How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

Wot? 

 

[Kraft]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

Wot? 

 

I know people will meme like they did with the ali express dragon teeth but if they are filled with something and welded good luck getting past that in whatever maneuver phase one finds himself in. 

Oh and I bet its mined. 

I forgot to add, anti tank ditches made by the usual digging vehicles can be overcome with bridge layers or some heavy duty earth movers fairly quickly. This frankenstein construct seems immune to that.

Edited February 12 by Kraft

[The_Capt]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Guys... please stop with the deep dive and debate about previous wars.  As can be seen in the last 6 or so pages, it will overwhelm the topic of this thread.  I've already asked once to move away from this, now I am going to be more insistent. 

As interesting as these discussions are, they aren't directly relevant and are very distracting.  Normally when I log on in the morning and see 40+ post waiting for me I think "Ukraine just nailed something high value!", but this morning it was "debating wars that happened 80-100 years ago".

Thanks,

Steve

Steve, gotta push back on this one a bit.  We were discussing various historic wars as they relate to this one.  Generalship as we see the Ukrainian CHOD switch out.  Urban warfare analysis as it relates directly to phenomena we see in this war.  If we cannot look back on historical precedent and discuss what we are seeing in this war as it relates to that then this thread largely becomes a war porn channel - video after video of Russian stuff getting blown up.  So I get your rabbit hole point but if the UA regain operational advantage and offensive, how can we not compare that to other wars?  Particularly when we get into military theory.  I mean it is your party but I have little interest in simply commenting on one Russian vehicle getting blown up after the other, even if it does yield some tactical minutia insight.

[sburke]

24 minutes ago, Kraft said:

I know people will meme like they did with the ali express dragon teeth but if they are filled with something and welded good luck getting past that in whatever maneuver phase one finds himself in. 

Oh and I bet its mined. 

I am just curious if that is the best use they could find for 2000 train cars.

[sburke]

6 hours ago, Haiduk said:

CNN claims Russian recruited 15 000 Nepalians to Russian army: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/10/asia/nepal-fighters-russia-ukraine-families-intl-cmd

The package included at least $2,000 salary a month and a fast-tracked process to obtain a Russian passport. 

After analyzing the TikTok profiles of 10 Nepali men who travelled to Russia to join the army, CNN used satellite imagery to geolocate them to the Avangard training center, a military academy outside of Moscow.

The soldier described his fellow academy cadets as coming from across the global south. He cited Afghan, Indian, Congolese and Egyptian classmates, among others. Class photos from Avangard posted on social media show dozens of what appear to be South Asian soldiers with native Russian instructors.

And here is likely "classmate" of Nepalians - the mercenery from Sierra-Leone was captured by UKR soldiers of 46th air-assault brigade on Maryinka direction

Except countries named above there were spotted a precense or were captured merceneries from next countries Somalia, Syria, Palestine, Myanma, Lybia, China, N.Korea (though they could be confused with other S.Asian nationality) 

 

 

Just to point out what is in the CNN article.

Quote

 

Ramchandra Khadka stood in front of a temple in the middle of Kathmandu, Nepal, praying for his fellow countrymen who are fighting for Russia in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

As the ceremonial bells rang and the sweet smell of incense filled the air, he lit candles and offered flowers to a deity. All he wants is for his Nepali friends to survive the brutal war.

The 37-year-old recently returned to Nepal after suffering injuries on the front lines in Ukraine. He told CNN he witnessed horrific scenes and regrets his decision to join the Kremlin’s army as a foreign mercenary.

Russia’s war in Ukraine is not the first battle Khadka has fought. He was among Nepal’s Maoist rebels, who fought a bloody war with the country’s forces for 10 years from the mid-1990s. He then went to Afghanistan after being hired by a private military contractor to assist NATO forces in the country. He thought he had experienced it all in his lifetime – bloodshed, death and pain. But, some 17 years after the Maoist war ended, with no hope of a job in Nepal, he decided to fly to Russia to join the country’s military for money.

“I didn’t join the Russian military for pleasure. I didn’t have any job opportunities in Nepal. But in hindsight, it wasn’t the right decision. We didn’t realize we would be sent to the frontlines that quickly and how horrible the situation would be,” Khadka said.

 

 

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

I think this is a big misread of what is happening and going to happen. 

Trump was limited in his first term by a several things: 

1. He did not actually expect to win the race and so didn't come into office with a coherent program. 

2. He didn't have any idea of how things worked and still saw value in working somewhat within the system.

3. He believed that he actually had alliances within the conservative movement...starting with the Federalist Society...who would safeguard his hold on office. 

Trump today is no longer that politician. He knows that he doesn't have allies in the conservative movement but also that they don't control the party any more. He does. He knows that the Pentagon won't willingly help him achieve power and he is embittered towards the generals he would be dealing with in a second term. He also is explicitly saying...along with potential VP candidates like Vance and Stefanik...that he will ignore Supreme Court decisions he doesn't agree with. Finally, at Heritage/Claremont/etc a coherent and nakedly fascist program is being articulated which includes pulling out of NATO, mass seizure and deportation on day 1 and worse. 

Trump's supporters in DC are making no bones about it. This is the big one. This is the emergency. Nobody should imagine that it will resemble the first term. 

You know you guys need to make up your minds.  I brought up the scary door of a fully rogue president and the potential impact on the “union” and you guys said “hey don’t worry there little buddy there are checks and balances in place.”  Ok, cool.  So President Trump Mark II will be bounded with guardrails….whew I feel better..

Now - “It is the end of days!!!!  He will be off the leash, break into our homes and wreck up the place!”  I am not expert on US politics but we are getting mixed messages here.  So now Trump is going to ignore an Article 5 and kill NATO regardless of the law - well at that point US leadership in the West will likely be over and all bets are off.  At what point does a state simply go “Not ok, we did not sign up for this….and we are out?”  And all the while the big US machine is trying to sell us on China as the major threat.  Speaking on behalf of all Canadians, I am starting to worry a lot less about China and more about the other potentially revisionist state on the other side of the border.

Personally what I do know about US political system is that it is damned hard to get anything done, by-design.  If you guys somehow manage to get Trump back in power and then grant him dictator powers well then the entire drug deal is blown.  Ukraine will be the least of our problems.  I do not think the US can simply withdraw from the world, dismantling its power projection would take a lot of effort and money. But hearing it from you guys, I am starting to worry.

[sburke]

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Speaking on behalf of all Canadians, I am starting to worry a lot less about China and more about the other potentially revisionist state on the other side of the border.

But hearing it from you guys, I am starting to worry.

Well in all fairness we did actually invade you once.  It doesn't help that you have universal health care which is so freakin anti American!

[NamEndedAllen]

4 hours ago, billbindc said:

This is the big one. This is the emergency. Nobody should imagine that it will resemble the first term. 

This should be pinned. And read every morning and every night. 
This is happening in full view. Of not just the USA, but the entire world.

And the whole world is watching. 
 

39 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

You know you guys need to make up your minds.  I brought up the scary door of a fully rogue president and the potential impact on the “union” and you guys said “hey don’t worry there little buddy there are checks and balances in place.”

Who the heck are are you calling “you guys”? You must be  ignoring the rest of us. The Trump march to autocracy has certainly not been going down without warnings here. 

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, Haiduk said:

And the other deputy of Syrskyi became brigade general Mykhailo Drapatyi. He will be responsible for soldiers training.

Epsisode of 9th of May 2014, with his "flying BMP" breaking throw separatists barricades in Mariupol became a one of meme of this war. In that time Drapatyi was in a rank of major and was a commandr of mech.battalion of 72nd brigade. Since 2016 to 2019 he commamded 58th mot.inf. brigade. 

 

Oh... THAT guy   I remember that video very well.

OK, so the early pessimism about Zelensky's choices seems to be alarmist.  Which is not surprising.  That doesn't mean they can do their jobs better than the previous senior command, but I am hopeful.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Steve, gotta push back on this one a bit.  We were discussing various historic wars as they relate to this one.  Generalship as we see the Ukrainian CHOD switch out.  Urban warfare analysis as it relates directly to phenomena we see in this war.  If we cannot look back on historical precedent and discuss what we are seeing in this war as it relates to that then this thread largely becomes a war porn channel - video after video of Russian stuff getting blown up.  So I get your rabbit hole point but if the UA regain operational advantage and offensive, how can we not compare that to other wars?  Particularly when we get into military theory.  I mean it is your party but I have little interest in simply commenting on one Russian vehicle getting blown up after the other, even if it does yield some tactical minutia insight.

To be clear, and to repeat myself, it's not that the past is being brought into this thread that's the issue.  On the contrary, it is very relevant and very helpful.  However, there's only so much a single discussion thread can absorb before it loses its ability to perform its primary function.  The primary function of this thread is to discuss the war in Ukraine, not to debate the minutia of battles that took place 100 years ago.  The bulk of the posts for the last 3 days or so has overwhelmed discussion of the present with details of the past.

Ideally the way it should work is the people who want to debate WW1 go to a different thread and have a discussion there then bring what is learned there into this one.  In corporate and government organizations this is a "sub committee" concept.  That concept exists for a very good reason and it is the same reason I'm asking people to keep in mind how deep they dive into the past.

Steve

[billbindc]

52 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

You know you guys need to make up your minds.  I brought up the scary door of a fully rogue president and the potential impact on the “union” and you guys said “hey don’t worry there little buddy there are checks and balances in place.”  Ok, cool.  So President Trump Mark II will be bounded with guardrails….whew I feel better..

Now - “It is the end of days!!!!  He will be off the leash, break into our homes and wreck up the place!”  I am not expert on US politics but we are getting mixed messages here.  So now Trump is going to ignore an Article 5 and kill NATO regardless of the law - well at that point US leadership in the West will likely be over and all bets are off.  At what point does a state simply go “Not ok, we did not sign up for this….and we are out?”  And all the while the big US machine is trying to sell us on China as the major threat.  Speaking on behalf of all Canadians, I am starting to worry a lot less about China and more about the other potentially revisionist state on the other side of the border.

Personally what I do know about US political system is that it is damned hard to get anything done, by-design.  If you guys somehow manage to get Trump back in power and then grant him dictator powers well then the entire drug deal is blown.  Ukraine will be the least of our problems.  I do not think the US can simply withdraw from the world, dismantling its power projection would take a lot of effort and money. But hearing it from you guys, I am starting to worry.

I was less worried a year or two ago but the language on the MAGA right has gone decisively into what Arendt would call fascist “crystallization”. Trump’s people are overtly talking about what a conservative friend in DC politics described to me as “frightening and crazy” things. And the dynamic that pertained in 2016 in which the media realizes that the big money is in actually promoting Trump is back. 

To be clear, I would prefer to be the Biden campaign as the year progresses but the race is going to be close and the tail risk is immense. If Biden wins, it is likely decisive in breaking the reactionary tide in the US…but it’s going to be a tough road to November. 

[kimbosbread]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

I am just curious if that is the best use they could find for 2000 train cars.

This to me is the interesting question: What the hell is going on with their bearings? I was under the impression Russian rail stock wasn’t doing great, hence my idea of my going uboat-but-not-u-and-with-drones.

1 hour ago, sburke said:

It doesn't help that you have universal health care which is so freakin anti American!

And to twist the plot, Canada has somehow managed to make universal healthcare suck badly (compared to Europe), to the point Canadians come to the US for certain procedures!???

[kimbosbread]

8 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I was less worried a year or two ago but the language on the MAGA right has gone decisively into what Arendt would call fascist “crystallization”. Trump’s people are overtly talking about what a conservative friend in DC politics described to me as “frightening and crazy” things.

Yeah things are getting “interesting”.

Biden’s team made an epic mistake in tacking left post-election. Conservative friends who voted for Biden in 2020, a year ago said it’s Trump next time or whatever Republican is the nominee. Now, well we’ll see. I think Trump is nowhere near aheads as polls put him, and that many Republicans (let alone conservatives) will vote NOT for him.

But it’s not about liberal vs conservative. It’s a class war and it is populism. And Trump can make easy argument the elites and rich just dont care, and he just needs to say hey swing states, look at your real income since I left office. That’s the problem. A non-senile Biden and a non-retarded Jake Sullivan would have focused on dumping as much money as possible into swing states post election as possible, but no, that’s too easy.

EDIT: Apologies for grammar, but have polished down a bottle of halfway decent Slovenian wine.

Edited February 12 by kimbosbread

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Biden’s team made an epic mistake in tacking left post-election.

No, the epic mistake was assuming that the Trump problem would just magically go away.  The Democrats had control of the Executive and both chambers of Congress, and they did f'all to shore up the democratic institutions and norms that were trashed by the previous administration.  But I get it... no President ever gives up the powers he currently has, even if he should not have them in the first place.

As for how this relates to Ukraine, it's pretty clear that if Trump wins no meaningful assistance will come from the US.  Even intel sharing will likely be cut, in part because Trump's hatred of the intel community and is contempt of the military.

For the rest of the world that has long since hoped/dreamed of the US getting "put in its place", they will most likely get their wish.  I don't think they'll be happy with the results though.

Steve

 

[billbindc]

6 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

No, the epic mistake was assuming that the Trump problem would just magically go away.  The Democrats had control of the Executive and both chambers of Congress, and they did f'all to shore up the democratic institutions and norms that were trashed by the previous administration.  But I get it... no President ever gives up the powers he currently has, even if he should not have them in the first place.

As for how this relates to Ukraine, it's pretty clear that if Trump wins no meaningful assistance will come from the US.  Even intel sharing will likely be cut, in part because Trump's hatred of the intel community and is contempt of the military.

For the rest of the world that has long since hoped/dreamed of the US getting "put in its place", they will most likely get their wish.  I don't think they'll be happy with the results though.

Steve

 

As I like to say...Pax America won't be destroyed. It will commit suicide.

[dan/california]

54 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

To be clear, and to repeat myself, it's not that the past is being brought into this thread that's the issue.  On the contrary, it is very relevant and very helpful.  However, there's only so much a single discussion thread can absorb before it loses its ability to perform its primary function.  The primary function of this thread is to discuss the war in Ukraine, not to debate the minutia of battles that took place 100 years ago.  The bulk of the posts for the last 3 days or so has overwhelmed discussion of the present with details of the past.

Ideally the way it should work is the people who want to debate WW1 go to a different thread and have a discussion there then bring what is learned there into this one.  In corporate and government organizations this is a "sub committee" concept.  That concept exists for a very good reason and it is the same reason I'm asking people to keep in mind how deep they dive into the past.

Steve

If you were announce a Civil War game a lot of the excess energy would wander over there, just saying.

edit: I am guaranteed pre order for that FYI.

Edited February 12 by dan/california

[The_Capt]

21 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I was less worried a year or two ago but the language on the MAGA right has gone decisively into what Arendt would call fascist “crystallization”. Trump’s people are overtly talking about what a conservative friend in DC politics described to me as “frightening and crazy” things. And the dynamic that pertained in 2016 in which the media realizes that the big money is in actually promoting Trump is back. 

To be clear, I would prefer to be the Biden campaign as the year progresses but the race is going to be close and the tail risk is immense. If Biden wins, it is likely decisive in breaking the reactionary tide in the US…but it’s going to be a tough road to November. 

Ok but what happened to all the checks and balances?!  Are we assuming Trump gets all three houses/levels or whatever you call them?  If Trump can simply ignore the Supreme Court, who says anyone has to do what he says for that matter?  Certainly not the US military.  Trump won’t care if US troops get pulled into gunfights in the Baltics because his base doesn’t care…but his base is a tiny minority? 

I know as a Canadian military guy I cannot possibly “get it” but I am willing to bet on more dysfunction and chaos.  Not the Rise of the Trump Reich.  How is it something like 12 far right Republicans can hijack Congress but the Democrats in a Trump Admin are completely powerless?  How a year ago “Even Trump could not stop US support” and now we are talking Day 1 abandonment of swaths of Europe?  If this is real we could be in serious trouble but are we maybe jumping at shadows a bit?

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Who the heck are are you calling “you guys”? You must be  ignoring the rest of us. The Trump march to autocracy has certainly not been going down without warnings here

Yes we are all aware of the Ella Fitzgerald school of political assessment.  I have brought up states removing Trump from the ballot, Ukraine war and various other red lights.  The response has been “sure but XYZ checks, balances etc etc”  Now suddenly Trump is going to take over and rule you all like Stalin?  I am getting whiplash here.

[Jiggathebauce]

35 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Yeah things are getting “interesting”.

Biden’s team made an epic mistake in tacking left post-election. 

What exactly did he tack left on?no one on the left gives a sh#t about build back better or the infrastructure stuff as it doesn't go near far enough. He's continued to build the trump wall, he's continued to try to shore up border security (who tanked that so that trump has something to run on, again?),  he's been supporting Israel, he did F all for healthcare and he maybe got a little bit of student loan debt forgiven. Roe got overturned on his watch and the Republicans dogs have caught the car on that one. 

The fact is, Everyone left of Obama hates Biden and almost everything he's done, meanwhile he's made us(like usual) irrelevant, just look at the pathetic results of anyone else trying to primary him.  The LIBERALS(NOT LEFTISTS) are almost uniformly on the Biden train. Meanwhile trump can't even get the whole Republican party behind him anywhere he has primaried.  Look at his ratios versus Biden's in the primaries - Trump wishes he had Biden's primary numbers behind him. 

 

I don't know what news you are consuming, but I'm with Beau of the Fifth Column on this, the Republicans can't do a primary without Trump, but they cant win a general election with him.  Jesus, I sound like a liberal. 

 

Edited February 12 by Jiggathebauce

[Battlefront.com]

 

20 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I know as a Canadian military guy I cannot possibly “get it” but I am willing to bet on more dysfunction and chaos.  Not the Rise of the Trump Reich.

If dysfunction and chaos is the best we can hope for, that right there is not a good sign.  Epic levels of dysfunction and chaos are unsustainable.  Civil War 2 is perhaps more likely than Trump Reich.

The prediction in 2023 that Ukraine aid would eventually move forward is still yet to be seen.  It's pretty clear that chaos and dysfunction are already the norm.

And now we're getting ourselves off topic again. 

Steve

[dan/california]

22 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ok but what happened to all the checks and balances?!  Are we assuming Trump gets all three houses/levels or whatever you call them?  If Trump can simply ignore the Supreme Court, who says anyone has to do what he says for that matter?  Certainly not the US military.  Trump won’t care if US troops get pulled into gunfights in the Baltics because his base doesn’t care…but his base is a tiny minority? 

I know as a Canadian military guy I cannot possibly “get it” but I am willing to bet on more dysfunction and chaos.  Not the Rise of the Trump Reich.  How is it something like 12 far right Republicans can hijack Congress but the Democrats in a Trump Admin are completely powerless?  How a year ago “Even Trump could not stop US support” and now we are talking Day 1 abandonment of swaths of Europe?  If this is real we could be in serious trouble but are we maybe jumping at shadows a bit?

Allow me to ramble about the founders worst mistake, they didn't like political parties, they didn't understand political parties, and they tried their very best to create a system that would preempt the creation of the political parties. they failed utterly and within a decade they were starting /joining political parties en masse. The way the system is supposed to work is that the three branches would zealously check each others power, and this would restrain each of them in turn. 

It worked better than it probably should have for~250 years because the parties themselves were complicated bottom up organizations that had a broad diversity of opinion in each of them. the only real exception to that was slavery, and well that one got heated. But with that unfortunate exception there enough overlap in the opinion spectrum of each party to create a working middle ground and exclude the fire eaters and nutcases on both sides of the spectrum. Throw in an elite press/culture/establishment that excluded truly unsuitable candidates without being terribly obvious about it, and the worst case U.S. Governments were not terrible. 

So the internet, gerrymanders calculated on supercomputers, geographic sorting by political opinion, and party primaries that tend to draw only the most motivated voters have combined to mostly break the system. The parties are now one hundred percent sorted. The most liberal Republicn is well to the right of the most conservative democrat and vice versa. Furthermore the primary voting base, especially on the Republican side is extremely willingto punish any hint of comprimise. The last factor that makes all of this worse id that the country is very close to a fifty fifty split, so each party is permantly convinced it can out right win the next elction and not have to comprimise. It is a mess.

 

Steve did a better explanation of the primary part a week or two ago BTW.

Edit: the point I am actually trying to make is members of the Presidents own party in Congress are completely unwilling to hold that President accountable, so the biggest and most important check has become all but null and void.

Edited February 12 by dan/california

[Kinophile]

K, I'm gonna start spamming with relevant stuff to poke this dead horse back to life. 

[Kinophile]

Yes its Trent,  but.. 

 

[Kinophile]

 

 

[Kinophile]

Sorta relevant