Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Zehner said:
There are lines you shouldn't be allowed to cross, like denying the holocaust and stuff like that. Your freedom ends where you harm the freedom of others without a appropriate self interest. These are the rules and they shouldn't be ignored just because you're an idiot and people hope to convince you of the opposite.

Also, I disagree with the notion that you have to allow such opinions. Most of the time, people like this are the loudest so they give the impression to neutral recipients that their "take" on the matter is more present and thus acceptable in society than it actually is. The same way it is misrepresenting when a far right wing party has 5% voters but in a political talk show accounts for 25% of the guests. If you talk bullshit like that, you should bear the consequences for that. And if that means "societal exclusion", so be it.
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Agree with this. Paxi went way over the line, it was disgraceful and should have been stopped way sooner.
 
@Zehner I agree but that line can be blurry sometimes. I prefer the idea that the truth wins out over idiocy in the end, although putting this into practice with anti vaxxers in the real world has been pretty difficult for me. I think they are just set ironclad in their own distorted world view - I get it, it's difficult to admit when you're wrong about something because you have to start questioning EVERYTHING in the world, and admitting your own ignorance feels awful. But even then I don't think getting angry at people is the correct response, and I'm not a fan of our current "everything Russian needs cancelling!" Response like with Wimbledon it feels like that's exactly what Putin wants:. Turn it all into a "them Vs us" scenario when we need to be turning them INTO us with proof and -the truth-. Once again though: there are people that are paid to do the opposite and that's the real danger in all this. Bad state actors muddy everything.
 
Zehner said:
There are lines you shouldn't be allowed to cross, like denying the holocaust and stuff like that. Your freedom ends where you harm the freedom of others without a appropriate self interest. These are the rules and they shouldn't be ignored just because you're an idiot and people hope to convince you of the opposite.

Also, I disagree with the notion that you have to allow such opinions. Most of the time, people like this are the loudest so they give the impression to neutral recipients that their "take" on the matter is more present and thus acceptable in society than it actually is. The same way it is misrepresenting when a far right wing party has 5% voters but in a political talk show accounts for 25% of the guests. If you talk bullshit like that, you should bear the consequences for that. And if that means "societal exclusion", so be it.
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I found out the other day that Chinese schools teach that the Holocaust didn't happen. I don't really know why, maybe it's because the likes of it and Stalin's purges might paint dictatorship in a bad light? But yeah, there are the thick end of 1.5bn Holocaust deniers in China apparently, what a world. Perhaps deniers is too strong, more that they're just likely to be totally unaware of it I suppose.
 
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DatIrishFella said:
I've put those two cnuts on ignore as I'll just end up getting banned myself. I've no desire whatsoever to change their minds.

Let them rot in Russia.
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What's your line? The latest comment you reacted to was basically just pushing back/refuting Glaston's continued spam of trash sources and twisted interpretations of better sources. Harms is doing the same thing, and is obviously not pushing Russian propaganda. Meanwhile other people are thanking Glaston for his contributions, making it likely that blatant misinformation is being accepted.

For God's sake, an earlier tweet claimed that the Azovstal plant had underground gardens and the like. It's a consistent barrage of blatant lies and fantasies mixed in with better stuff, there has to be some room for pushback.
 
harms said:
Proekt haven’t claimed what you say they did. They actually did some journalism and stated facts (comparing Putin’s visits to Sochi with different doctors movements) instead of assumptions. More so, they were very specific at what they claim and what they do not, highlighting that having a thyroid oncology doctor visit Putin, obviously, can’t be equated to Putin having thyroid cancer.

The rest of your sources are laughable to say the least with the exception of the chief of Ukrainian intelligence but I’d say that he’s quite likely to have anterior motives not to check his information thoroughly. Karpichnikov lives in UK for more than 20 years & the less anonymous “former something” and telegram channels allegedly helmed by a former someone, the better. I’m surprised that you haven’t mentioned your psychic friend, he wouldn’t look out of place in that list.

I clearly don’t agree with @DT12 on most of his opinions and assessments about what’s happening but he calls you up on that one fair and square.
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Stories about Putin's potential illness - including most of the reports that I cited - have been carried by several major newspapers, including The Telegraph, The Independent, The Times and others. But apparently, according to you and @DT12, such reports are not credible enough to meet the high journalistic standards of this thread - go figure.

As for the Proekt investigation, it strongly implies that Putin is pretty ill even if they don't state it as a proven fact. Let's take just one statement from their report: "Oncologist-surgeon Evgeny Selivanov is one of the most frequent medical attendants of Putin. Over the course of four years, the doctor has flown to him 35 times and spent a total of 166 days with the head of state."

Now, we could explain this away by assuming Putin and this doctor are just best buddies and like to hang out together. Or, we could make the more than reasonable assumption that if a cancer-surgeon is spending so much time with Putin, then very likely something is seriously wrong with Putin's health.
 
TwoSheds said:
I found out the other day that Chinese schools teach that the Holocaust didn't happen. I don't really know why, maybe it's because the likes of it and Stalin's purges might paint dictatorship in a bad light? But yeah, there are the thick end of 1.5bn Holocaust deniers in China apparently, what a world. Perhaps deniers is too strong, more that they're just likely to be totally unaware of it I suppose.
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A bit off topic but source?
 
Gehrman said:
A bit off topic but source?
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Well it's my colleagues in China, I'm sure Google has better sources though. On reflection it may be not so much that they teach it didn't happen, more that they don't teach it at all.
 
TwoSheds said:
Well it's my colleagues in China, I'm sure Google has better sources though. On reflection it may be not so much that they teach it didn't happen, more that they don't teach it at all.
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I spoke with a young Chinese student long ago who says they barely teach history in China at all.
 
GlastonSpur said:
As for the Proekt investigation, it strongly implies that Putin is pretty ill even if they don't state it as a proven fact. Let's take just one statement from their report: "Oncologist-surgeon Evgeny Selivanov is one of the most frequent medical attendants of Putin. Over the course of four years, the doctor has flown to him 35 times and spent a total of 166 days with the head of state."

Now, we could explain this away by assuming Putin and this doctor are just best buddies and like to hang out together. Or, we could make the more than reasonable assumption that if a cancer-surgeon is spending so much time with Putin, then very likely something is seriously wrong with Putin's health.
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You’ve said that they reported on his illness, they didn’t, it’s that simple. You can call it semantics, but it’s the difference between journalism & speculation. Putin may have thyroid cancer (I certainly hope so) but it’s far from a given, especially considering how often other doctors had visited him. Or he may have a history of thyroid cancer in the family & be extra cautious/paranoid about it. Or a million other things.
 
harms said:
You’ve said that they reported on his illness, they didn’t, it’s that simple. You can call it semantics, but it’s the difference between journalism & speculation. Putin may have thyroid cancer (I certainly hope so) but it’s far from a given, especially considering how often other doctors had visited him. Or he may have a history of thyroid cancer in the family & be extra cautious/paranoid about it. Or a million other things.
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I haven't said that Putin's serious ill-health is a given, but it's certainly a very credible possibility given the available evidence and the range of sources claiming that he is very ill. This is not changed by your dismissal of each of these sources. Nor is it changed by your talking about a "million other" reasons - apart from the most obvious and likely reason - why a cancer-surgeon spends so much time with Putin.

Moreover, it's ridiculous to criticise me for citing reports and claims that several major newspapers have carried.
 
GlastonSpur said:
I haven't said that Putin's serious ill-health is a given, but it's certainly a very credible possibility given the available evidence and the range of sources claiming that he is very ill. This is not changed by your dismissal of each of these sources. Nor is it changed by your talking about a "million other" reasons - apart from the most obvious and likely reason - why a cancer-surgeon spends so much time with Putin.

Moreover, it's ridiculous to criticise me for citing reports and claims that several major newspapers have carried.
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Okay. What’s his supposed diagnosis that explains otolaryngologist visits (one of them visited almost twice as much as the oncologist, another one just a few times more) or dermatovenereologist that spent 6 days more with Putin than the said oncologist?

Does Putin has herpes now?
 
harms said:
Okay. What’s his supposed diagnosis that explains otolaryngologist visits (one of them visited almost twice as much as the oncologist, another one just a few times more) or dermatovenereologist that spent 6 days more with Putin than the said oncologist?

Does Putin has herpes now?
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Throat cancer for instance.
Chemo can cause severe skin and nail problems.

It's all wild speculation of course.
 
harms said:
Okay. What’s his supposed diagnosis that explains otolaryngologist visits (one of them visited almost twice as much as the oncologist, another one just a few times more) or dermatovenereologist that spent 6 days more with Putin than the said oncologist?

Does Putin has herpes now?
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Well, has been fecking around and finding out, so it seems likely.
 
harms said:
Okay. What’s his supposed diagnosis that explains otolaryngologist visits (one of them visited almost twice as much as the oncologist, another one just a few times more) or dermatovenereologist that spent 6 days more with Putin than the said oncologist?

Does Putin has herpes now?
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I don't know for sure what Putin has or doesn't have, nor have I claimed otherwise. I do know that cancer - and some of the treatments for it - can cause a range of other illnesses, which might explain the various types of other doctors that, according to the Proekt investigation, seem to very frequently attend to Putin.

Is it beyond you to admit that Putin being very ill is the most likely explanation - not the only possible explanation, but the most likely - for his being very frequently visited by a cancer-surgeon?
 
This is gonna be a long war it seems. Russia is not in a hurry, they made a tactical change and are now advancing towards occupying whole of Donbas. Ukrainian forces it seems changed approach too in the sense of making counter offensives in Kherson region in the expense of Severnodonetsk area but I'm wondering how will the whole thing work out in the future. Russia is going for attrition and destroying all of Ukraine capabilities for deploying troops and fighting, plus economic ones and the country as a whole. When they end up occupying whole of Donbas they're probably turn their attention to Odessa and try to make an encirclement of central region and Kiev and I dont think they gave up on Kharkiv too. They have numbers on their side and factories working without interruption. Sanctions will work in the long run maybe but not for now.
 
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Real Name said:
Russia is going for attrition and destroying all of Ukraine capabilities for deploying troops and fighting
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While this may be the current Russian strategy, this favors the defender. Successful offensives against prepared positions requires 3:1 to 5:1 numerical superiority, the Ukrainians have the advantage of shorter frontage and interior lines of supply and reinforcement, and are continually fielding better military tech.
 
Carolina Red said:
While this may be the current Russian strategy, this favors the defender. Successful offensives against prepared positions requires 3:1 to 5:1 numerical superiority, the Ukrainians have the advantage of shorter frontage and interior lines of supply and reinforcement, and are continually fielding better military tech.
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That is true.
 
harms said:
A disclaimer on why I’m so aggressive to Glaston reposting questionable stories from iffy sources is that the Russian propaganda works best by exploiting same things.

The main idea of Russian propaganda isn’t a clear & positive message (positive as in pro-active, not as good) — it’s an incoherent mess of different ideas like fear of Nazism, imperialism, resentment etc. But it’s the most effective at throwing shade on alternative versions of events, creating this picture that everyone lies (including Russia), no one can be trusted and, ergo, you shouldn’t do anything about it.

Yes, they’ll even try to paint things like Bucha as fakes, but when you give them a legitimate reason to state that the rest of the world also posts fakes & speculations, it only works for them, giving Russian propaganda more ammunition.
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I agree with this, Russian propaganda mainly tries to throw shit at the wall and create a muddled picture, not create a singular coherent counter-narrative.
 
Real Name said:
This is gonna be a long war it seems. Russia is not in a hurry, they made a tactical change and are now advancing towards occupying whole of Donbas. Ukrainian forces it seems changed approach too in the sense of making counter offensives in Kherson region in the expense of Severnodonetsk area but I'm wondering how will the whole thing work out in the future. Russia is going for attrition and destroying all of Ukraine capabilities for deploying troops and fighting, plus economic ones and the country as a whole. When they end up occupying whole of Donbas they're probably turn their attention to Odessa and try to make an encirclement of central region and Kiev and I dont think they gave up on Kharkiv too. They have numbers on their side and factories working without interruption. Sanctions will work in the long run maybe but not for now.
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That’s why is imperative to supply Ukraine with all the modern heavy and long range weapons in good quantities. Russia is scraping the barrel already and won’t be able to replace it any time soon. The are no hard defense lines, so those territories will fall back to Ukraine very quickly once those front lines will start to collapse as it was in Kiev or Kharkiv. That’s the only way out of this for Ukraine.
 
Rajma said:
That’s why is imperative to supply Ukraine with all the modern heavy and long range weapons in good quantities. Russia is scraping the barrel already and won’t be able to replace it any time soon. The are no hard defense lines, so those territories will fall back to Ukraine very quickly once those front lines will start to collapse as it was in Kiev or Kharkiv. That’s the only way out of this for Ukraine.
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Yes. They deployed ancient tanks out there recently.
Also I didnt take into account Russia not being able to hold already occupied territories without problems and Ukrainians are already waging partisan warfare and behind the lines operations.
 
Intercepted audio shows 2 Russian officers cursing out Putin and other commanders in charge of the Ukraine invasion

 
Real Name said:
This is gonna be a long war it seems. Russia is not in a hurry, they made a tactical change and are now advancing towards occupying whole of Donbas. Ukrainian forces it seems changed approach too in the sense of making counter offensives in Kherson region in the expense of Severnodonetsk area but I'm wondering how will the whole thing work out in the future. Russia is going for attrition and destroying all of Ukraine capabilities for deploying troops and fighting, plus economic ones and the country as a whole. When they end up occupying whole of Donbas they're probably turn their attention to Odessa and try to make an encirclement of central region and Kiev and I dont think they gave up on Kharkiv too. They have numbers on their side and factories working without interruption. Sanctions will work in the long run maybe but not for now.
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Its took them three months to figure shit out but it seems like they've got their act together somewhat. It helps that they are only focusing on one front, perhaps that's all they have the operational capacity for. Even if 2/3 of their invasion force has been put out of action, the remaining is more than enough to push on that front.

They are still reportedly taking heavier losses than Ukraine however (difficult to know this for sure ofc) and it is costing them elsewhere. They are all-in on the eastern front.

After their collapse in Northern Ukraine I think most observers were hoping Ukraine would carry on their success elsewehre, its disheartening that hasn't happened but I think its also led to these Russian gains being overblown a bit by commentators and the media.

I don't see any scenario where they'll ever get anywhere near Odessa, personally. They are going to have to weaken their eastern forces now just to hang on to Kherson.
 
Real Name said:
This is gonna be a long war it seems. Russia is not in a hurry, they made a tactical change and are now advancing towards occupying whole of Donbas. Ukrainian forces it seems changed approach too in the sense of making counter offensives in Kherson region in the expense of Severnodonetsk area but I'm wondering how will the whole thing work out in the future. Russia is going for attrition and destroying all of Ukraine capabilities for deploying troops and fighting, plus economic ones and the country as a whole. When they end up occupying whole of Donbas they're probably turn their attention to Odessa and try to make an encirclement of central region and Kiev and I dont think they gave up on Kharkiv too. They have numbers on their side and factories working without interruption. Sanctions will work in the long run maybe but not for now.
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Russia made a push towards Odessa after the retreat from Kiev, and some US official commented that it's failure was huge because Russia wouldn't be able to make another push like that due to dwindling reserves and equipment. No idea if that's really true, of course. Here's an article about attacking Odessa being too difficult but it's not very informative.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/04/04/a-russian-attack-on-odessa-could-be-naval-suicide/
 
NotThatSoph said:
At no point has DT12 defended any war crimes, and what they're saying is far less crazy than what several people are spouting and spamming here. Paxi has had a bit of a mare, and is clearly denying the massacres/torbure/executions, but if you read the Israel-Palestine thread you'll see that defending crimes that would be war crimes if it was an official war is not blanket banned on Redcafe.
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I agree. People don't like reading what @DT12 writes, but he's not defending anything, just providing a different perspective on current and future developments based on different information. At no point did @DT12 say that the war is justified, that Putin is right, or that there are no war crimes. In fact, he has clearly stated the opposite (might have been in the Newbies thread). Given how the thread has turned into a echo chamber for all wishful thinking about Ukrainian success (a good part of it unreliable, and another good part of it too one-sided to give a fulsome view of developments), I think it's good to have that counter-perspective.

I mean, I hope @DT12 is wrong about most things he says and that most tweets in here are true, but what I want doesn't determine reality, and I'd rather have a somewhat better idea of what's really going on.

@Paxi is a different case. The Isreal/Palestine comparison is a good one, and I am not sure how I'd deal with that if I were making the decision. There is a clear (unpleasant) moral component to those posts though (like justifying racists), so the thread time-outs seem like a good solution to me.
 
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Beans said:
Russia made a push towards Odessa after the retreat from Kiev, and some US official commented that it's failure was huge because Russia wouldn't be able to make another push like that due to dwindling reserves and equipment. No idea if that's really true, of course. Here's an article about attacking Odessa being too difficult but it's not very informative.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/04/04/a-russian-attack-on-odessa-could-be-naval-suicide/
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Thanks mate, will give it a read.
 
Simbo said:
Its took them three months to figure shit out but it seems like they've got their act together somewhat. It helps that they are only focusing on one front, perhaps that's all they have the operational capacity for. Even if 2/3 of their invasion force has been put out of action, the remaining is more than enough to push on that front.

They are still reportedly taking heavier losses than Ukraine however (difficult to know this for sure ofc) and it is costing them elsewhere. They are all-in on the eastern front.

After their collapse in Northern Ukraine I think most observers were hoping Ukraine would carry on their success elsewehre, its disheartening that hasn't happened but I think its also led to these Russian gains being overblown a bit by commentators and the media.

I don't see any scenario where they'll ever get anywhere near Odessa, personally. They are going to have to weaken their eastern forces now just to hang on to Kherson.
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Yeah, my take was grim and overly pessimistic one. Even if they're making tactical advances and successes its still at a great cost and that's a big plus for the Ukrainians.
 
TwoSheds said:
Well it's my colleagues in China, I'm sure Google has better sources though. On reflection it may be not so much that they teach it didn't happen, more that they don't teach it at all.
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Yes, I think this is probably more accurate. In Asia, most of the textbooks on WWII history is focused on the Pacific theatre, rather than the European font, so it is not surprising that very little about the holocaust is taught.

Off topic but I visited China's official WWII memorial next to the Marco Polo Bridge. They have a timeline of the important milestones in the war against Japan, and they conveniently left out the two atomic bombs. The version of history they teach is quite warped.
 
Cheimoon said:
I agree. People don't like reading what @DT12 writes, but he's not defending anything, just providing a different perspective on current and future developments based on different information. At no point did @DT12 say that the war is justified, that Putin is right, or that there are no war crimes. In fact, he has clearly stated the opposite (might have been in the Newbies thread). Given how the thread has turned into a echo chamber for all wishful thinking about Ukrainian success (a good part of it unreliable, and another good part of it too one-sided to give a fulsome view of developments), I think it's good to have that counter-perspective.

I mean, I hope @DT12 is wrong about most things he says and that most tweets in here are true, but what I want doesn't determine reality, and I'd rather have a somewhat better idea of what's really going on.

@Paxi is a different case. The Isreal/Palestine comparison is a good one, and I am not sure how I'd deal with that if I were making the decision. There is a clear (unpleasant) more component to those posts though (like justifying racists), so the thread time-outs seem like a good solution to me.
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I disagree with much of what @DT12 says, and the way it is presented, but I still want to hear their perspective.

And if they were really getting hateful PMs, that’s bang out of order.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
I disagree with much of what @DT12 says, and the way it is presented, but I still want to hear their perspective.

And if they were really getting hateful PMs, that’s bang out of order.
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Yeah, I was really disappointed to read about those PMs. Apart from that it's disgraceful, I think there's also a lot of 'confusing the messenger with the message' going on there.
 

Ukrainians apparently have lured Russians in some sort of the trap in Severodonetsk which resulted in heavy Russian losses unprepared for urban fighting. You have to admire the tactical nous and bravery of Ukrainian armed forces, real heroes these guys.

 
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