https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1497268808439980040
I thought it would be a quick war and I may still be right. I was unimpressed with the Ukrainian willingness to fight based on the Crimea campaign and while they have exceeded my expectations I would still bet against a large insurgency.
Russia’s military budget is like 7% of America’s, it would be pretty absurd for them to have supersonic missiles we don’t.
This is all just scraps. They need to hit all of the western-based oligarchs as hard as possible. Freeze assets and bank accounts. Make them turn on Putin.
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Right, gun to my head my guess is that we have them and keep it quiet, whereas Putin has them and brags about it.
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Morale is sky high. But still there had to be a moment, which Putin was counting on to go the other way, where Ukrainian soldiers decided if they were really ready to die for this. Snake Island gave them an example almost immediately. Humans are hyper-social creatures, which means they will put the good of their tribes over their own lives if given the right motivation.
Obviously I have no way of really knowing, but I would bet it has made a huge difference.
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They’re probably both reading the technical files from each other’s high security computers anyway.
if you’re like me and have no idea what thermobaric weapons are, seems like it’s a big ass hot bomb that suffocates you
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But not Gucci.
I wonder if NATO does a no-fly zone if that happens.
Which if you ask me is very much not Gucci.
Just read the Head of the German BND(intelligence) had to be rescued from Kiev on Thursday because he got surprised by the attack. I see German intelligence is still not better than 1942 at recognizing the enemies intention.
137 was UA servicemen on day 1, not civilians. noone is going to count up the civilians right now.
day 1 russian casualties were about 800, although i wouldn’t rule out that’s a bit conservative but 800-1000 sounds reasonable estimate.
2800 was total russian casualties at the end of day 2.
More speculation from Western officials that Russia is not accomplishing its objectives and may resort to barbaric tactics.
https://twitter.com/larisamlbrown/status/1497270205415931908
This would be monumentally stupid, it’s essentially the premise behind Dr Strangeglove.
Yeah I saw interviews with Kyiv(ians?) that said they were going to the opera and restaurants and stuff right up until the invasion.
This is one of my main theses with investing and preparing for any other kind of black swan type event - most people are slow to accept looming catastrophe. They can imagine small incursions, but not world-changing events.
There was a statement in that analysis someone linked earlier and I quoted that to the effect that Swift isn’t as significant for Russia as many think.
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A point repeatedly made by Dan Carlin on hardcore history is that the real destruction of battle comes from when the army breaks. There’s way less casualties than what you’d think when there’s actual fighting, it’s when one side flees in terror that the massive deaths happen.
While things like the PM being in the capitol and snake island stuff are small from a war on paper perspective, I think it’s foolish to say they’re unimportant because it encourages more people to fight. Ukraine isn’t done with this until they’re not willing to die anymore for it.
Maybe the West realizes there is hope that Ukraine will not fall quickly and that if it does not, it could mean the end of Putin so they are willing to gamble on a small chance of great escalation for a small, but better chance of large de-escalation