Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Last post, probably to everyone's benefit and certainly mine.

Glaston, re: your last reply to me -

You say I'm swallowing Russian propaganda. Is it Russian propaganda that 45 minutes from me there are factories that supply components for Russian tanks, and they are working just fine? Hence, your claim from a couple of months back that "Russia's only factory that supplies components for their tanks" (that'll never stop being funny to me) is due to shut down and the war is going to be over within weeks was nonsense?

Is it Russian propaganda that a few weeks ago I sat down with a friend whose company builds helicopters for Gazprom and he walked me through the mechanism of how they get around sanctions for their military contracts?

Is it Russian propaganda that on the dates you and others in here have been saying Putin is having surgery for cancer he's been holding video calls with Macron?

Is it Russian propaganda that despite what the West promised back in March the ruble is not "rubble" and the Russian economy has not been destroyed "by June"?

Is it Russian propaganda that over the last 2 weeks an escalating number of battles within this war have had their status switched from "on-going" to "Russian victory"?

Is it Russian propaganda that the claim that "40 billion dollars for Ukraine" is nowhere close to "40 billion dollars for Ukraine", it's actually closer to "19 billion dollars for all of Ukraine's needs and the rest is for the US to replenish its stocks over the next 10 years" (Biden met with the CEO of Lockheed Martin last week to thrash out the details)?

Is it Russian propaganda that everyone from Lloyd Austin to Pelosi to Schumer to Blinken to Biden to Johnson to Truss to (2 days ago) Scholz has been saying that only Ukrainian victory is the goal ("We will support Ukraine until victory is won" as the delegation from the US said when they visited Ukraine)...and yet of late everyone has been calling on Putin to negotiate peace terms with Zelenskiy? You don't see the disconnect here:

Monday: "Our aim is Ukrainian victory and a weakened Russia!"

Wednesday: "Ukraine is winning this war and Russia is being further weakened by the day!"

Friday: "Putin, stop this war!!".

Just today both Macron and Scholz called Putin and, according to the readout of their call, pressed him to talk to Zelenskiy and negotiate peace. Why? If the aim is "Ukrainian victory", and Ukraine is "winning", why are they asking Putin to stop it?

Is it Russian propaganda that there is a huge disconnect between what the Ukrainian politicians are saying and what the Ukrainian generals and military commanders are saying?

Is it Russian propaganda that (per that BBC article I linked) people in Ukraine are starting to turn on Zelenskiy, saying (also per that article) "this would not have happened under Poroshenko"? And is it also Russian propaganda that last night, lo and behold, Poroshenko was detained at the Polish border when he tried to leave Ukraine to attend a NATO meeting?

Is it Russian propaganda that despite America promising to "do everything we can to help Ukraine until victory is won", the Pentagon today reiterated that "no decisions have been made" on sending long-range rocket systems to Ukraine for fear Russia will see it as an escalation? "We promise our Ukrainian friends that they WILL defeat Russia with our help!!! But....err, we also don't want Putin to think we're escalating anything here". And is it Russian propaganda that Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba voiced his frustration with Washington's mixed messaging on Thursday by saying: “My least favorite phrase is ‘We are working on it’; I hate it. I want to hear either ‘We got it’ or ‘It’s not going to happen’?



Look, Glaston, I'm sorry for my earlier rudeness to you but the point I am making is a very serious one (someone earlier in the thread dismissed my posts as "picking apart tweets" but that's missing my point). I could use any number of examples to make my point but instead I'll use this one because it's probably most illustrative. On April 29th, you posted the following in this thread (post #28,715 on page 718):


The BBC reports:

" Russian forces will collapse in weeks, predicts military expert

Russia's assault on Donbas has "sort of fizzled" and the battle for the region will be over in two to four weeks, says military expert Dr Mike Martin.

The war studies visiting fellow at King's College London says: "Basically the Russians are gonna run out of troops, and the Ukrainians are going to counterattack."

The Russians have squandered their one chance to take the region, he believes.

"They pulled all of these mauled units out of Kyiv, and then tried to reconstitute them for combat in the east," he explains.

But they were "bruised and damaged" by the battle for the Ukrainian capital and Russia failed to build them up and "do some bold manoeuvre".

And Martin says there has been a "major strategic shift" in the war, with the UK declaring its aim is to clear Russian forces from Ukraine, including Crimea.

He adds that UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is "wrong", however, to say this would take 10 years, insisting: "Russian forces will collapse before that, and we’ll see a coup."

And with the US announcing US$33bn (£26bn) of funding for Ukraine, "that is an extremely clear signal of intent", says Martin.

It also means Nato and the US have decided Vladimir Putin is bluffing about using nuclear weapons if Nato up the ante, he adds."


"Military expert Dr Mike Martin" is quite the celebrity over here and has been for a while, his absolutely ridiculous claims on a variety of geopolitical issues are often used as an example of who the Western media looks to for their "expert analysis" (Martin's commentary on Afghanistan back in the day was also a hoot). In that passage that you've quoted, Martin claimed the battle for the Donbas would be over in 2 to 4 weeks because Russia would run out of troops (a spectacularly stupid claim to anyone who knows even the remotest thing about this war), yet sure enough, there was the BBC parroting this idiot's take. And now here we are a month later and Donbas is probably a few weeks away from falling to Russia.

Now the point I'm making is not, on this occasion, to raise an eyebrow at you and your sources, because here you're quoting the BBC. But here's the thing: if "Russian state propaganda" were not banned in the West (as it now is - I guess it was felt you're all too incapable of deciding for yourselves what's accurate in your free speech democracies), you would have known that what Martin said was absolutely preposterous, because you'd have been able to watch a discussion programme on RT giving an overview of this clown's previous gibberish 'predictions'. Likewise, if "Russian state propaganda" were not banned in the West you would have seen Putin holding a meeting with Mishustin and Matvienko on the very day your famous unnamed "Western officials" claimed Putin was having cancer surgery. If "Russian state propaganda" were not banned in the West you would be hearing about the progress of the war not solely through the words of pro-Ukrainian sources, but also pro-Russian sources (for whom you are welcome to have contempt but you shouldn't allow your contempt to cut you off from information). If "Russian state propaganda" were not blocked in the West you would be able to hear the far less optimistic evaluation of the war from Ukrainian generals and commanders, instead of Zelenskiy, whose job is to do all he can to maintain the morale of Ukrainian soldiers and people, and that often involves massively exaggerating Russian losses and Ukrainian gains. Finally - you (Glaston) have posted many, many times about the numbers of alleged Russian losses in this war. You have not once posted about Ukrainian losses. So I am going to set you a challenge. In your next post, please give what you think is an accurate number of Ukrainian losses to date. You might need to use a VPN to access banned "Russian state propaganda" which cites actual Ukrainian commanders on the ground. The same guys who (one example from countless), while Zelenskiy was insisting that only 8 soldiers died in a recent Russian strike in Desna, were saying "What the hell are you talking about, it was 87", which days later Zelenskiy finally admitted:

https://news.yahoo.com/zelensky-says-87-killed-may-155221449.html

Yes, Russia has sustained huge losses. So has Ukraine. And what's key is this: Russia's capacity to sustain losses and keep going is several orders of magnitude higher than Ukraine's (as acknowledged by Luhansk govenor Serhiy Haidai), hence Kirby saying time is not on their side now.

I'll sum up. I know that Russian TV promulgates propaganda. More importantly, I am able to recognise it when I hear it, because as best I can I try to verify information. Unlike you, I have full access to both sides of the information war. And my overall point is: the West has propaganda too, and I'm not convinced some of you here a) realise that or b) recognise propaganda when you hear it. If you go to any other thread on this forum's political page you'll find wall to wall complaining about how the government are a bunch of self-serving liars, yet almost without fail whenever the issue is foreign policy people trust the integrity and honesty of the folk who have lied to them time after time.

I am not suggesting anyone should accept anything I'm writing here, I know that the vast majority won't and it's not even my aim, but all I'm saying is that if you were to remove all the posts in this thread that have been proven to be wrong, 777 pages would instantly become about 50 pages. This is simply a fact. And for pointing that out you're saying I'm a victim of Russian propaganda. Several excellent posters have been pretty much hounded out of this thread (most notably that Michael Goodman guy), with people even calling for them to be banned for daring to propose something other than the accepted orthodoxy. You're free to continue to do that, I don't doubt it feels good, but so long as it continues, the next 777 pages of this thread will also contain overwhelming amounts of nonsense. I know that you (Glaston) and almost everyone else here is absolutely convinced that it will not happen, but do this thought experiment with me: imagine for a moment that what I've written here comes to pass. That Putin does in fact win this war, and in the manner I've described. Then will you doubt the "experts" who've been telling you for the last 3 months that the Russian army will collapse and Ukrainian victory will certainly happen? Or - as we saw after the "experts" were proven wrong on Brexit and the election of Trump - will you bend over backwards to explain away why they were 'justifiably mistaken'...yet again?

With that I'll check out of the thread because for the last week a bunch of "tolerant Westerners" have been demonstrating their commitment to the Western value of free speech and inclusivity of opinion by calling me names via PM. I haven't and won't respond to any of them, because I'm not a child, but that kind of thing is not why I came to this thread. I wanted to give another side of the issue. For that I'm being sent abusive PMs. Fair enough, I've said my piece for anyone who wants to read it. All I ask is that if and when what I've written comes to pass, remember this exchange, remember how adamant you were that I was spouting nothing but absurd Russian propaganda, and learn from it. Peace.
 
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Frosty said:
Thanks for the heads up, I will avoid from now on.
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That twitter account does share a lot of good content, I wouldn't say it is a bad source. There are just a lot of questions about if he is really on the ground there, he seems to be just plucking it all from various telegram channels while pretending he's in the thick of it.
 
Simbo said:
That twitter account does share a lot of good content, I wouldn't say it is a bad source. There are just a lot of questions about if he is really on the ground there, he seems to be just plucking it all from various telegram channels while pretending he's in the thick of it.
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Ya I agree with this view, his being on the ground has been seriously questioned by an analyst at Bellingcat, I don't think he necessarily shares disinformation though and is likely just aggregating info from various sources.
 
DT12 said:
Last post, probably to everyone's benefit but certainly mine.

Glaston, re: your last reply to me -

You say I'm swallowing Russian propaganda. Is it Russian propaganda that 45 minutes from me there are factories that supply components for Russian tanks, and they are working just fine? Hence, your claim from a couple of months back that "Russia's only factory that supplies components for their tanks" (that'll never stop being funny to me) is due to shut down and the war is going to be over within weeks was nonsense?

Is it Russian propaganda that a few weeks ago I sat down with a friend whose company builds helicopters for Gazprom and he walked me through the mechanism of how they get around sanctions for their military contracts?

Is it Russian propaganda that on the dates you and others in here have been saying Putin is having surgery for cancer he's been holding video calls with Macron?

Is it Russian propaganda that despite what the West promised back in March the ruble is not "rubble" and the Russian economy has not been destroyed "by June"?

Is it Russian propaganda that over the last 2 weeks an escalating number of battles within this war have had their status switched from "on-going" to "Russian victory"?

Is it Russian propaganda that the claim that "40 billion dollars for Ukraine" is nowhere close to "40 billion dollars for Ukraine", it's actually closer to "19 billion dollars for all of Ukraine's needs and the rest is for the US to replenish its stocks over the next 10 years" (Biden met with the CEO of Lockheed Martin last week to thrash out the details)?

Is it Russian propaganda that everyone from Lloyd Austin to Pelosi to Schumer to Blinken to Biden to Johnson to Truss to (2 days ago) Scholz has been saying that only Ukrainian victory is the goal ("We will support Ukraine until victory is won" as the delegation from the US said when they visited Ukraine)...and yet of late everyone has been calling on Putin to negotiate peace terms with Zelenskiy? You don't see the disconnect here:

Monday: "Our aim is Ukrainian victory and a weakened Russia!"

Wednesday: "Ukraine is winning this war and Russia is being further weakened by the day!"

Friday: "Putin, stop this war!!".

Just today both Macron and Scholz called Putin and, according to the readout of their call, pressed him to talk to Zelenskiy and negotiate peace. Why? If the aim is "Ukrainian victory", and Ukraine is "winning", why are they asking Putin to stop it?

Is it Russian propaganda that there is a huge disconnect between what the Ukrainian politicians are saying and what the Ukrainian generals and military commanders are saying?

Is it Russian propaganda that (per that BBC article I linked) people in Ukraine are starting to turn on Zelenskiy, saying (also per that article) "this would not have happened under Poroshenko"? And is it also Russian propaganda that last night, lo and behold, Poroshenko was detained at the Polish border when he tried to leave Ukraine to attend a NATO meeting?

Is it Russian propaganda that despite America promising to "do everything we can to help Ukraine until victory is won", the Pentagon today reiterated that "no decisions have been made" on sending long-range rocket systems to Ukraine for fear Russia will see it as an escalation? "We promise our Ukrainian friends that they WILL defeat Russia with our help!!! But....err, we also don't want Putin to think we're escalating anything here". And is it Russian propaganda that Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba voiced his frustration with Washington's mixed messaging on Thursday by saying: “My least favorite phrase is ‘We are working on it’; I hate it. I want to hear either ‘We got it’ or ‘It’s not going to happen’?



Look, Glaston, I'm sorry for my earlier rudeness to you but the point I am making is a very serious one (someone earlier in the thread dismissed my posts as "picking apart tweets" but that's missing my point). I could use any number of examples to make my point but instead I'll use this one because it's probably most illustrative. On April 29th, you posted the following in this thread (post #28,715 on page 718):


The BBC reports:

" Russian forces will collapse in weeks, predicts military expert

Russia's assault on Donbas has "sort of fizzled" and the battle for the region will be over in two to four weeks, says military expert Dr Mike Martin.

The war studies visiting fellow at King's College London says: "Basically the Russians are gonna run out of troops, and the Ukrainians are going to counterattack."

The Russians have squandered their one chance to take the region, he believes.

"They pulled all of these mauled units out of Kyiv, and then tried to reconstitute them for combat in the east," he explains.

But they were "bruised and damaged" by the battle for the Ukrainian capital and Russia failed to build them up and "do some bold manoeuvre".

And Martin says there has been a "major strategic shift" in the war, with the UK declaring its aim is to clear Russian forces from Ukraine, including Crimea.

He adds that UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is "wrong", however, to say this would take 10 years, insisting: "Russian forces will collapse before that, and we’ll see a coup."

And with the US announcing US$33bn (£26bn) of funding for Ukraine, "that is an extremely clear signal of intent", says Martin.

It also means Nato and the US have decided Vladimir Putin is bluffing about using nuclear weapons if Nato up the ante, he adds."


"Military expert Dr Mike Martin" is quite the celebrity over here and has been for a while, his absolutely ridiculous claims on a variety of geopolitical issues are often used as an example of who the Western media looks to for their "expert analysis" (Martin's commentary on Afghanistan back in the day was also a hoot). In that passage that you've quoted, Martin claimed the battle for the Donbas would be over in 2 to 4 weeks because Russia would run out of troops (a spectacularly stupid claim to anyone who knows even the remotest thing about this war), yet sure enough, there was the BBC parroting this idiot's take. And now here we are a month later and Donbas is probably a few weeks away from falling to Russia.

Now the point I'm making is not, on this occasion, to raise an eyebrow at you and your sources, because here you're quoting the BBC. But here's the thing: if "Russian state propaganda" were not banned in the West (as it now is - I guess it was felt you're all too incapable of deciding for yourselves what's accurate in your free speech democracies), you would have known that what Martin said was absolutely preposterous, because you'd have been able to watch a discussion programme on RT giving an overview of this clown's previous gibberish 'predictions'. Likewise, if "Russian state propaganda" were not banned in the West you would have seen Putin holding a meeting with Mishustin and Matvienko on the very day your famous unnamed "Western officials" claimed Putin was having cancer surgery. If "Russian state propaganda" were not banned in the West you would be hearing about the progress of the war not solely through the words of pro-Ukrainian sources, but also pro-Russian sources (for whom you are welcome to have contempt but you shouldn't allow your contempt to cut you off from information). If "Russian state propaganda" were not blocked in the West you would be able to hear the far less optimistic evaluation of the war from Ukrainian generals and commanders, instead of Zelenskiy, whose job is to do all he can to maintain the morale of Ukrainian soldiers and people, and that often involves massively exaggerating Russian losses and Ukrainian gains. Finally - you (Glaston) have posted many, many times about the numbers of alleged Russian losses in this war. You have not once posted about Ukrainian losses. So I am going to set you a challenge. In your next post, please give what you think is an accurate number of Ukrainian losses to date. You might need to use a VPN to access banned "Russian state propaganda" which cites actual Ukrainian commanders on the ground. The same guys who (one example from countless), while Zelenskiy was insisting that only 8 soldiers died in a recent Russian strike in Desna, were saying "What the hell are you talking about, it was 87", which days later Zelenskiy finally admitted:

https://news.yahoo.com/zelensky-says-87-killed-may-155221449.html

Yes, Russia has sustained huge losses. So has Ukraine. And what's key is this: Russia's capacity to sustain losses and keep going is several orders of magnitude higher than Ukraine's (as acknowledged by Luhansk govenor Serhiy Haidai), hence Kirby saying time is not on their side now.

I'll sum up. I know that Russian TV promulgates propaganda. More importantly, I am able to recognise it when I hear it, because as best I can I try to verify information. Unlike you, I have full access to both sides of the information war. And my overall point is: the West has propaganda too, and I'm not convinced some of you here a) realise that or b) recognise propaganda when you hear it. If you go to any other thread on this forum's political page you'll find wall to wall complaining about how the government are a bunch of self-serving liars, yet almost without fail whenever the issue is foreign policy people trust the integrity and honesty of the folk who have lied to them time after time.

I am not suggesting anyone should accept anything I'm writing here, I know that the vast majority won't and it's not even my aim, but all I'm saying is that if you were to remove all the posts in this thread that have been proven to be wrong, 777 pages would instantly become about 50 pages. This is simply a fact. And for pointing that out you're saying I'm a victim of Russian propaganda. Several excellent posters have been pretty much hounded out of this thread (most notably that Michael Goodman guy), with people even calling for them to be banned for daring to propose something other than the accepted orthodoxy. You're free to continue to do that, I don't doubt it feels good, but so long as it continues, the next 777 pages of this thread will also contain overwhelming amounts of nonsense. I know that you (Glaston) and almost everyone else here is absolutely convinced that it will not happen, but do this thought experiment with me: imagine for a moment that what I've written here comes to pass. That Putin does in fact win this war, and in the manner I've described. Then will you doubt the "experts" who've been telling you for the last 3 months that the Russian army will collapse and Ukrainian victory will certainly happen? Or - as we saw after the "experts" were proven wrong on Brexit and the election of Trump - will you bend over backwards to explain away why they were 'justifiably mistaken'...yet again?

With that I'll check out of the thread because for the last week a bunch of "tolerant Westerners" have been demonstrating their commitment to the Western value of free speech and inclusivity of opinion by calling me names via PM. I haven't and won't respond to any of them, because I'm not a child, but that kind of thing is not why I came to this thread. I wanted to give another side of the issue. For that I'm being sent abusive PMs. Fair enough, I've said my piece for anyone who wants to read it. All I ask is that if and when what I've written comes to pass, remember this exchange, remember how adamant you were that I was spouting nothing but absurd Russian propaganda, and learn from it. Peace.
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First off, you treat news reports that I've cited as if they were my personal claims or statements. They're news reports - some may prove be accurate or some may not prove to be accurate. Either way, posters can make up their own minds about them, and either way it doesn't mean that I am vouching for it's accuracy ... just as I am not vouching for the truthfulness of Russian State TV whenever I have drawn attention to them in this thread.

Concerning your other points:

1) It doesn't really matter if building helicopters for Gazprom finds a way around sanctions - that's small potatoes. The big picture is impending severe economic decline for Russia - rising unemployment, rising inflation, GDP contraction, possible default on debt repayments, difficulty in maintaining a variety of manufacturing processes and businesses due to shortage of spare parts etc etc. These effects have hardly yet begun to bite, but month by month you will see them get deeper and deeper.

2) It doesn't matter if only $19.billion will be coming from the US because that's on top of other money that's already come from the US, EU, UK and elsewhere - and on top of money yet to come from the EU, UK and elsewhere.

3) It's not true, as you claim, that "everyone has been calling on Putin to negotiate peace terms with Zelenskiy". Some have and some haven't (those that haven't include Biden, Johnson and the leaders of many EU countries). Moreover, most of those calling for negotiations are also calling for Russia to withdraw its troops back to the pre-February 24th borders as key requirement for peace.

4) I've no doubt that the vast majority of Ukrainians support Zelensky big time. Your citing a few who don't is small potatoes - not the big picture.

5) Your citing one military expert (Dr Mike Martin) who got it wrong is more small potatoes, not the big picture. Most western military analysts continue to believe that Russia is losing this war, and that Russia making some small gains here and there in recent weeks has no great significance. Unlike you , it seems, they understand the concept of falling back to pre-prepared defensive lines, having meanwhile inflicted big losses on the attackers. And unlike you, it seems, they understand the significance of Russia being forced to bring 60 year old tanks out of storage and raising the army joining age to 50 years olds. And unlike you, it seems, they understand that more and more sophisticated weapons continue to arrive in Ukraine, and as time passes Ukraine will ready itself for counter-offensives to take back lost ground.

6) Unless Putin opts for full mobilisation by declaring war, your claim that Russia's "capacity to sustain losses and keep going is several orders of magnitude higher than Ukraine's" is simply not true. Ukraine has at least 900,000 reservists, most of whom are not even in the battle as yet. Moreover, it has announced plans to arm a further one million citizens.

7) Whilst there is propaganda from both sides, there is no equivalence - moral or otherwise - between Western propaganda and that of Russian state-controlled media. For starters, Western media encompasses a large number of different sources, as distinct from the single source of the Russian State. And in the West, free discussion takes place. It Russia it doesn't. I've long reached the conclusion that pretty much everything coming from the Russian State is the exact opposite of the truth.

Finally, you wanted to know my guess as to Ukrainian losses. OK, I'll guess at 40,000 personnel out of action one way or another (dead, wounded, captured etc) - or somewhere been 30 - 50% of Russia's losses.
 
Simbo said:
:lol: So much new TV to watch this weekend but this thread on fire today.
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Tell me you are Russian without telling me you are Russian: rehashing and getting overly excited about Azov, without any sense of self-awareness about the complete fascist takeover happening in the Motherland.

Oh, and now Luhansk and Donetsk republics are entirely the same as Kosovo. I look forward to being told with a straight face that the people of Kherson have always wanted to be independent or part of Russia… but if only the Russophiles could yet tell which!
 
DT12 said:
Last post, probably to everyone's benefit but certainly mine.

Glaston, re: your last reply to me -

You say I'm swallowing Russian propaganda. Is it Russian propaganda that 45 minutes from me there are factories that supply components for Russian tanks, and they are working just fine? Hence, your claim from a couple of months back that "Russia's only factory that supplies components for their tanks" (that'll never stop being funny to me) is due to shut down and the war is going to be over within weeks was nonsense?

Is it Russian propaganda that a few weeks ago I sat down with a friend whose company builds helicopters for Gazprom and he walked me through the mechanism of how they get around sanctions for their military contracts?

Is it Russian propaganda that on the dates you and others in here have been saying Putin is having surgery for cancer he's been holding video calls with Macron?

Is it Russian propaganda that despite what the West promised back in March the ruble is not "rubble" and the Russian economy has not been destroyed "by June"?

Is it Russian propaganda that over the last 2 weeks an escalating number of battles within this war have had their status switched from "on-going" to "Russian victory"?

Is it Russian propaganda that the claim that "40 billion dollars for Ukraine" is nowhere close to "40 billion dollars for Ukraine", it's actually closer to "19 billion dollars for all of Ukraine's needs and the rest is for the US to replenish its stocks over the next 10 years" (Biden met with the CEO of Lockheed Martin last week to thrash out the details)?

Is it Russian propaganda that everyone from Lloyd Austin to Pelosi to Schumer to Blinken to Biden to Johnson to Truss to (2 days ago) Scholz has been saying that only Ukrainian victory is the goal ("We will support Ukraine until victory is won" as the delegation from the US said when they visited Ukraine)...and yet of late everyone has been calling on Putin to negotiate peace terms with Zelenskiy? You don't see the disconnect here:

Monday: "Our aim is Ukrainian victory and a weakened Russia!"

Wednesday: "Ukraine is winning this war and Russia is being further weakened by the day!"

Friday: "Putin, stop this war!!".

Just today both Macron and Scholz called Putin and, according to the readout of their call, pressed him to talk to Zelenskiy and negotiate peace. Why? If the aim is "Ukrainian victory", and Ukraine is "winning", why are they asking Putin to stop it?

Is it Russian propaganda that there is a huge disconnect between what the Ukrainian politicians are saying and what the Ukrainian generals and military commanders are saying?

Is it Russian propaganda that (per that BBC article I linked) people in Ukraine are starting to turn on Zelenskiy, saying (also per that article) "this would not have happened under Poroshenko"? And is it also Russian propaganda that last night, lo and behold, Poroshenko was detained at the Polish border when he tried to leave Ukraine to attend a NATO meeting?

Is it Russian propaganda that despite America promising to "do everything we can to help Ukraine until victory is won", the Pentagon today reiterated that "no decisions have been made" on sending long-range rocket systems to Ukraine for fear Russia will see it as an escalation? "We promise our Ukrainian friends that they WILL defeat Russia with our help!!! But....err, we also don't want Putin to think we're escalating anything here". And is it Russian propaganda that Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba voiced his frustration with Washington's mixed messaging on Thursday by saying: “My least favorite phrase is ‘We are working on it’; I hate it. I want to hear either ‘We got it’ or ‘It’s not going to happen’?



Look, Glaston, I'm sorry for my earlier rudeness to you but the point I am making is a very serious one (someone earlier in the thread dismissed my posts as "picking apart tweets" but that's missing my point). I could use any number of examples to make my point but instead I'll use this one because it's probably most illustrative. On April 29th, you posted the following in this thread (post #28,715 on page 718):


The BBC reports:

" Russian forces will collapse in weeks, predicts military expert

Russia's assault on Donbas has "sort of fizzled" and the battle for the region will be over in two to four weeks, says military expert Dr Mike Martin.

The war studies visiting fellow at King's College London says: "Basically the Russians are gonna run out of troops, and the Ukrainians are going to counterattack."

The Russians have squandered their one chance to take the region, he believes.

"They pulled all of these mauled units out of Kyiv, and then tried to reconstitute them for combat in the east," he explains.

But they were "bruised and damaged" by the battle for the Ukrainian capital and Russia failed to build them up and "do some bold manoeuvre".

And Martin says there has been a "major strategic shift" in the war, with the UK declaring its aim is to clear Russian forces from Ukraine, including Crimea.

He adds that UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is "wrong", however, to say this would take 10 years, insisting: "Russian forces will collapse before that, and we’ll see a coup."

And with the US announcing US$33bn (£26bn) of funding for Ukraine, "that is an extremely clear signal of intent", says Martin.

It also means Nato and the US have decided Vladimir Putin is bluffing about using nuclear weapons if Nato up the ante, he adds."


"Military expert Dr Mike Martin" is quite the celebrity over here and has been for a while, his absolutely ridiculous claims on a variety of geopolitical issues are often used as an example of who the Western media looks to for their "expert analysis" (Martin's commentary on Afghanistan back in the day was also a hoot). In that passage that you've quoted, Martin claimed the battle for the Donbas would be over in 2 to 4 weeks because Russia would run out of troops (a spectacularly stupid claim to anyone who knows even the remotest thing about this war), yet sure enough, there was the BBC parroting this idiot's take. And now here we are a month later and Donbas is probably a few weeks away from falling to Russia.

Now the point I'm making is not, on this occasion, to raise an eyebrow at you and your sources, because here you're quoting the BBC. But here's the thing: if "Russian state propaganda" were not banned in the West (as it now is - I guess it was felt you're all too incapable of deciding for yourselves what's accurate in your free speech democracies), you would have known that what Martin said was absolutely preposterous, because you'd have been able to watch a discussion programme on RT giving an overview of this clown's previous gibberish 'predictions'. Likewise, if "Russian state propaganda" were not banned in the West you would have seen Putin holding a meeting with Mishustin and Matvienko on the very day your famous unnamed "Western officials" claimed Putin was having cancer surgery. If "Russian state propaganda" were not banned in the West you would be hearing about the progress of the war not solely through the words of pro-Ukrainian sources, but also pro-Russian sources (for whom you are welcome to have contempt but you shouldn't allow your contempt to cut you off from information). If "Russian state propaganda" were not blocked in the West you would be able to hear the far less optimistic evaluation of the war from Ukrainian generals and commanders, instead of Zelenskiy, whose job is to do all he can to maintain the morale of Ukrainian soldiers and people, and that often involves massively exaggerating Russian losses and Ukrainian gains. Finally - you (Glaston) have posted many, many times about the numbers of alleged Russian losses in this war. You have not once posted about Ukrainian losses. So I am going to set you a challenge. In your next post, please give what you think is an accurate number of Ukrainian losses to date. You might need to use a VPN to access banned "Russian state propaganda" which cites actual Ukrainian commanders on the ground. The same guys who (one example from countless), while Zelenskiy was insisting that only 8 soldiers died in a recent Russian strike in Desna, were saying "What the hell are you talking about, it was 87", which days later Zelenskiy finally admitted:

https://news.yahoo.com/zelensky-says-87-killed-may-155221449.html

Yes, Russia has sustained huge losses. So has Ukraine. And what's key is this: Russia's capacity to sustain losses and keep going is several orders of magnitude higher than Ukraine's (as acknowledged by Luhansk govenor Serhiy Haidai), hence Kirby saying time is not on their side now.

I'll sum up. I know that Russian TV promulgates propaganda. More importantly, I am able to recognise it when I hear it, because as best I can I try to verify information. Unlike you, I have full access to both sides of the information war. And my overall point is: the West has propaganda too, and I'm not convinced some of you here a) realise that or b) recognise propaganda when you hear it. If you go to any other thread on this forum's political page you'll find wall to wall complaining about how the government are a bunch of self-serving liars, yet almost without fail whenever the issue is foreign policy people trust the integrity and honesty of the folk who have lied to them time after time.

I am not suggesting anyone should accept anything I'm writing here, I know that the vast majority won't and it's not even my aim, but all I'm saying is that if you were to remove all the posts in this thread that have been proven to be wrong, 777 pages would instantly become about 50 pages. This is simply a fact. And for pointing that out you're saying I'm a victim of Russian propaganda. Several excellent posters have been pretty much hounded out of this thread (most notably that Michael Goodman guy), with people even calling for them to be banned for daring to propose something other than the accepted orthodoxy. You're free to continue to do that, I don't doubt it feels good, but so long as it continues, the next 777 pages of this thread will also contain overwhelming amounts of nonsense. I know that you (Glaston) and almost everyone else here is absolutely convinced that it will not happen, but do this thought experiment with me: imagine for a moment that what I've written here comes to pass. That Putin does in fact win this war, and in the manner I've described. Then will you doubt the "experts" who've been telling you for the last 3 months that the Russian army will collapse and Ukrainian victory will certainly happen? Or - as we saw after the "experts" were proven wrong on Brexit and the election of Trump - will you bend over backwards to explain away why they were 'justifiably mistaken'...yet again?

With that I'll check out of the thread because for the last week a bunch of "tolerant Westerners" have been demonstrating their commitment to the Western value of free speech and inclusivity of opinion by calling me names via PM. I haven't and won't respond to any of them, because I'm not a child, but that kind of thing is not why I came to this thread. I wanted to give another side of the issue. For that I'm being sent abusive PMs. Fair enough, I've said my piece for anyone who wants to read it. All I ask is that if and when what I've written comes to pass, remember this exchange, remember how adamant you were that I was spouting nothing but absurd Russian propaganda, and learn from it. Peace.
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Why are you not sharing how Russia circumvents sanctions on military contracts with us/authorities in the west? It would help to defeat the evil, so far you seem to be very content with a fascist regime.
 
TMDaines said:
Tell me you are Russian without telling me you are Russian: rehashing and getting overly excited about Azov, without any sense of self-awareness about the complete fascist takeover happening in the Motherland.
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The easiest way to spot a Putin apologist is by how quickly they bring up Azov.
 
fergosaurus said:
Water Melon shares that he lost around 30 people and his wife's cousin's 6yo daughter was raped and burnt along with her grandmother and this is what he chooses to respond with...



Because defending these absolute cretins from being called orcs is more important than showing a bit of empathy and compassion for a fellow poster sharing horrific experiences.
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Exactly this.
Quite a shock to see his responses to the atrocities.
 
GlastonSpur said:
2) It doesn't matter if only $19.billion will be coming from the US because that's on top of other money that's already come from the US, EU, UK and elsewhere - and on top of money yet to come from the EU, UK and elsewhere.
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What he leaves out is that another $16 billion of that bill is for economic and humanitarian aid.
 
I know it's just a meltdown from a nobody on a football forum, but christ that Paxi rant has depressed me. It could have been from one of my own brothers, he'd also describe himself as against the war and Putin, but can't disentangle himself from a sense of nationalism and feeling that countrymen couldn't be capable of doing most of these things. Before you know it, things are being justified or dismissed in a careless contrarian way that never should be, especially war crimes. There are a lot of people that will tie themselves in knots before it sets in that Putin is leading the country down a very dark path.
 
Demyanenko_square_jaw said:
I know it's just a meltdown from a nobody on a football forum, but christ that Paxi rant has depressed me. It could have been from one of my own brothers, he'd also describe himself as against the war and Putin, but can't disentangle himself from a sense of nationalism and feeling that countrymen couldn't be capable of doing most of these things. Before you know it, things are being justified or dismissed in a careless contrarian way that never should be, especially war crimes. There are a lot of people that will tie themselves in knots before it sets in that Putin is leading the country down a very dark path.
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The overall lack of condemnation of the war by a lot of Russians is what I find disheartening. I know Russia isn't a democracy, doesn't have free press or free speech, but I would still have expected more protests by now. I know there are lots of wonderful Russians against the war like @harms and some real life friends but it seems the majority is with their dear leader in trying annex a fairly large neighboring country. Its surprising Paxi can hold the views he does with accessorisk to the free press.
 
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Beans said:
How can you disagree that there are immoral actions that are strategically advantageous? Are you saying that anything that gives a country an advantage against another is moral? Would you say the same thing for the individual, anything that gives me an advantage in life is moral?

Like nuking North Korea, for example. That's not okay, even if it makes the world a safer place. You can take a position that making the world safer justifies evil action, but it's still evil. And you have the problem that this logic might be applied to anyone, which would make the world decidedly less safe.

So instead we give people and countries rights, and they're to be defended.
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But Ukraine isn't a threat to Russia. Even If it joined the EU and later Nato. Poland isn't a threat to Russia either despite their proximity to Russia. Also regarding the legality of the war

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
 
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Gehrman said:
I know Russia isn't a democracy, doesn't have free press or free speech, but I would still have expected more protests by now.
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The protests are done now simply because they don't lead up to anything — you won't be able to get even a 100 people together without alerting the authorities (and getting a prison sentence) & the minute you come to the streets, you're done. There are new (well, not really new) different forms of horizontal protests that aren't really visible from the outside due to their decentralised nature and focus (from the ground up, not the other way around). It's really hard to estimate the amount of those involved, which is intentional as if it's hard for you to see the clear picture, it's also hard for the police/FSB/FSO etc.

But yeah, it's still most certainly a minority.
 
harms said:
The protests are done now simply because they don't lead up to anything — you won't be able to get even a 100 people together without alerting the authorities (and getting a prison sentence) & the minute you come to the streets, you're done. There are new (well, not really new) different forms of horizontal protests that aren't really visible from the outside due to their decentralised nature and focus (from the ground up, not the other way around). It's really hard to estimate the amount of those involved, which is intentional as if it's hard for you to see the clear picture, it's also hard for the police/FSB/FSO etc.

But yeah, it's still most certainly a minority.
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Yeah i understand that protests might be futile anyway.
 
harms said:
The protests are done now simply because they don't lead up to anything — you won't be able to get even a 100 people together without alerting the authorities (and getting a prison sentence) & the minute you come to the streets, you're done. There are new (well, not really new) different forms of horizontal protests that aren't really visible from the outside due to their decentralised nature and focus (from the ground up, not the other way around). It's really hard to estimate the amount of those involved, which is intentional as if it's hard for you to see the clear picture, it's also hard for the police/FSB/FSO etc.

But yeah, it's still most certainly a minority.
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Fair enough if you can't but I was wondering if you could give an example of what you mean by horizontal protests? Stuff like people downloading VPNs to access outside news, or something more direct like hacking / displaying symbols on public buildings perhaps?
 
sport2793 said:
I would be very careful sharing info from this twitter source, it's likely a fake who just aggregates widely available info
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You are probably right but it does not seem like he makes things up as every thing he says seems to be in line with what others are reporting . I have only followed him for a couple of weeks but it always seemed like he had way to much time to be on twitter for a guy fighting in the war. Other foreign fighters who tweet only do so very sporadically when away from the front lines so this guy updating twitter multiple time a day always looked a little strange. I wont post any more tweets from him.
 
Simbo said:
That twitter account does share a lot of good content, I wouldn't say it is a bad source. There are just a lot of questions about if he is really on the ground there, he seems to be just plucking it all from various telegram channels while pretending he's in the thick of it.
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If he's lying about being actually there, then he's pretty much automatically a bad source IMO. It makes him unreliable.
 
TwoSheds said:
Fair enough if you can't but I was wondering if you could give an example of what you mean by horizontal protests? Stuff like people downloading VPNs to access outside news, or something more direct like hacking / displaying symbols on public buildings perhaps?
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Spreading the information by any means possible, from the technical things like explaining how to set up a VPN to more expressive stuff like graffiti, printed materials, actions like putting up graveyard crosses on playgrounds with information about Mariupol, replacing shop price tags with information about the war crimes or even (this one sounds ridiculous but turned out to be incredibly effective) creating WhatsApp celebratory cards* for Easter, Victory Day etc. with anti-War texts on them. And, well, simply talking about it.

* not sure if that’s the thing out there but in Russia the elderly generation is obsessed with sending everyone those awfully looking pics with celebrations of every possible holiday — from something big like Christmas to obscure stuff like the international day of postal workers or smth.
 
Hacking also happens but I don’t know much about this stuff so I can’t really tell you about it. And I’m not sure how much of it is done by Russians and how much by Ukrainians or even the Anonymous.
 
harms said:
Spreading the information by any means possible, from the technical things like explaining how to set up a VPN to more expressive stuff like graffiti, printed materials, actions like putting up graveyard crosses on playgrounds with information about Mariupol, replacing shop price tags with information about the war crimes or even (this one sounds ridiculous but turned out to be incredibly effective) creating WhatsApp celebratory cards* for Easter, Victory Day etc. with anti-War texts on them. And, well, simply talking about it.

* not sure if that’s the thing out there but in Russia the elderly generation is obsessed with sending everyone those awfully looking pics with celebrations of every possible holiday — from something big like Christmas to obscure stuff like the international day of postal workers or smth.
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Interesting, thanks for explaining. Not sure it is a thing in the UK really but older Portuguese people do something a bit similar so I think I can understand it.
 
I cannot post the tweet here because it is so graphic, but Ukrainian journalist Anastasiia Lapatina has been posted some images of civilian dead from Mariupol.

The tweet says:

"This is #Mariupol. Dead bodies of Ukrainians rot at a supermarket. There are so many dead that there isn’t a capacity to bury them, even considering mass graves and mobile crematoriums. This should tell you everything you need to know about Russia’s war in Ukraine"

It is available on Twitter if you want to search for it.
 
Frosty said:
I cannot post the tweet here because it is so graphic, but Ukrainian journalist Anastasiia Lapatina has been posted some images of civilian dead from Mariupol.

The tweet says:

"This is #Mariupol. Dead bodies of Ukrainians rot at a supermarket. There are so many dead that there isn’t a capacity to bury them, even considering mass graves and mobile crematoriums. This should tell you everything you need to know about Russia’s war in Ukraine"

It is available on Twitter if you want to search for it.
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Even @Paxi couldn’t deny that.

Horrifying.
 
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