Sorry, I’m bad at geography but it all looks pretty open? If they’re not going to try to hold on in the south (unless they can take cities?), what’s left? Try to press forward from the areas where they made gains in the east? That’s where the gas fields are.
https://twitter.com/KatrinaNation/status/1510806382177669120
Yes, giving a potential rape victim the means to defend themselves is just going to get them hurt. Teach them to lie passive and accept whatever happens.
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https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1511556357018701830
https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1511556700444102657
Wait - what?
https://twitter.com/colinmort/status/1511557141588549634
From recent history, the tipping point seems to be low 40s. At 45, I think we’re clearly toast.
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https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1511528319656755205
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1511528666840281089
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1511528699870339079
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1511528775527194624
This dude makes some really long threads, but they’re always interesting.
2 Likes
I, for one, will be so bold as to say that the consequences being wrought on the innocent civilians of Moscow are preferable to what is being wrought upon the innocent civilians of Bucha or Mariupol, or basically anywhere else in Ukraine. It’s really unfair to compare losing access to a McDonald’s to people getting summarily executed just for being who they are.
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my grandfather had a joke. What city is the most tasty? Izyum (raisin).
arestovich explained the steppes thing like this. digging in trenches in open space is suicide. they will end up resupplying the line of contact through mud and fields, while avoiding shelling. to hold territory you need to win settlements, and if the population is not friendly, you end up converting them to border outposts, while committing war crimes.
russia is quickly running out of winnable objectives. mariupol is one. all of Donetsk or Luhansk oblasts, could be plausibly achievable but harder/longer to break through over a larger area. besides that, Kherson is a very small center, and especially exposed to counteroffensives, but it would be considered another peoples republic like DNR/LNR. well it looks like russia will be leaving kherson in the next few days and possibly try to hold melitopol.
besides that, a land bridge to crimea, i would rate it as a very difficult and vulnerable objective. UA could cut off whole battalions by severing the stretch, and RU would need to resupply by sea, even harder than open space. UA and RU had a dispute over a water canal to Crimea, which UA closed off sometimes since 2014. that carries infrastructure value (perhaps second after an AES) but it’s not a sexy achievement.
gas fields is a mirage. they wouldn’t get developed for a decade even without sanctions.
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https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1507376761310310407
https://twitter.com/lituainianach/status/1511482423191691264
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Thanks. The gas and oil reserves, though at least concrete and real, have always seemed to me like far from sufficient reason for Putin to be taking such big risks.
https://twitter.com/TelegraphWorld/status/1511289922250018816
https://twitter.com/TelegraphWorld/status/1511289925848768521
https://twitter.com/TelegraphWorld/status/1511289934598049794
So the mobile crematorium thing is being said by a person in Mariupol
Russia is building a god damn fucking Auschwitz inside of Ukraine, and the 4 major western powers still can’t donate tanks, or planes to Ukraine.
This is worst than Neville Chamberlain.
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I think basically the only Russian plan that makes any sense is to crush a big chunk of the Ukrainian army in the east, then grab everything up to the Dnieper south of Dnipro, then hold the line stretching from Dnipro to Kharkiv (or somewhere just south of there if they can’t take it). The Russians don’t have the troops to hold a line all the way across the country with no terrain to help. Let alone adding a goofy land bridge that’s a bunch of additional frontage covering very little territory.