They are some tough motherfuckers
What they have accomplished is little short of miraculous. That said, I think the worst is yet to come. Russia realized they were spread too thin to maintain all their supply lines, and that they had left themselves too vulnerable to ambushes from many directions. I feel sure that they will simply try a different strategy, perhaps by concentrating all their strength in one column in the east and overcoming Ukrainian territory with a blunt force approach, moving their line of control forward inch by inch, keeping supply lines open behind them, and thus eliminating vulnerable left and right flanks, until they power back to Kiiv.
I think the Ukrainians anticipated that exact strategy when they took out that fuel depot in Russia, near the Ukrainian border. They have to make it as difficult as possible for Russia to supply their forces with fuel, food and reinforcements.
If the Russians had run that play in the first place, they might have controlled half of Ukraine by now, but the strategy won’t work as effectively now because the Russians have lost a lot of equipment and the Ukrainians have had time to prepare. I’m guessing that the Russians originally felt it unnecessary to use such a long, drawn-out approach to get to Kiiv. They probably thought they could take the capital easily with their original strategy, then replace the government with some of Putin’s lackeys. It also appears that they thought some Ukrainians would welcome them and/or fail to resist. If there was ever any chance of that, it is now gone. Since the Russians started bombing civilian targets, the Ukrainians have become solidly unified against Russia, and totally convinced that they don’t want to be part of any country where the leadership indiscriminately kills children and bombs hospitals. Putin has convinced the Ukrainians that being independent is not just one of the many rational choices, like Puerto Rican independence, but is something worth dying for.
It has been a good month for funny men. Zelensky and Chris Rock have demonstrated that comedians can be as tough as nails.
Fascist Viktor Orban wins fresh term as Hungary’s prime minister. He’s a major Putin fan.
The reports about that oil field were funny. They were kinda like Russia complaining. “Hey! They bombed us! That’s not how this works!” Kinda cute.
The “new strategy” also suffers from the same issues as the old one: we’ve said he was misinformed by his Intel. We’ve owned their Intel for months and months. If we say he was misinformed? He was misinformed. And it makes sense.
You’ve got a madman in charge. He’s out of patience on Ukraine. His people in Ukraine are making zero progress on their rebellion, and he blames them. (Because he thinks Ukraine by and large loves him and wants Russia to puppet rule them again, regardless of all reality and an entire civil war telling him otherwise. He believes that civil war was all NATO pushing our people to take them over.)
He demands his Intel people give him the lay of the land, he wants to go in.
Now his Intel people have two options. They tell him the truth, that Ukraine is widely pro independence except the two eastern districts that mostly speak Russian, and even then most don’t want a military solution, they want a political solution. That an invasion isn’t needed, won’t work, isn’t supported by anyone anywhere, and would generally be a bad idea.
Or, they can lie to him, buff up the chances of success, the support within Ukraine, and scratch together a relatively rosy outlook for his plan.
One of these ideas ends with them breathing, the other ends with them dead in an unmarked grave.
Rosy outlook it is and hope for the best. They order military commanders to lie to troops about exercises, don’t tell Putin about that part, and away we go.
And here we are.
I imagine those guys are either in the wind under new names or enjoying whatever ditch Putin’s men left them to decay in.
You can’t convert a demoralized, lied-to, undersupplied, unmotivated military into an effective one by changing strategies. Ukraine has been emboldened. The heat is only going to get hotter on Putin.
This is his Vietnam.
Remember the last time a president got caught up in a land war and pissed off the military, organized crime, and the super rich?
I sure do, I live in Dallas and drive through Dealey Plaza all the time.
I have no disagreement right up until “This is his Vietnam.” I don’t know that & neither do you. Time will tell. Full stop.
Putin knew we knew he was gonna invade Ukraine and so Ukraine knew as well. In fact the U.S. knew for several mos. and so Ukraine knew for several mos. Time for Ukraine to prepare? You decide.
Putin also former head of KGB so he should have known Ukrainians better than anyone, eh.
And Putin still decided to move ahead w/his joyride. 😮
Long story short Putin’s an idiot! Apologies to idiots!
Yielding back the balance of my time …
1) The Russian military has been exposed as a paper tiger. If it weren’t for nuclear weapons*, Russia would be of little or no consequence.
2) The longer the sanctions continue – especially those specifically targeting Russia’s oligarchs – the increasing better odds that Putin ends up with a bullet in his head. At some point, these super-rich guys are going to get tired of being denied access to their money, and *anyone*, including those with physical proximity to Putin, can be bought.
*Speaking of which, who even knows if they’re functional at this point? Nuclear weapons, unlike conventional weapons, require continuous upkeep to remain functional, something that isn’t exactly Russia’s hallmark (see, for example, their sorry excuse for an aircraft carrier).
Exactly
1. Even if you’re right about RU’s both conventional & nuclear forces, you misjudge the consequences. If RU walks away with “only” the “minor” gains in Georgia, Crimea, & Donbas, even if they remain “temporary”, they’re still indefinite in duration. That’s consequence enough to motivate the same kind of moves around the world.
Frankly, the GOP wants what Putin wants & they’re not above his methods. It’s no secret that the left are Marxists & all-in on overthrowing the U.S. This kind of thinking is endemic in anyone who wants to push over the apple cart.
2. I’m not confident in the predictions of pundits who think they know what’s the main threat to Putin. Certainly you’ve not revealed to us anything like a credible path to a coup.
Rest assured, I want what you want. But if wishes… bla bla bla.
You have no idea what Marxism really is, at all, and might want to read something not written by a right wing nitwit before talking about this shit.
Zero people on the left in the US government are Marxists. Zero. No, not even her, I doubt she actually understands it. Bernie definitely isn’t. He’s not even a socialist, socialists don’t own six houses and have net worths in the millions, that’s not how socialism works.
The left in the US would be called moderate right wingers in the rest of the world. Not remotely socialist in any way, not even democratic socialists. By and large they’re all wealthy capitalists beholden to large corporations for donations. Marxists advocate the destruction of corporations AS A CONCEPT they definitely don’t take payments from them.
My roommate gets the Marxist Manifesto newsletter. He’s a card carrying, unironic Che Guevara shirt wearing Marxist. I read it sometimes. It’s very adorable. They’re so cute, the way they think stuff works.
You’re absolutely right & I stand corrected. I didn’t mean even people like AOC’s Squad. I meant Cornel West who lashes back at Ta-Nehisi Coates for taking up what CW sees as *his* oxygen. Meanwhile West’s alternative answers on the substance are plain incoherent. West is a Marxist & so’s a substantial wing of the far left.
But there are those even in the DSA who want to erase the distinction between socialism & communism, not downplay the connection. The Defund The Police extremists who say, No, we really do mean down to $0, zero cops on the street. The Abolish ICE advocates who don’t care how that plays in Peoria. There are a lot of people on the (far) left who’d rather lose & lose for that miniscule chance of a rebellion. And, as I think I made clear, it’s really there, in that dangerous hope for a miracle that would itself be already a catastrophe, that I choose to stand athwart & shout There Is No Santa Claus.
I’m not sure that anyone posting here is able to “reveal a credible path to a coup,” so meh.
We do know this, though: people who participate in organized crime – which is essentially the modus operandi of Russia under Putin – tend to have a low tolerance for members who cost them money. And the Ukrainian invasion is, by all credible accounts, doing just that. Not a great place to be as the Don.
But yeah, I readily admit that I’m no expert on Russia, nor do I have a particularly educated opinion on the inner-workings of the Kremlin. But after watching how organized crime works for decades, as well as tinpot dictators, my layman’s opinion is that Putin is slowly but surely putting himself in an undesirable situation. But as I said, I could be wrong.
As for the Marxist nonsense, it really makes me wonder if you even know what a Marxism is. The vast, vast majority of the left-wing in American politics doesn’t even come vaguely close to qualifying.
Repeating QAnon-style hyperbole isn’t a good look. You also seem to completely misunderstand the “defund the police” and “abolish ICE” contingents as well, but I guess I’m not surprised. Quoting only the lunatic fringe of anything is disingenuous at best – any movement has it’s wackos, but they’re hardly representative of much of anything other than being wacko.
Well, who can say about what one doesn’t know? But, I know what Abolish ICE & Defund Police are about & do vaguely support them. But their provocative names are to rally the troops & spit at opponents. And, like I said, there’s the uncontrollable element that some on your band wagon will adopt the literal positions in the names & desanitize the meanings & also be loudmouths openly contradicting all your finer points. It’s miserable politics & only works in the long run that never comes.
Let me just say about when I try to say “far left” & mean fringe elements & then you substitute “the whole left” & then it must be me who’s stupid, you must really think we’re all stupid to notice that you moved the goal posts. There are *millions* of far leftists who are Marxist, flat out, they’re vocal in social media & put on as honored guests on TV. You have to acknowledge them to have the slightest hope of then repudiating them. And if you don’t, they wind up representing you, in *spite* of you, because they’re heard & they claim to be your thought leaders. You’ll be constantly re-tarred with them unless you are constantly washing your hands of them, until they stop getting invited to spout their nonsense.
Bernie himself is quite moderate, a rich dude deeply committed to being a cog in the big machine, but his brand is strong rhetoric & he can’t shake the wrong impressions people hearing his message come away with. His followers, OTOH, love that power talk, love the shocked reactions, and double down, at the same time undermining Bernie’s own attempts to footnote, refine & clarify what he has in mind beneath the rhetoric. It’s defeatist. And you can’t see the lesson. Everything bad that happens to us progressives is the direct result of bad first impressions. Amplified instead of suppressed by all the crazies we pick up who latch onto our catch phrases & slogans & strap the literal meanings on top of our figurative ideas.
With me, you’re preaching to your own choir. Imagine how the 50% of Americans far from like-minded will receive you. While you’re explaining your nuance trying to educate them, how far into it will you be when they tune you out? Those idiots whose existence you deny are a monkey on your back. Sorry, it’s you who don’t get it, who can’t see what’s happening to your perfectly good ideas because of your perfectly good rhetorical attention-grabbers.
Here is some actual insightful reporting.
Thank you. You’re absolutely right. It’s said the hallmark of genius is its obviousness in hindsight. The angle we get from this ear-to-the-ground account has that ring of inevitability that leaves me speechless. Whatever I may have speculated before, not only if it was different, but even if it was similar, has become simply irrelevant.
He only needs one to end the world. So that’s that. We’re out until it’s done. We can’t call a bluff that big.
We’ve all seen Wargames. Only way to win is not to play, and the first big bang that goes off triggers ALL of them to go off.
I agree with UncleScoopy about what Putin will try next in Ukraine. It is like what happened in Finland in 1939/40 after the Finns gave the Russians a bloody nose. It may not work as well, though. Ukaine is a lot bigger relative to Putin’s Russia than Finland was to Stalin’s USSR, and the Russian economy is much more vulnerable now.
Some Finns regret the compromise in the end of giving up land for peace. Finland is now making noises toward joining NATO. A present-day analog of that Finnish land-for-peace deal may apply to whatever aftermath in Ukraine.
“Temporary” gains in Georgia & Crimea are now permanent, as Putin’s sees them. Donbas puppet states will be wholly owned RU property, one day very soon, so he believes.
The world’s struggle of good v evil right now hinges on a clear & convincing outright win for Ukraine. Short of which, the likes of Putin, headed by Xi, will carve out chunks of our flesh, killing us bit by bit in the proverbial “death of 1k cuts”.
Meanwhile, Putin’s only doing what he must. The invasion of UA was a psy-op. RU misjudged. UA IT amateurs foiled Plan A with drones at Hostamel airport. That was supposed to be the forward base for a VDV decapitation strike. The senseless 40-mile convoy with no logistics was only meant as a show of force. Sheer puffery. Not mere incompetence.
I don’t agree that time’s on our side. We can’t afford to be too complacent. UA forces learned a lot since Crimea. RU will, too, the more time we leave them to keep it up. Their refocus & terror bombing (napalm cluster bombs!) are buying that time for them. We have about 2 weeks to get some SAMs to UA, as RU gains lock in. Every day, UA civilians die. Refugee counts are draining UA life’s blood. Sorry, but tie base goes to the RU-nner.
Both Putin & oligarchs are more insulated from RU economy than you’re letting yourself imagine. There’s no one in RU who can or will put a bullet into the head of the snake, for now & for the near term, insofar as such things are foreseeable.
Forgive me for being flippant, but I don’t understand the need for all of these weapons systems for Ukraine. I was told by the NRA and other American gun nuts that all that is needed to defeat a military is assault rifles and other semi automatic guns.
Didn’t David defeat Goliath with a sling? Let’s get them more of those. Lots more.
Full disclosure: I am the chairman of the Slings for Ukraine committee and also (just by coincidence) CEO of Slings and Arrows, a company which is on the Outrageous Fortune 500.
Not fer nuthin, but “American gun nuts” are selling kits to convert a “semi-auto” gun to “pretty much” all but “full-auto”—purportedly not quite, by a technicality. Still, I have to concede Adam’s point, that I wouldn’t want to be in a situation where I needed to shoot down a hypersonic or hyperbaric missile with one of these guns, however souped-up & lovely li’l babies they be.
David had God on his side.
Yeah, they were tight. I’ve heard that God was the only one who could call him “Dave.”
Whatever the Finns feel now, they had no choice at the time -they were almost entirely out of ammunition and shells. And Stalin was eager to get out because the Brits and French were preparing to send an expedition to Scandinavia and (this scared the shit out of him) bomb the main Russian (and German) oil source at Baku. The Baku thing might not have worked but Stalin wasn’t willing to find out.
Going all rosy scenario, a successful Baku bombing might have ended up defending France better than the French Army did.
Their blunt force is a whole lot less forceful than it was five weeks ago. And Ukraine is a big country. It’s a long way to go from the Donets to the Dnipr. And the Soviets, er Russians, blow chunks at logistics, which they traditionally have, even during the Big One (Rokossovsky was stopped on the east bank of the Vistula more by his having outrun his railheads than by any malevolence on Stalin’s part toward the Poles, considerable though that was. The great Russian tradition is in artillery, which is not great news for Ukrainians in cities.
Equally bad news for Ukrainians is the fact that Putin, like Stalin, doesn’t care how many of his own people have to die to achieve his goals.
The good thing there is that the Russian Army is much smaller than Stalin’s army, and that the move from quantity doesn’t seem to have paid off in quality.
Odd thing is Stalin did have a limit when it came to casualties, but only when it meant he had less of the “reliable” nationalities (Russians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians, Georgians, and Armenians) available for frontline units and had to use others. He was actually really pissed off at Zhukov over this by the last year of the war.
One even odder thing is that Putin’s main military man Shoigu is a half-Mongol. Technically he’s a half-Tuvan, but Tuva was a district in Mongolia seized by the Bolsheviks (because it had gold mines) and then set up as a puppet “country”. I used to have some Tuvan stamps. He also has no military background.
That was true with Breznhev, Chernenko and Andropov and Afghanistan as well.
The problem there, Scoop, is his people care. Both on the field and off.
The current Russian invasion also brings to mind the Battle of Warsaw, when the Russians, expected to overwhelm Poland, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.