Jesus H Christ
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Yeah same here. Thanks for amplifying my snarky jabs into a big argument!
Also see the big EDIT: I put on my first response to you. I don’t think he actually wants UKR to lose.
I’m actually more bothered about the cartoon villain thing than anything else. Putin is straight up evil, like one notch below Hitler. I’m sure he’d have no problem with a second Holocaust if he thought he could get away with it and it served his ends.
Regarding the IFF codes. I’d be super surprised if this does anything.
Since WW2 and the enigma machine theres been system for what to do if someone captures the codes.
It could be as simple as telling everyone to switch to a back up based on 6 digit code.
These things were well designed by smart people. Even if it’s not modern tech.
but then again, RU army couldn’t even move the trucks every so often to keep the tires elastic for war.
We all bought the Snake Island story which he repeated on TV, even though those soldiers were probably captured. I thought the part about them all dying was probably true, but it seemed weird that he was sure of their fate when there were no known transmsions at the end of the battle and there would be no one left alive to tell him afterwards. This is probably recklessness rather than lying.
Yeah ever since snake island I’ve assumed stuff like that is going to be part true part bombast. Maybe they got someone’s anecdotal opinion that they were all dead, and that was good enough to run with. Any country would do the same in a war.
They are very different types of failure.
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i reposted that story here as soon as i saw it. the island was shelled, they were presumed dead, and RU was not communicating with UKR command about such operations. i think it’s conceivable UKR released what they thought was accurate.
further analysis of early war tactics indicated that RU probably did try to minimize deaths at first. a blitzkrieg without casualties like Crimea is exactly what putin wanted and counted on. but they also went in with shock and awe, so it makes sense they would demonstrate their artillery like that.
both failures occur in a corrupted organization
Come to think of it, I’m surprised the Russians haven’t put those guys on TV. Undermining Zelensky would be a nice propaganda win.
A+
NEXTa reports heads of Aeroflot and Pobeda airlines resigned via email to their companies. Speculates that they may have left russia already
UKR MP is reporting that Bellingcat investigators confirmed their estimates that 10k russian soldiers died in the conflict so far.
Also, here is Christo Grozev confirming his assessment of russian supplies.
https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1499872184382234636
I want to believe Christo - but he always seems on the far optimistic side. So I always mentally dial him back a little.
10k soldiers is about 10% of the total US military deaths in Vietnam over 10 years. 10k in a week is mind-bottling.
Isn’t that more than the US lost in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Yeah when I say Putin is being treated like a Marvel villain I’m not arguing about whether he’s evil or not. What I’m talking about is whether he’s an evil human being or some kind of implacable Terminator who does not respond to threats, provocations or other incentives of any kind, cannot be reasoned with and is monomaniacally bent on reconquering the Soviet Union to the exclusion of all other considerations.
Seeing the world in these Manichean terms is what makes people lose their minds and think that Putin is going to attack NATO next. Like we’re watching the Russian army break down and flounder trying to take on one of the poorest countries in Europe. Russia would get absolutely demolished in a shooting war with NATO. Within about a day the options would be total surrender or escalation to nuclear war. You have to see Putin as not just evil but as completely unhinged to the point of not being a functional human being to think this is likely, and that’s what I mean when I talk about Marvel villains. You may as well cut out the middleman and just worry about him launching a nuclear first strike. (I also think, btw, that any order to attack NATO would result in a coup).
What I see looking at Putin’s overall Ukraine strategy is reasonably rational action. As soon as the pro-Russian regime is toppled in 2014, Russia snatches the economically important region of Crimea. To answer a question from upthread, the reason Putin then does nothing for the whole of the Trump administration is that Trump was a vocal NATO skeptic, talking openly about the US leaving the alliance. That would be amazing for Putin, so of course he doesn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize that. Now it seems to be back to business as usual he is like, OK, now or never. That is ruthless, ambitious, hubristic even, but it’s not totally insane. I don’t think it’s a lot more hubristic than, for example, the US thinking it was going to be trivial to waltz into Iraq and create a peaceful democratic nation by force.
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The blind optimism in this thread is crazy to me.
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Depending on Russia’s actual war aims in Ukraine it could by way less hubristic than the neocons’ “plans” to invade Iraq.