Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

GlastonSpur said:
But why is there any need to prepare the Russian public when most of them only know what the state-controlled media (which is now all of the media) allows them to know?

If he wanted to, Putin could use a tactical nuke on Kyiv and then use the state-controlled media to deride all Western claims about is as just more fake news.
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To prepare them for a wider conflict that is no longer an ”operation” but a full on war. He obviously needs a “provocation” to do that, and the narratives by the clowns on the propaganda shows are greasing the skids for the public to buy into what they are saying. It’s just a more perverse version of what happens on Fox News when Trump’s White House wanted to push a narrative Republican voters who watch Fox would buy into. In both instances, propaganda specifically intended to influence a core audience.
 
Just searched one of the largest Russian social network (oddnoklasniki) for the posts that had the following formulation: “died during special military in Ukraine” - had around 50k hits. A lot of those might be duplicates and whatnot but the true number of causalities must be immensely large as often a single post reports on multiple deaths at once (also if you take into account those that don’t get reported at all).
 
Buster15 said:
Don't agree.
He and his generals have already scaled back on their invasion plans.
They know now that the objective is to take as much territory in the East of Ukraine.
And Putin will be able to claim victory with that. And they don't need to escalate to anything like the use of tactical warheads.

They have been and increasingly are suffering heavy losses.
The deployment of tactical weapons will not get them any closer to victory and will invite retaliation from the West.
He is looking for a way out, not an escalation.
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Hope so.
 
Russia turning back the clock with the newest shipments:


Still these can inflict some damage if they are in working conditions obviously.
 
MadMike said:
Why do I feel this will go even worse for Russia if they do go for full mobilisation?

First of all, calling reservists quickly becomes a huge drain on the economy. Not only are these people not working and paying taxes, now you also have to pay and feed them. Secondly reservists are largely untrained, less disciplined, harder to motivate (especially in an offensive war) and as a result they suffer higher casualty and desertion rates than the regular troops. That in turn saps morale even more, but it also creates an operational headache for command due to their untrustworthiness.

Sometimes it’s better to know that you have left a flank unprotected and make plans based on that, than believing that it is protected when in fact the battalion of reservists who mans it will flounder and desert the second they start coming under heavy fire.

The war will get bloodier and costlier if they commit reservists. But mostly for Russia. Ukraine is already all in.
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You’re probably right, but that’s how Stalin overcome Hitler in WW2, basically through a share volume. This is going to be a meat grinder as you say though.
 
Rajma said:
Just searched one of the largest Russian social network (oddnoklasniki) for the posts that had the following formulation: “died during special military in Ukraine” - had around 50k hits. A lot of those might be duplicates and whatnot but the true number of causalities must be immensely large as often a single post reports on multiple deaths at once (also if you take into account those that don’t get reported at all).
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A senior Nato military officer estimated between 30,000 and 40,000 Russian battlefield casualties (dead, wounded etc), but that was more than 3 weeks ago and significantly less than the figures given by Ukraine at the time.

The total must now be at least 50,000, and I'd guess a fair bit higher.
 
matherto said:
I know war doesn't ever really make any sense but this is taking the piss isn't it?
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The facial recognition? Seems like a logical move in order to foment discontent within Russia as well as give families some semblance of closure.
 
Putin's assumptions?
  • Ukraine would fall quickly.
  • Minimal cost to Russian military.
  • Europeans wouldn't do much.
  • Sanctions-proof economy.
 
Oliver Stone (director) has been sharing pro-Russian narratives on his twitter feed.

Disappointing in the sense that some of those narratives have been debunked already so they're just factually wrong.
 
According to this estimate, the Russians now have somewhere between 78,200 (Ukraine government figures) and 57,000 (open source evidence) military personnel out of action. Even the lower figure is 30% of their original invasion force.

 
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Raoul said:
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This fits with a BBC report: "

The US also believes there were casualties when the Russian missile cruiser Moskva sank, the same official tells Reuters news agency.

The senior US official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, said the number of casualties was unclear.

The ship had a crew of about 500 sailors, and Russia previously said they were successfully evacuated to other ships."
 
GlastonSpur said:
According to this estimate, the Russians now have somewhere between 78,200 (Ukraine government figures) and 57,000 (open source evidence) military personnel out of action. Even the lower figure is 30% of their original invasion force.

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Even if you were to accept the lower end number, that's still absolutely bonkers given that its been less than two months of fighting, a portion of which involved the Russians fleeing all of northern Ukraine.
 
The Firestarter said:
Have you seen JFK?
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Although the film gives the impression of a bigger lean on the military-industrial complex as the culprit, I appreciated that movie for exploring the various possibilities.

No, I feel like something has gone haywire with him around the time when Wikileaks was a thing and when he was on the Snowden movie project.
 
VorZakone said:
Why though? What turned him? I just don't get it.
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I have seen the same stance with many Greeks that were strongly anti-western and now they are with Putin, even though Putin is actually the opposite of everything they believe. Why does this happen? If you have spent all your life pointing that the West is the devil on this Earth, and then you also accept that the other side is even worse ... where does this leave you?

Yes, there are a few people that can remain anti-western and still accept that everyone else is even worse(!), but the majority of people cannot live with such a dark and hopeless worldview. Especially during a big war like this, you feel the need to take sides. If you want to remain consistent with your past anti-western life, then you have to take Putin's side, which means that you have to trick your mind to believe that black is white. Unfortunately, we have seen many times before that people can do this, Trump supporters, religious wars when both sides talk about God's love and yet they kill full of hate, and so on, there are many examples of disconnect in History.
 
frostbite said:
I have seen the same stance with many Greeks that were strongly anti-western and now they are with Putin, even though Putin is actually the opposite of everything they believe. Why does this happen? If you have spent all your life pointing that the West is the devil on this Earth, and then you also accept that the other side is even worse ... where does this leave you?

Yes, there are a few people that can remain anti-western and still accept that everyone else is even worse(!), but the majority of people cannot live with such a dark and hopeless worldview. Especially during a big war like this, you feel the need to take sides. If you want to remain consistent with your past anti-western life, then you have to take Putin's side, which means that you have to trick your mind to believe that black is white. Unfortunately, we have seen many times before that people can do this, Trump supporters, religious wars when both sides talk about God's love and yet they kill full of hate, and so on, there are many examples of disconnect in History.
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Thanks, interesting to hear a Greek perspective.
 
calodo2003 said:
The facial recognition? Seems like a logical move in order to foment discontent within Russia as well as give families some semblance of closure.
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No, the war in general and the fact that Russia are just escalating and threatening and doubling down despite it making zero sense.
 
To people who keep updating us on this theead, kuddos . This is where I come for daily updates. I don’t even bother with mainstream media because they will report whatever I see here after 12hours. Maybe that has to do with living in a 3rd world country

I feel like there will never be full retreat from Russia until they start losing their own non military assets. When Ukraine is ready, they must just start attacking Russia. Currently only Ukraine Civilians are “collateral damage “ and none from the Russians side.
 
Lebo said:
I feel like there will never be full retreat from Russia until they start losing their own non military assets. When Ukraine is ready, they must just start attacking Russia. Currently only Ukraine Civilians are “collateral damage “ and none from the Russians side.
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I don't think hoping for Russian civilians to die is the right approach. "Non military assets" is a somewhat perverse way of looking at it.
 
Are the people in Eastern Ukraine genuinely pro Russian or do they just not want to get shot?

I have never been clear whether the new Russian backed states actually have mass support.
 
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