and fear and we will start to eat each other in a surprisingly short period of time - see Hurricane Katrina.

People want to believe we are good because their sky-god or whatever made us that way but in reality “being good or evil” is an artificial set of conditions.  The role of government is to sustain frameworks of order and certainty so we stay within a “good” frame.

War is a collision of two or more social frameworks that creates a completely new environment along with a new set of social metrics.  “Being good” is killing other people.  Being good is committing suicide to save others so they can kill other people.  Being evil is to not kill other people and run away, or kill the wrong people.  War is also a state of massive uncertainty so we often see devolution happen very quickly.  Of course that is what military machines are all about - sustaining violence through order in a massive environment of fear and uncertainty.

 

[holoween]

2 hours ago, Teufel said:

Nothing wrong in singing the national anthem, of any country for that matter. Ok, let’s exclude first verse of the German, e.g. the verse of “Deutschland über alles”, and we good.

Only the third verse of the deutschlandlied is the national anthem.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

3 hours ago, Carolus said:

The attached clip seems a bit bizarre. Don't know why a group of children would spontanously start singing a national anthem, or in response to border guards searching a vehicle - usually children tend to just wait silently when adults scream at them or something.

I do not find it strange at all.

1. This is probably spontaneous only as far as the bearded fellow in the foreground was concerned. The children are a folk dance assembly and the bearded fellow is almost certainly their director. Obnce he made his decision and told the children to sing, they sung.

2. The children are a folk dance assembly. Singing is what they usually do.

3. During the Russo-Ukrainian War singing the national anthem has been a widespread gesture of patriotism, defiance of the enemy and support of the soldiers and civilian resistance. I am quite certain that by this point, Hungary is perceived by the Ukrainians as an ally of their enemy, and by extension, also an enemy. Turning the children away from the border on spurious grounds (and finding a turniquet would be spurious grounds for refusal to enter) seems therefore an act of harrasment by the enemy to which the Ukrainians show their defiance in their usual way.

 

[Butschi]

2 hours ago, Teufel said:

Nothing wrong in singing the national anthem, of any country for that matter.

Depends on circumstances, I think. National anthems are by their very nature political and often highly emotionally loaded.

Going into a synagogue and singing the German anthem is sure to hurt or scare people even if unintentional (in this example unlikely...) and technically legal. You will find lots of similar examples.

But I guess there is no point in arguing about this as long as we don't know for certain what happened.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Butschi

[Maciej Zwolinski]

24 minutes ago, holoween said:

Only the third verse of the deutschlandlied is the national anthem.

Although there is nothing wrong with the others and the Germans could just as well sing the entire thing. Generally, nobody should be able to take offence against someone else's national anthem. Ukrainians in theirs express a claim to the lands up to the San river, which is now in Poland, and I do not think anyone is particularly bothered by this.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

1 hour ago, Seedorf81 said:

Perhaps it is my naive positivity again, but It looks to me that for most people FEAR comes before selfishness.

That may be a language issue, but I do not see the contradiction between fear and selfishness. Fear is often (perhaps mostly) a very selfish emotion. People may fear for others, but mostly fear things which may cause harm to themselves. And when one fears for others, it is mostly for people who are close to him in some way or another, so arguably also in those cases it is not exactly altruistic.

[Tux]

From a biological/naturalistic point of view (since we’re going there) I think you can boil it down even further into a question of resources, whether physical (food, water, money, etc.), emotional (in large part linked to nutrition/food and other physical resources) or intellectual (knowledge and understanding or cultural substitutes for understanding, e.g. dogma).  And then even these resource types can be reduced to a question of energy (e.g. rational thinking being energy-intensive, well-fed people being able to ‘afford’ it, etc.).

The more basal parts of our brain ensure that, when we don’t have the energy or resources to support complex rationalisations and investment in the greater good, we revert to angry/fearful/aggressive states which at least work to ensure the individual’s survival, perhaps alongside immediate family and a few others.

When we do have the resources required to ensure that survival and comfort are not in doubt (or, at large scale and in a democracy, when enough of us do), we start to invest in relative luxuries like longer term thinking/actions and the greater good.  And when we do that we make slow, very irregular progress towards greater overall well-being.

 

Work to eliminate all types of poverty and watch humanity thrive. Trivial, no?

[Seedorf81]

47 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

That may be a language issue, but I do not see the contradiction between fear and selfishness. Fear is often (perhaps mostly) a very selfish emotion. People may fear for others, but mostly fear things which may cause harm to themselves. And when one fears for others, it is mostly for people who are close to him in some way or another, so arguably also in those cases it is not exactly altruistic.

Fear is an out of our control emotion, like pain and sorrow, compassion and grief, anger and even love. Those happen whether you like it or not. You may try to resist them or deny them, but there is no way to avoid them.

Selfishness on the other hand is a very controllable personal CHOICE.

We may not feel it that way or do not want to feel it that way, or we may not be conscious of it, but in order to be selfish you have to make a decision.

 

Simplified:

Selfish = free will,

Fear = no free will.

 

[Tux]

Wow… and just like that the question of “free will” arises, as well! 

I’m not going to bite.  Too far OT.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Tux
Reason

[Bulletpoint]

While we're waiting for news of more Ukrainian advances, I've been thinking a bit about the drone attacks on Moscow.

There have been several, but with very few civilian casualties. Russia tries to spin this as the result of good air defence, but I'm getting the impression that these attacks are in fact intended to be largely symbolical.

They are intended to make people in Russia afraid (and realise that they are engaged in a war that also has consequences for them), but at the same time actively avoiding mass casualties, because those would be bad for Western goodwill.

Imagine the propaganda win for Russia if one of those Ukrainian drones hit a school or similar. Even though the Russians are of course doing the exact same thing on a much bigge scale against Ukraine.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Bulletpoint

[Offshoot]

19 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

While we're waiting for news of Ukainian advances, I've been thinking a bit about the drone attacks on Moscow.

There have been several, but with very few civilian casualties. Russia tries to spin this as the result of good air defence, but I'm getting the impression that these attacks are in fact intended to be largely symbolical.

They are intended to make people in Russia afraid (and realise that they are engaged in a war that also has consequences for them), but at the same time actively avoiding mass casualties, because those would be bad for Western goodwill.

Imagine the propaganda win for Russia if one of those Ukrainian drones hit a school or similar. Even though the Russians are of course doing the exact same thing on a much bigge scale against Ukraine.

Vlad Vexler has a recent take on this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNmL4vhBAGA

His main points are that the drone strikes:

-provide a meaningful boost to Ukrainian morale by showing that Russia is at least getting a taste of their own medicine

-interfere with the Kremlin narrative that the war is not getting out of control

-make it harder for Putin to maintain a drawn out or frozen war, i.e. if Russia manages to freeze the war, Ukraine can intensify their strikes on Russia instead

 

 

[Letter from Prague]

I'm not sure about Ukrainian drone hitting a school would change much. The people who would be angry at Ukraine for it probably already don't support it. The people who want to see Russian blood would not complain.

...

In other news, various Czech newspapers started running articles about how the Ukrainian offensive is stalled, and it is unrealistic to expect a breakthrough. Some even talk about frozen conflict.

Is this the case elsewhere as well?

[sross112]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

While we're waiting for news of more Ukrainian advances, I've been thinking a bit about the drone attacks on Moscow.

There have been several, but with very few civilian casualties. Russia tries to spin this as the result of good air defence, but I'm getting the impression that these attacks are in fact intended to be largely symbolical.

They are intended to make people in Russia afraid (and realise that they are engaged in a war that also has consequences for them), but at the same time actively avoiding mass casualties, because those would be bad for Western goodwill.

Imagine the propaganda win for Russia if one of those Ukrainian drones hit a school or similar. Even though the Russians are of course doing the exact same thing on a much bigge scale against Ukraine.

I'm waiting for the drones to start hitting the Moscow air defenses and a little surprised it hasn't happened yet. Big message sending and cancels the Russian narrative of their effectiveness. There is so much risk of bad PR from the building strikes that in my opinion they probably aren't worth it. Unless you can guarantee that only bad guys will be taken out and absolutely no collateral damage is incurred it is just a matter of time before it will backfire. Like, sure, you killed the bad actor that did such and such, but you killed his 4 year old daughter and two of her friends having a sleep over as well. Hit the Pantsir on top of the MOD and you mitigate chances of unintentional collateral damage while at the same time creating a whole new meme topic. That's like steak, with a side of steak! 

[Tenses]

25 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

I'm not sure about Ukrainian drone hitting a school would change much. The people who would be angry at Ukraine for it probably already don't support it. The people who want to see Russian blood would not complain.

...

In other news, various Czech newspapers started running articles about how the Ukrainian offensive is stalled, and it is unrealistic to expect a breakthrough. Some even talk about frozen conflict.

Is this the case elsewhere as well?

I think this is general feeling about current situation that Ukraine "will not make it". The upcoming weekend peace talks are also hapenning for a reason. I have already seen some high level figures talks about Ukraine joining NATO without lost territories so this is definitly on the table.

Personally I think this would be Russia victory, which is unacceptable.

[kevinkin]

Again, more reporting on Wagner in Belarus this time more specific:

https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/01/wagner-troops-could-cut-off-baltic-states-from-nato-warns-expert

An expert has told Euronews that Russia's Wagner mercenary group could stage an attack to sever the Baltic states from NATO, though he questioned if such a "suicidal" step would be taken. 

Dr Stephen Hall, lecturer of Russian politics at the University of Bath, suggested the assault may involve a small incursion, akin to a provocative false flag operation, to disguise direct Russian involvement.  

Owing to the fact that "Russia's war in Ukraine is not going well", Hall doubted whether Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko "would suddenly decide to allow Wagner to attack Poland".

"It would be suicide." 

Slow news day?

[kevinkin]

Sort of a report card on Zelenskyy with reassuring conclusions:

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraines-plan-volodymyr-zelenskyy-dies-russia-war/

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, chrisl said:

The base stations don't have anything special about them - receiver dishes aren't a big deal.  The satellites and launch vehicles are the ITAR restricted part.  The restrictions are generally well defined, but they can also be updated pretty easily if the government decides something is a risk, and the government can rapidly change what you can export to where.

Yup, and it reinforces my point.  The US government would have to take extraordinary, and possibly legally questionable, actions against SpaceX in order to have any leverage over Musk's decisions.  And what if Musk decides to go all X on Starlink instead of making sound, rational business decisions?  Probably a worse outcome than what we have right now.

Therefore, the point is that the US government has pretty much no say in what happens with Starlink.  Like any other commercial service, it can either accept the terms and conditions or it can seek an alternative.  There is no alternative at the moment, so practically it is stuck with whatever whim Musk happens to have at any given time.

7 hours ago, Phil003 said:

I really don't want to defend the behavior of my country in general (I am a Hungarian), but in this case I see no sufficient evidence behind this claim.

As I suspected, the Tweet as presented was misleading at best.  And it came from Facebook... what a surprise

The border guard might have overreacted, but from the follow up information I don't see this as being linked to Orban's policies in any way.  Yet that was how that Tweet presented it.  So we have just one more example of how horrible social media is.

4 hours ago, Seedorf81 said:

Perhaps it is my naive positivity again, but It looks to me that for most people FEAR comes before selfishness.

Just to wrap this up... I do not believe in "free will".  We make decisions based on who we are as individuals, and that is an extremely complicated mess to untangle.  The people who fail to act in situations which are in their best interests create excuses for themselves in order to avoid taking responsibility for the inaction.  The person running into a burning building is likely no less afraid of burning to death than the able bodied people standing around doing nothing.  If you don't like the word "selfish" to describe the 4 who do nothing, then I'm happy to substitute "coward" in place of it.  I can think of even worse adjectives if there's a racial or class component thrown into the mix.

My point in this being brought up from the start is that totalitarian regimes require a large chunk of their population consciously put their short term self interests ahead of the collective whole (and ironically their own long term interests).  Unfortunately for our species, it isn't that difficult and so it is the norm and not the exception within societies.  Even the more pluralistic ones.

Since I've even forgotten why I made the point in the first place, so it's probably best to leave it at that

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Tenses said:

I think this is general feeling about current situation that Ukraine "will not make it". The upcoming weekend peace talks are also hapenning for a reason.

I agree, but look at where they are happening for a hint as to the reason.  They are not taking place in a Western city nor with the blessing of the West.  Instead, it is an initiative from a country (Saudi Arabia) that has larger political ambitions and some very selfish interests for conducting the talks. 

For Ukraine's part, it is an opportunity to show that it is not the one opposing a negotiated settlement.  It is also a chance for it to get some publicity out of what it views as how to end this war justly.  There is no chance in Hell that Russia would agree to almost any of Ukraine's terms, just as Ukraine has shown absolutely no intentions of agreeing to almost any of Russia's.

This is all show and it isn't the first time either.  "Nothing to see here".

1 hour ago, Tenses said:

Personally I think this would be Russia victory, which is unacceptable.

There's that thinking again... in no way would a frozen conflict be a "Russia victory".  No matter how this war ends it will come out vastly worse off than when it voluntarily started it.  There is no definition of victory that covers such a situation.  However, a frozen conflict would not be a "total Ukraine victory", which is what they deserve and the rest of the world should want.  Therefore, a frozen conflict would be less than ideal, but the fact that Ukraine survived at all is a "Ukraine victory" of the utmost importance.

Steve

[Carolus]

I wondered if the people here who have more military knowledge and maybe experience would be willing to share their thoughts on what they would do next if they were in the shoes of a Ukrainian high-ranking commander, someone in the general staff.

Not assess how the conflict might end or what the peace conditions will look like. But if you had the job of doing the best you can for your country, what would you do or tell with regard to the officer under you, or what would you tell Zaluzhny or the the ministry of Defense as advice, based on the limited information that is available to the ones in this thread.

Would you continue the counter-offensive? Would you ask the political representatives to campaign for more Western support? Would you tell your men to be careful or tell them that now is the time when Ukraine has the political pressure to show some sort of success to continue Western aid and win public opinion no matter the cost? Would you advocate for forming some seperate Western trained brigades that will be available in 2-3 years and bide your time until then? Would you advice more deep strikes against Russian infrastructure and industrial complexes?

We are analyzing a lot in this thread about the available information. I wondered what the sleuths and grognards here would do if they speculatively insert some agency into the situation. Make 3 decisions you would do in their shoes.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Carolus

[Vet 0369]

4 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

I'm not sure about Ukrainian drone hitting a school would change much. The people who would be angry at Ukraine for it probably already don't support it. The people who want to see Russian blood would not complain.

...

In other news, various Czech newspapers started running articles about how the Ukrainian offensive is stalled, and it is unrealistic to expect a breakthrough. Some even talk about frozen conflict.

Is this the case elsewhere as well?

Media outlets are, for the most part, all “for profit” enterprises. That means the more controversies they can develop and present, the most profits they can make from their sales or commercials. I expect most outlets to be controversial or alarmist so they can generate more profits or support their owners political views. A very well known American writer and humorist once said “believe only half of what you hear and nothing of what you read!”

[kevinkin]

11 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Make 3 decisions you would do in their shoes.

For me the question is very much complicated by the lack of information on the differential casualty rates. But let's take a swing:

1. Kill RA troops

2. Kill RA troops

3. Kill RA troops

For any given period of time and terrain, ask your subordinates to figure out how to Kill RA troops while minimizing attrition on their force. Use gains in territory to foster 1, 2, and 3. Fall back if you can foster 1, 2, and 3. I would also warn against large encirclement operations unless the risks from RA counterattacks is low i.e. contained.