Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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You read Tom Clancy novels where the US opponents have similar dynamics, and yet you think "surely no one would be like that in the real world". Then you read that the Japanese did similar in WWII, not reporting their carrier losses at Midway to the emperor, falsely claiming more US carriers sunk than the US even had, and again you think "surely no one would be like that in 2022". Yet apparently here we are.
Were they actually conscripts or conned into signing processional contracts very early?
Then you read hundreds of tweets from journalists that meant nothing but made for a good story and you still see posts like this actually believing Putin does not know what his military is up to. He knows. Losses and all. He's not just playing ps5 getting calls from his generals.
Does he really? All reports suggest that he lives extremely isolated since Covid started to be an issue, and also that he doesn't use modern technologies like smart phones etc, but instead relies on reports on paper. Someone has to get those to him, and it is plausible that those are carefully done in a way that favors the reporter.
So it is absolutely plausible that a lot of his military decisions are/were based on very wrong information.
Corruption hinders Russia's attempts to replace losses with old vehicles - Ukraine:
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-702428
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-702428
He definitely knows what's going on. The problem is that the logic of his decision making is based on the paranoia of his own isolation, as well as his inner circle not wanting to give him assessments they think would anger him (thereby jeopardizing their own positions and safety). In the absence of a proper advisor who isn't afraid of him, he will continue to blunder his way through a series of miscalculations.
How can he fully know what's going on if, as you suggest, his inner circle don't want to give him assessments they think would anger him?
CNN's David McKenzie reports from London where the National Crime Agency has seized a yacht believed to be owned by an oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin:
This is a quote from a US govt official, so the journalist didn't make it up. The US official might have made it up, or it could be bad intelligence. But there is precedent for this sort of self-deception, in the case of Japan in WWII that I mentioned but also you could argue that in the case of the US govt itself and evaluations about the situation in Afghanistan all through the last 20 years.
As someone obsessed with his own self-image, he watches a lot of TV and not just his own Russian channels.
That might give him a bit of a reality shock now, but in the build up of the war Western TV stations were mostly believing that Russia would seize Ukraine in 2-3 days, in line with his own believes.
How can anyone believe he is living in a shell like that. It's a simple case of losing men and armory and miscalculations but not affording to back out to face the nation. I am not one of those folks who thinks Putin is some sort of chess master but the lengths people go to, to make it seem like he's in a basement thinking nothing wrong is going on, is pretty silly imo.
Honestly, if you look at Putin I've never seen him look more panicked and worried. His comments have never been more aggressive. He knows exactly what's going on and is stressed as hell about it.
I don't think I've seen US officials saying that Putin knows nothing. But rather that he's not being informed honestly or accurately.
I think the truth probably sits somewhere in the middle. One the one hand, he clearly didn't realise that Ukraine wouldn't just roll over and surrender, nor that most Ukrainians would be hostile to incoming Russian troops, nor that his forces would perform so badly due to poor equipment, poor leadership, low morale (etc etc). All that speaks to him having previously been living in a shell of some kind.
One the other hand, he was probably aware of the shattering of those illusions within the first week of the invasion. And now he's stuck with it: unable to retreat his forces back into Russia/Crimea, because that would probably be the end of him, but also seeing his forces unable to make significant breakthroughs.
Fascinating article about how the war may be all about oil prices and actually it was arguably never necessary to win it quickly in Putin's mind.
https://bylinetimes.com/2022/03/30/weak-oil-the-looming-collapse-of-putins-petro-dictatorship/
https://bylinetimes.com/2022/03/30/weak-oil-the-looming-collapse-of-putins-petro-dictatorship/
He's a typical strongman who rules through fear.
I listened to a great podcast on audible about him (by Misha Glenny) and (in it's most simple form) he was selected by the oligarchs (principally Berezovsky) because they though he could be controlled. He wasn't as stupid as they thought and in the end, made sure the rich behaved themselves on pain of death (Berezovsky) or a stint in the gulag (Khodorkovsky). The others then fell into line, as have the politicians he's made rich and fearful of him in equal measure.
His problem now is that he's surrounded by yes men. I suspect because anyone who's clever or shows promise is a threat. Seems everyone is too scared to tell him what's happening. He's gaslighting himself.
Hopefully he goes the way most of his kind do, with a bullet in the head from someone close. He'll be looking for someone to blame but we could be witnessing his end here. At some stage the tide will turn and the rats will start deserting the ship.
There's a lot of truth in the reports and articles that cover how Russia views Ukraine just as an extension of their own country, and there's virtually nobody of any influence who actually takes the time to study and understand Ukraine, its language and its cultural. It's pure colonialism all over again.
Reports that planes who violated swedish airspace early in march were armed with nuclear weapons but I'd take those reports with a huge pinch of salt.
‘I can’t keep up’: Russia is losing so much military equipment in Ukraine that weapons monitors are overwhelmed:
The Russian military is losing so much equipment that weapons monitors are overwhelmed | The Independent
The Russian military is losing so much equipment that weapons monitors are overwhelmed | The Independent
I don't think that he doesn't know at all what is going on, that wasn't my point.
I do however think that he was severily misinformed about the state of his army, his economy and the internal state of Ukraine's public feelings and the state of their army.
No wonder he looks panicked, everything went different than expected and he now has to quickly catch what the real situation is and how to get out of it.
Not sure what to think of this article. First of all, it ignores the current heavy sanctions imposed on Russia. The war dragging on won't be nice for Russia in that sense, surely?
It also contradicts reports that they planned to take Kyiv in mere days, hence a quick victory over the Ukrainian government.
I think the article could have been better if the author took these things into account.
It does make an interesting case for Russian reluctance to unleash all their capabilities.
I watched the first four seconds and can't see what is wrong?!
It is a comparison of before/after footage.
Maybe you should have watched more seconds.
Oh come on, guys. I had my Rossiya 1 hat on for that post.
достаточно честнo
The problem with this argument is Putin's Achilles heel - Russia's complete reliance on expertise and tech, from the very European countries he wants to destablise in order to keep prices high. It's pretty clear that his customers aren't going to let that happen.
Thanks for sharing. The part in bold reminds me of how Xi was selected by people who thought they could control him.
why does Xi not get the same worldwide scrutiny as other dictators like Putin or Trump?
Interesting article and that path is one of the reasons I invested in oil a couple of years ago. However, I'm not sure about the framing of it being the reason behind the war as the tools to manipulate the price higher have always been available to Putin.
I ”hate” Trump and despise almost everything. He stands for. But calling him a “dictator” doesn’t make much sense. “Wanna be dictator” maybe.
He does.
I tend to agree that Putin probably did want to end the war quickly and overestimated his ability to do so. Destabilising Europe from closer to its borders is presumably preferable than from further away. The interesting thing from my point of view is the argument they make about Energy Return on Investment of oil, it's a factor that's quite simple to understand on the face of it but so rarely discussed and considered publicly in reality. I can certainly see how it could have been a huge contributing factor in Russian decision making, even if some of the other more widely discussed factors are also true. He may well have thought that the war dragging on a bit wouldn't be the worst outcome, but clearly he's almost certainly massively miscalculated if so.