Most people use the map for that.
But the map isn’t painting a clear picture at this point. There are 3 major fronts: around Kharkiv in the north, around Lysychansk in the east, and around Kherson in the south. The Russians are clearly making progress in the east while slowly losing ground in the other two. It’s plausible, but not certain, that the north and south are more important fronts, as the former could let the Ukrainians cut off big chunks of Russian gains from their resupply lines, and the latter could result in isolating all of Crimea. But the eastern front could allow the Russians to encircle the Ukrainians in the north, or they might view their objectives there as accomplished, letting them send troops to reinforce the northern and/or southern fronts.
We also aren’t getting a ton of meaningful information on “But how much did you lose?” Maybe the gains in one front or another are ephemeral, because of losses incurred in taking them doesn’t leave enough to secure the new territory or to continue the assault.
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The video gives a good overview of the situation in Ukraine. Unfortunately there is nothing in this video that would make me optimistic.
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Russia obviously made a lot of progress in Donbas in the last month or so, but I don’t think it really changes the strategic picture. Russia can concentrate its forces and push the frontline forward, but to what end? Wherever the front line is, Russia will be losing people and equipment to hold it. Seems like HIMARS is making that situation worse. I’m less optimistic than I was about a repeat of the rapid collapse that happened in the opening phase of the war, but a military victory seems to still be out of reach for Russia.
It seems that the key unknown here is how effective the gas and grain weapon is. The path to victory is to create economic chaos by embargoing gas and grain, use that leverage to get Western powers to cut off their military support for Ukraine, then hope that leads to a military collapse that allows Russia to hold what it wants at an acceptable level of attrition and/or forces a peace deal. Not sure how that will play out.
So will Ukraine. Russia has a massive numbers and materiel advantage to begin with and every city Ukraine loses or is laid to waste will make it harder for Ukraine to operate.
https://twitter.com/popovaprof/status/1546148418032209921?s=21&t=uJCNXLyeMTXN9XWUX_z8dg
https://twitter.com/popovaprof/status/1546149033995128832?s=21&t=uJCNXLyeMTXN9XWUX_z8dg
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Isn’t he Canadian? Why’s he saying ‘we’?
He’s hired under the Daily Wire. His audience is American right wingers. That he’s Canadian makes no difference. They’ll let anyone shit on America.
I think he means “we assholes”.
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I took we to mean “the West”, but your take probably works too.
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Peterson is deranged and was always deranged.
https://twitter.com/yuri_communism/status/1543604842110795780?t=d4nn21WmXD05iEzmgHzMgQ&s=19
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But he uses words like ensconced! He must be such an intellectual.
The Jordan Peterson we see now, with the mask off, is the same fool that can be found by reading between the lines of any of his works.
I think this is a thing with certain right wing or unhinged intellectuals. They can make a “reasonable” case with fancy language and elusive rhetoric, but if you take what they say seriously, maybe more seriously than they do, you end up with a very strange reality.
I was listening to a podcast that was discussing a right-wing critic of Putin, who helped start the 2014 Ukraine war, who now seems to be advocating for full free speech rights and an impartial and independent judiciary. (Mainly because he wants to criticize Putin for being weak on Ukraine.) Like, you think you’re arguing for one thing, but if you shift the perspective a bit, a whole different world is revealed.
I have been having a text argument with a friend of mine. He’s a center-right democrat intellectual-oriented lawyer, reads tons of history, and highly intelligent but with some personality flaws (he had a hard drug phase and has been in AA for 15 years, but I think the flaws, a certain narcissism and successful-debater approach to argument (see, eg, Ted Cruz), were always there). Anyway, though we have not discussed Peterson at length, I indicated that I thought he was a charlatan and guru whose academic work is pseudoscience. He said he thought Peterson was very bright with a lot of insight. I forwarded him the tweet linked by NBZ above.
This guys’ MAIN political concern these days is shit from the National Review, especially “cancel culture” and freeze peach rights. His sister is a successful doctor who joined a cult when she was in college (Berkeley) and had to be rescued. It’s a smart family, but they have some weird leaks that I think makes them glom on to second rate thinkers. I plan to get him to admit that Peterson is a self-deluded hustler with only a limited interest in truth.
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Jordan B Peterson is a good example of why I am wary of men who insist on using their middle initial whenever writing their name.
His ideas are ensconced in bullshit.
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The world would be better if Jordan Peterson had never been able to come back from Russia.
This is just piling on now but I didn’t have very strong feelings about Peterson until I listened to one of his talks. Boy howdy what a load of crap.
Michael B Jordan tho