GE is 2 years away, so a lot can change, but that is quite some Starmer landslide.
I think BJ is starting to find his feet on this crisis... grand statements about the plucky Ukrainians in my cynical opinion is just what he is perfect at, rather vacuous, but good to stir a certain British voter, I expect to see his govt have an uptick... (not that I welcome it)
The Erdington by-election in a few days time will be a useful test of public opinion in terms of real votes.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
This was pretty much the only important decision Ed Miliband made during his 5 years as leader.
Do you see it as a negative or a positive important decision?
I agree with what you wrote earlier about it. He made the wrong decision IMO. We always said we wouldn't let anyone get away with using chemical weapons again after Kurdistan in 1988: it happened again, and we decided to do nothing.
Iraq wasn't only already crucial in damaging Western authority, both moral and military, sparking terrorism and turning Putin away from the West, but it brought a broad implosion not only in the middle east but even central asia closer. A second catastrophic intervention in 10 years, doubling the effects, could possibly have brought us to somewhere similar to where we are now even more quickly.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
This was pretty much the only important decision Ed Miliband made during his 5 years as leader.
Do you see it as a negative or a positive important decision?
I agree with what you wrote earlier about it. He made the wrong decision IMO. We always said we wouldn't let anyone get away with using chemical weapons again after Kurdistan in 1988: it happened again, and we decided to do nothing.
Iraq wasn't only already crucial in damaging Western authority, both moral and military, sparking terrorism and turning Putin away from the West, but it brought a broad implosion not only in the middle east but even central asia closer. A second catastrophic intervention, doubling the effects, could possibly brought us to somewhere similar to where we are now even more quickly.
It would have been the third. You've forgotten Libya. And that wasn't an unmixed success but it was certainly a considerable improvement on what would have happened without intervention.
Russian missile strikes in Vasylkiv just south of Kyiv caused an enormous fire at an oil depot. Confirmed by city mayor and central government authorities who are advising people to close their windows because of toxic smoke. https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1497732567054749696
I suspect the next 36 hours are going to be very, very tough for Ukraine. Let's hope they can hold on.
Treat any “Russia has taken city X” with a large pinch of salt:
The problem with something like Kharkiv falling in a matter of hours is that it’s functionally impossible for that to happen.
Sure Russian forces could push into the city in that amount of time, but then they’re surrounded.
Unless the Ukrainians fall back the Russians are going to have to push them back street by street.
They are not being “welcomed as liberators” or “on an exercise” as some have been briefed. Ukrainians are trying to kill them, and sometimes succeeding.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
This was pretty much the only important decision Ed Miliband made during his 5 years as leader.
Do you see it as a negative or a positive important decision?
I agree with what you wrote earlier about it. He made the wrong decision IMO. We always said we wouldn't let anyone get away with using chemical weapons again after Kurdistan in 1988: it happened again, and we decided to do nothing.
Iraq wasn't only already crucial in damaging Western authority, both moral and military, sparking terrorism and turning Putin away from the West, but it brought a broad implosion not only in the middle east but even central asia closer. A second catastrophic intervention, doubling the effects, could possibly brought us to somewhere similar to where we are now even more quickly.
It would have been the third. You've forgotten Libya. And that wasn't an unmixed success but it was certainly a considerable improvement on what would have happened without intervention.
Actually I agree on Libya. I remember the clamour for intervention from the Arab world, and how the West first wasn't intervening because the people were muslims ; now very long and conveniently forgotten in that same part of the world. The West was criticised in Egypt and Libya whatever it did, stupidly.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Perhaps, but in doing so he has handed a propoganda victory to the Ukranians, and made the Russian military look weak and pathetic. He has also united Ukraine, and the west, against him.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
That point also occurred to me. The death of the Chechen general indicates that this may not be an army of clumsy conscripts.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.
However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.
So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
I wouldn't agree with that, because the absolutely crucial factor, as highlighted by those more opposed to intervention at the time, was that by the time war from the west was being suggested, the balance of the opposition groups had moved to being in favour of the islamists. They were much more likely to enable the further rise of Isis than the democratic opposition, which, although they also battled them intermittently at other times for sectarian reasons, in terms of the broad changes they made to Syrian society, they did.
I have already seen you don't agree with that, but it doesn't alter the facts.
We'll have to agree to differ on that, because I personally think the key fact was in the strategic balance between islamists and non-islamists that year.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
That comes with real risks back home. The wives, mothers, children of that "cannon fodder" just see the death of their loved ones, for nothing. The crack troops see NATO equipment in abundance, being used with deadly effect in seemingly unending supply. The generals certainly see this. Neither is going to welcome going in now, driving past columns of their own kit, destroyed. No-one is going to be seeing they are taking part in an "internal" Greater Russia peace-keeping operation. No-one is seeing a master stroke by Putin being delivered. Everyone is seeing a world that is showing support for Ukraine, and contempt and worse for Putin's Russia. And wait until the banks open tomorrow morning, to see a nationwide panic that the banks are going bust. The talk in those long lines to take out a limit of ten roubles are not going to be discussing their praises of their leader.
Plus there is no great evidence that they were the second tier. The Chechen contingent were supposed to be crack troops. Reports are, they got handed their arses. You don't use second tier troops to take important day one targets, the airports and important facilities. The reports of destruction inflicted seem to cover all types of kit (and anyway you'd expect the shittier tanks and vehicles to make up a disproportionate share of the kit taken out).
And if the better kit and troops ARE being held back, it might be because some generals take the view that having provoked such a broad response from NATO, that NATO might now might take the opportunity to go hunting Bear. We might consider it crazy that we would chase troops right back into Russia proper; but the action of invading Ukraine shows smart thinking wasn't present in abundance either. Defence of Russia might be in their minds, from a vengeful world looking to make Russia pay the price. What if NATO arms Ukraine to ensure it takes back Donbas? Crimea? They are going to need more than conscripts to keep those gains.
I certainly expect it to get much tougher in the coming days for the Ukrainian defenders. Russia knows where they are - and are likely to take much more destructive measures to flatten them. But that means the certainty of a grim resistance in any land they do take and try to hold. And perhaps there are some generals looking months into the future thinking "this isn't going to work...." We can only hope for such sanity to ultimately prevail in Moscow.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity , even before we start on all the other issues.
'could'
Although I doubt it.
Also, we were perfectly capable of performing airstrikes against ISIS as well - as we did in Iraq. We could not do so in Syria because of the Russian presence. It was not a one-only approach.
The fact remains: we had values. We did not stand up for those values.
Even now, with those values being pressed much more, western countries are finding it hard to respond.
As I said, part of the justification for war in the run-up to Iraq wasn't just the false claims of WMD, but the very accurate charges of gassing his own people at Halabja, which were widely publicised around the world at the time, and the West used as a form of precedent.
What happened next ? Hundreds of thousands of people died after the Western action, and the country disintegrated. What did the West achieve by that, and why on earth didn't more western policymakers understand that that was even ten times more likely to happen again, given that chaos from the previous failed intervention was already part of the cause for the collapse of its neighbour ? It wasn't thinking that was moored in reality.
Ah, so it's all out fault again. I get it.
BTW, if you talk about the Iraq war, it's important to say whether you're referring to the first or second.
You seem to be saying that we should never stand up for our values. Is that correct?
No ; I'm saying that actions like Iraq, which the proposed intervention in Syria bore many similarities with, had no effect on standing up for values. Quite the reverse.
And I'd argue you're 100% wrong on that.
As for values: we had 'values' that use of chemical weapons were a massive no-no.
Four years after we let a tyrant use a chemical weapon, another tyrant (strongly connected with the first) used a nerve agent on our own shores. They used it laughably ineptly, but still tragically.
We let the genie out of the box. We said: "Do what you want, and we will not respond because our values mean zilch to us, and we are fractured."
Russian missile strikes in Vasylkiv just south of Kyiv caused an enormous fire at an oil depot. Confirmed by city mayor and central government authorities who are advising people to close their windows because of toxic smoke. https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1497732567054749696
I suspect the next 36 hours are going to be very, very tough for Ukraine. Let's hope they can hold on.
Treat any “Russia has taken city X” with a large pinch of salt:
The problem with something like Kharkiv falling in a matter of hours is that it’s functionally impossible for that to happen.
Sure Russian forces could push into the city in that amount of time, but then they’re surrounded.
Unless the Ukrainians fall back the Russians are going to have to push them back street by street.
They are not being “welcomed as liberators” or “on an exercise” as some have been briefed. Ukrainians are trying to kill them, and sometimes succeeding.
This is true. Any symbolic 'liberation', raised flags above public buildings, statues being toppled etc does not mean much. It just signifies that the next phase of the war has begun - guerilla war against the occupation troops. The last week or so will have boosted the morale of the resistance enormously, and got them organised, and now it is more likely than before that they will be fed with weapons by NATO and sympathisers in the west.
GE is 2 years away, so a lot can change, but that is quite some Starmer landslide.
I think BJ is starting to find his feet on this crisis... grand statements about the plucky Ukrainians in my cynical opinion is just what he is perfect at, rather vacuous, but good to stir a certain British voter, I expect to see his govt have an uptick... (not that I welcome it)
His photographic exploits still strongly suggest the only person he is ever thinking about is himself.
Good morning, one and all. Thoughtful, and thought-provoking header from Ms Cyclefree, as usual. To be fair, I didn't think it's only in UK that dodgy Russian, and other, money is sloshing about.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.
However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.
So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
I wouldn't agree with that, because the absolutely crucial factor, as highlighted by those more opposed to intervention at the time, was that by the time war from the west was being suggested, the balance of the opposition groups had moved to being in favour of the islamists. They were much more likely to enable the further rise of Isis than the democratic opposition, which, although they also battled them intermittently at other times for sectarian reasons, in terms of the broad changes they made to Syrian society, they did.
I have already seen you don't agree with that, but it doesn't alter the facts.
We'll have to agree to differ on that, because I personally think the key fact was in the strategic balance between islamists and non-islamists that year.
This is one of the great myths that have built up about the Syrian conflict. There were other routes forward; Assad soon destroyed most of them militarily after we destroyed their hope of help.
(As an aside, people also conveniently forget the Kurds, whose Rojava region is essentially an independent state, carved out of Syria. The idea that other groups could not have bene helped to do similar is utterly bogus.)
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
That comes with real risks back home. The wives, mothers, children of that "cannon fodder" just see the death of their loved ones, for nothing. The crack troops see NATO equipment in abundance, being used with deadly effect in seemingly unending supply. The generals certainly see this. Neither is going to welcome going in now, driving past columns of their own kit, destroyed. No-one is going to be seeing they are taking part in an "internal" Greater Russia peace-keeping operation. No-one is seeing a master stroke by Putin being delivered. Everyone is seeing a world that is showing support for Ukraine, and contempt and worse for Putin's Russia. And wait until the banks open tomorrow morning, to see a nationwide panic that the banks are going bust. The talk in those long lines to take out a limit of ten roubles are not going to be discussing their praises of their leader.
Plus there is no great evidence that they were the second tier. The Chechen contingent were supposed to be crack troops. Reports are, they got handed their arses. You don't use second tier troops to take important day one targets, the airports and important facilities. The reports of destruction inflicted seem to cover all types of kit (and anyway you'd expect the shittier tanks and vehicles to make up a disproportionate share of the kit taken out).
And if the better kit and troops ARE being held back, it might be because some generals take the view that having provoked such a broad response from NATO, that NATO might now might take the opportunity to go hunting Bear. We might consider it crazy that we would chase troops right back into Russia proper; but the action of invading Ukraine shows smart thinking wasn't present in abundance either. Defence of Russia might be in their minds, from a vengeful world looking to make Russia pay the price. What if NATO arms Ukraine to ensure it takes back Donbas? Crimea? They are going to need more than conscripts to keep those gains.
I certainly expect it to get much tougher in the coming days for the Ukrainian defenders. Russia knows where they are - and are likely to take much more destructive measures to flatten them. But that means the certainty of a grim resistance in any land they do take and try to hold. And perhaps there are some generals looking months into the future thinking "this isn't going to work...." We can only hope for such sanity to ultimately prevail in Moscow.
If the Ukrainians were able to repel the invasion and follow that up with liberating Crimea and Donbas then that would be a real turn up for the books, but that sounds very much in the form of wishful thinking even still.
However I can see why wise Russian generals might worry about that though.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
As it stands they are now facing de facto NATO armoury
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.
However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.
So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
I wouldn't agree with that, because the absolutely crucial factor, as highlighted by those more opposed to intervention at the time, was that by the time war from the west was being suggested, the balance of the opposition groups had moved to being in favour of the islamists. They were much more likely to enable the further rise of Isis than the democratic opposition, which, although they also battled them intermittently at other times for sectarian reasons, in terms of the broad changes they made to Syrian society, they did.
I have already seen you don't agree with that, but it doesn't alter the facts.
We'll have to agree to differ on that, because I personally think the key fact was in the strategic balance between islamists and non-islamists that year.
This is one of the great myths that have built up about the Syrian conflict. There were other routes forward; Assad soon destroyed most of them militarily after we destroyed their hope of help.
(As an aside, people also conveniently forget the Kurds, whose Rojava region is essentially an independent state, carved out of Syria. The idea that other groups could not have bene helped to do similar is utterly bogus.)
Its worth remembering that ISIS were still incredibly weak too when we turned down supporting the rebels in Syria.
Far from our WhisperingOracle's claim that our non-interventionism allowed ISIS to fail, it was our non-intervention following chemical weapons used on Syrians that initially saw ISIS go from strength to strength.
Prior to our non-intervention it was conventional Syrian rebels that were most powerful. However after we refused to support them, they withered away and ISIS helped take their place. ISIS reached its peak well after we said we weren't supporting the Syrian population to defend themselves, so they had a choice of the Assad regime that was gassing them, or ISIS.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.
However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.
So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
I wouldn't agree with that, because the absolutely crucial factor, as highlighted by those more opposed to intervention at the time, was that by the time war from the west was being suggested, the balance of the opposition groups had moved to being in favour of the islamists. They were much more likely to enable the further rise of Isis than the democratic opposition, which, although they also battled them intermittently at other times for sectarian reasons, in terms of the broad changes they made to Syrian society, they did.
I have already seen you don't agree with that, but it doesn't alter the facts.
We'll have to agree to differ on that, because I personally think the key fact was in the strategic balance between islamists and non-islamists that year.
We can agree to differ all you like, but it won't make you right and me wrong. The Islamists took over from the Free Syria Army because they had the foreign backing to keep fighting, while after the initial gains from the Syrian army the FSA had just $500,000 a month in foreign currency and no weapons to speak of. If we had intervened on their side in 2012 when they were at their most powerful controlling around 75% of Syria and backed them properly Assad would almost certainly have been toppled, as Gaddafi was.
Whether that would have been an altogether desirable outcome given how fractious a coalition they were is again another question, but it would have been better than what transpired.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
As it stands they are now facing de facto NATO armoury
They are not facing NATO tanks and vehicles, they are not facing NATO planes, they are not facing the NATO troops, some of the finest anywhere on the planet.
They are facing a conveyor belt of very fine Ruskie-killing kit, however. Defensive kit they would have to face in any push into a NATO country. Where everything else in our armoury is waiting to kill them too.
GE is 2 years away, so a lot can change, but that is quite some Starmer landslide.
I think BJ is starting to find his feet on this crisis... grand statements about the plucky Ukrainians in my cynical opinion is just what he is perfect at, rather vacuous, but good to stir a certain British voter, I expect to see his govt have an uptick... (not that I welcome it)
His photographic exploits still strongly suggest the only person he is ever thinking about is himself.
Oh dear - change the record - all political leaders take photo ops. Especially at times of crisis. It's called politics.
Russian missile strikes in Vasylkiv just south of Kyiv caused an enormous fire at an oil depot. Confirmed by city mayor and central government authorities who are advising people to close their windows because of toxic smoke. https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1497732567054749696
I suspect the next 36 hours are going to be very, very tough for Ukraine. Let's hope they can hold on.
Treat any “Russia has taken city X” with a large pinch of salt:
The problem with something like Kharkiv falling in a matter of hours is that it’s functionally impossible for that to happen.
Sure Russian forces could push into the city in that amount of time, but then they’re surrounded.
Unless the Ukrainians fall back the Russians are going to have to push them back street by street.
They are not being “welcomed as liberators” or “on an exercise” as some have been briefed. Ukrainians are trying to kill them, and sometimes succeeding.
Russian light armour has entered Kharkiv in the last hour. Also, Nova Kakhovka has fallen in the south.
Not good. The next 48 hours are going to be crucial.
I hope we delivered lots of extra weapons and ammunition overnight.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.
However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.
So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
I wouldn't agree with that, because the absolutely crucial factor, as highlighted by those more opposed to intervention at the time, was that by the time war from the west was being suggested, the balance of the opposition groups had moved to being in favour of the islamists. They were much more likely to enable the further rise of Isis than the democratic opposition, which, although they also battled them intermittently at other times for sectarian reasons, in terms of the broad changes they made to Syrian society, they did.
I have already seen you don't agree with that, but it doesn't alter the facts.
We'll have to agree to differ on that, because I personally think the key fact was in the strategic balance between islamists and non-islamists that year.
We can agree to differ all you like, but it won't make you right and me wrong. The Islamists took over from the Free Syria Army because they had the foreign backing to keep fighting, while after the initial gains from the Syrian army the FSA had just $500,000 a month in foreign currency and no weapons to speak of. If we had intervened on their side in 2012 when they were at their most powerful controlling around 75% of Syria and backed them properly Assad would almost certainly have been toppled, as Gaddafi was.
Whether that would have been an altogether desirable outcome given how fractious a coalition they were is again another question, but it would have been better than what transpired.
That wasn't what Miliband objected to. The plan was to bomb Asad into extinction a year later, when the islamist opposition, not only but including Isis, already made up more than half the opposition forces.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
Ukraine is a vast country of over 40 million people. Russia can't easily occupy it without their permission.
Sir Richard Dearlove in the Telegraph yesterday said that the Russians would need at least 600,000 troops to maintain a semblance of control across the whole country. They don't have those unless Putin calls up nationwide.
Reminds me a bit of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.
However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.
So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
I wouldn't agree with that, because the absolutely crucial factor, as highlighted by those more opposed to intervention at the time, was that by the time war from the west was being suggested, the balance of the opposition groups had moved to being in favour of the islamists. They were much more likely to enable the further rise of Isis than the democratic opposition, which, although they also battled them intermittently at other times for sectarian reasons, in terms of the broad changes they made to Syrian society, they did.
I have already seen you don't agree with that, but it doesn't alter the facts.
We'll have to agree to differ on that, because I personally think the key fact was in the strategic balance between islamists and non-islamists that year.
We can agree to differ all you like, but it won't make you right and me wrong. The Islamists took over from the Free Syria Army because they had the foreign backing to keep fighting, while after the initial gains from the Syrian army the FSA had just $500,000 a month in foreign currency and no weapons to speak of. If we had intervened on their side in 2012 when they were at their most powerful controlling around 75% of Syria and backed them properly Assad would almost certainly have been toppled, as Gaddafi was.
Whether that would have been an altogether desirable outcome given how fractious a coalition they were is again another question, but it would have been better than what transpired.
That wasn't what what Miliband objected to. The plan was to bomb Asad into extinction a year later, when the islamist opposition, not only but including Isis, already made up more than half the opposition.
At the time that Assad was gassing civilians the FSA were the primary opposition not ISIS.
However even if it was ISIS, which it wasn't, that doesn't justify turning a blind eye to Assad using chemical weapons.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
As it stands they are now facing de facto NATO armoury
They are not facing NATO tanks and vehicles, they are not facing NATO planes, they are not facing the NATO troops, some of the finest anywhere on the planet.
They are facing a conveyor belt of very fine Ruskie-killing kit, however. Defensive kit they would have to face in any push into a NATO country. Where everything else in our armoury is waiting to kill them too.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
As we know in Afghanistan a large percentage of troops turned out not to exist for various reasons. I wonder whether the same thing might be true with the Russian army, (to a lesser extent).
Russian missile strikes in Vasylkiv just south of Kyiv caused an enormous fire at an oil depot. Confirmed by city mayor and central government authorities who are advising people to close their windows because of toxic smoke. https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1497732567054749696
I suspect the next 36 hours are going to be very, very tough for Ukraine. Let's hope they can hold on.
Treat any “Russia has taken city X” with a large pinch of salt:
The problem with something like Kharkiv falling in a matter of hours is that it’s functionally impossible for that to happen.
Sure Russian forces could push into the city in that amount of time, but then they’re surrounded.
Unless the Ukrainians fall back the Russians are going to have to push them back street by street.
They are not being “welcomed as liberators” or “on an exercise” as some have been briefed. Ukrainians are trying to kill them, and sometimes succeeding.
Russian light armour has entered Kharkiv in the last hour. Also, Nova Kakhovka has fallen in the south.
Not good. The next 48 hours are going to be crucial.
I hope we delivered lots of extra weapons and ammunition overnight.
Can you imagine Russian soldiers in the open streets when behind every window a rifle is waiting to kill you
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
I think the strategy at the beginning was fairly clear from Putin’s propaganda, and from the attempt to quickly take Kyiv - the elimination of the government, and a quick victory which could be presented as liberation.
Now I think it’s just improvisation, and there is no real knowing what happens from here.
Btw, from reports it appears that there was a ‘thunder run’ into Kharkiv, but that it has not fallen and fighting is ongoing. It again looks like a tactic used in the belief that there would not be very substantial resistance.
I’m not entirely sure the Russians have much more idea than we do what they’re doing now. I could be quite wrong, but that’s my impression, FWIW.
Putin salutes 'heroism' of Russian forces in Ukraine
Russian president Vladimir Putin has made a brief televised address this morning, marking his first public remarks since Friday.
Putin referred to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special operation to provide assistance to the people’s republics of the Donbas” and saluted the “heroism” of Russian special forces fighting in Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reports.
"The BBC obtained voice messages exchanged on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine by a man with the voice of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, and a man with the voice of the deputy of the Chechen National Guard, Daniil Martynov. They discuss how the fighters will enter the buildings in Ukraine and what was the reaction of the commanders when they learned the real purpose of the operation."
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
I think the strategy at the beginning was fairly clear from Putin’s propaganda, and from the attempt to quickly take Kyiv - the elimination of the government, and a quick victory which could be presented as liberation.
Now I think it’s just improvisation, and there is no real knowing what happens from here.
Btw, from reports it appears that there was a ‘thunder run’ into Kharkiv, but that it has not fallen and fighting is ongoing. It again looks like a tactic used in the belief that there would not be very substantial resistance.
I’m not entirely sure the Russians have much more idea than we do what they’re doing now. I could be quite wrong, but that’s my impression, FWIW.
The worst mistake you can make is to believe your own propaganda.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Don't be fooled by the tory bullshit on 148 Challenger 3. They have only ordered 48 sets of Trophy APS so that's how many will be combat capable. The rest will be christmas trees or used for training.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
Ukraine is a vast country of over 40 million people. Russia can't easily occupy it without their permission.
Sir Richard Dearlove in the Telegraph yesterday said that the Russians would need at least 600,000 troops to maintain a semblance of control across the whole country. They don't have those unless Putin calls up nationwide.
Reminds me a bit of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain.
Also, I don't see how they could mobilise that many without seriously weakening the hold of the Belorussian government - propped up by Russian soldiers - on power. At that point, far from increasing control the Russians might lose control Ukraine and Belorussia and Putin would surely be finished.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
I think the strategy at the beginning was fairly clear from Putin’s propaganda, and from the attempt to quickly take Kyiv - the elimination of the government, and a quick victory which could be presented as liberation.
Now I think it’s just improvisation, and there is no real knowing what happens from here.
Btw, from reports it appears that there was a ‘thunder run’ into Kharkiv, but that it has not fallen and fighting is ongoing. It again looks like a tactic used in the belief that there would not be very substantial resistance.
I’m not entirely sure the Russians have much more idea than we do what they’re doing now. I could be quite wrong, but that’s my impression, FWIW.
The worst mistake you can make is to believe your own propaganda.
Should I?
I mean, it's obvious. It's so tempting. Oh well, I guess I should.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
Ukraine is a vast country of over 40 million people. Russia can't easily occupy it without their permission.
Sir Richard Dearlove in the Telegraph yesterday said that the Russians would need at least 600,000 troops to maintain a semblance of control across the whole country. They don't have those unless Putin calls up nationwide.
Reminds me a bit of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain.
And even the fraction of the Russian population that still believes what state television tells them will soon learn otherwise, if and when their husbands and sons are press ganged by Putin and shot dead by Ukrainian partisans about five minutes later.
Ukraine encompasses an area larger than Metropolitan France, is now absolutely awash with weapons, and one would imagine that a large majority of the population despises the invaders. Russia hasn't a snowball's chance in Hell of putting down an insurgency. The Ukrainian leadership (government and opposition alike,) Russian brutality and a huge amount of support from abroad have all seen to that.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
Ukraine is a vast country of over 40 million people. Russia can't easily occupy it without their permission.
Sir Richard Dearlove in the Telegraph yesterday said that the Russians would need at least 600,000 troops to maintain a semblance of control across the whole country. They don't have those unless Putin calls up nationwide.
Reminds me a bit of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain.
In addition, any Ukrainian resistance will get ample goodwill from other countries, especially ones to the west.
A few days ago I posited support for a Ukrainian government in exile. If the worst happens and Ukraine does fall, that should happen. Who heads it is another matter...
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
Ukraine is a vast country of over 40 million people. Russia can't easily occupy it without their permission.
Sir Richard Dearlove in the Telegraph yesterday said that the Russians would need at least 600,000 troops to maintain a semblance of control across the whole country. They don't have those unless Putin calls up nationwide.
Reminds me a bit of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain.
And even the fraction of the Russian population that still believes what state television tells them will soon learn otherwise, if and when their husbands and sons are press ganged by Putin and shot dead by Ukrainian partisans about five minutes later.
Ukraine encompasses an area larger than Metropolitan France, is now absolutely awash with weapons, and one would imagine that a large majority of the population despises the invaders. Russia hasn't a snowball's chance in Hell of putting down an insurgency. The Ukrainian leadership (government and opposition alike,) Russian brutality and a huge amount of support from abroad have all seen to that.
I am reminded of Richard Thorpe's commentary on Suez:
Eden's four goals were to secure the canal; to make sure it remained open and that oil shipments would continue; to depose Nasser; and to prevent the USSR from gaining influence. The immediate consequence of the crisis was that the Suez Canal was blocked, oil supplies were interrupted, Nasser's position as the leader of Arab nationalism was strengthened, and the way was left open for Russian intrusion into the Middle East.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.
However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.
So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
I wouldn't agree with that, because the absolutely crucial factor, as highlighted by those more opposed to intervention at the time, was that by the time war from the west was being suggested, the balance of the opposition groups had moved to being in favour of the islamists. They were much more likely to enable the further rise of Isis than the democratic opposition, which, although they also battled them intermittently at other times for sectarian reasons, in terms of the broad changes they made to Syrian society, they did.
I have already seen you don't agree with that, but it doesn't alter the facts.
We'll have to agree to differ on that, because I personally think the key fact was in the strategic balance between islamists and non-islamists that year.
We can agree to differ all you like, but it won't make you right and me wrong. The Islamists took over from the Free Syria Army because they had the foreign backing to keep fighting, while after the initial gains from the Syrian army the FSA had just $500,000 a month in foreign currency and no weapons to speak of. If we had intervened on their side in 2012 when they were at their most powerful controlling around 75% of Syria and backed them properly Assad would almost certainly have been toppled, as Gaddafi was.
Whether that would have been an altogether desirable outcome given how fractious a coalition they were is again another question, but it would have been better than what transpired.
That wasn't what what Miliband objected to. The plan was to bomb Asad into extinction a year later, when the islamist opposition, not only but including Isis, already made up more than half the opposition.
At the time that Assad was gassing civilians the FSA were the primary opposition not ISIS.
However even if it was ISIS, which it wasn't, that doesn't justify turning a blind eye to Assad using chemical weapons.
We've covered this topic for quite a while now, so I agree probably best to wrap up, when there's such more pressing global news, but just a few final points -
-AFAIK, Western support and aid, in terms of arms and finance, to the FSA, was a given at this time. I don't think it was ever Labour Party policy to stop that.
-The issue wasn't whether it was isis alone by 2013, but islamists being the majority of the opposition by then, and then removing Asad as an actor from this situation through a bombing campaign. That is what Miliband absolutely correctly identified as an error.
-Asad and his regime are disgusting war criminals, much like Saddam. But intervening on what the world pereceived to be a very similar basis as Iraq, a decade after Western moral and military authority had been comprehensively trashed by it, wouldn't have drawn the line in the sand that some imagine.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
I think the strategy at the beginning was fairly clear from Putin’s propaganda, and from the attempt to quickly take Kyiv - the elimination of the government, and a quick victory which could be presented as liberation.
Now I think it’s just improvisation, and there is no real knowing what happens from here.
Btw, from reports it appears that there was a ‘thunder run’ into Kharkiv, but that it has not fallen and fighting is ongoing. It again looks like a tactic used in the belief that there would not be very substantial resistance.
I’m not entirely sure the Russians have much more idea than we do what they’re doing now. I could be quite wrong, but that’s my impression, FWIW.
I'm imagining the latest Kremlin equivalent of the COBRA meetings would make for interesting fly-on-the-wall telly....
"My paratroopers would be liberating cities - if your pilots didn't drop them in the fucking sea!" (Punches traded.)
"Generals, you can't fight in here - it's the War Room!"
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
(Snip)
That's been well known about wars for centuries. I can't remember who said it, but there's a quote about how military planning should encompass not just one scenario (Ukraine giving up, in this case) but others as well, just in case. If Russia really didn't plan for resistance then they're fools. Dangerous fools, in fact.
Basically: flexibility.
As an aside, this feeds into an engineering saying that I used to drum into graduates: "What if it fails?"
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
(Snip)
That's been well known about wars for centuries. I can't remember who said it, but there's a quote about how military planning should encompass not just one scenario (Ukraine giving up, in this case) but others as well, just in case. If Russia really didn't plan for resistance then they're fools. Dangerous fools, in fact.
Basically: flexibility.
As an aside, this feeds into an engineering saying that I used to drum into graduates: "What if it fails?"
A message Boeing's engineers would certainly have benefitted from over MCAS.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Are you serious? Are you suggesting both sides are to blame for this? Seriously?
There were reports of Germany imposing a flight ban - and a couple of Lufthansa jets en-route to the Far East turned back - but there are currently Aeroflot jets in German skies. Britain led this and we've yet to see similar action from any other large European country - though hats off to the Poles and the Baltics (for whom this can't have been easy) they've really stuck a spanner in Aeroflots routing work.
It's not just "sanctions" - its getting the message through to ordinary Russians why your flight is now hours longer.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
Also, it would appear Zelensky is still on the front line. It's Putin that's cowering away in the Urals.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
(Snip)
That's been well known about wars for centuries. I can't remember who said it, but there's a quote about how military planning should encompass not just one scenario (Ukraine giving up, in this case) but others as well, just in case. If Russia really didn't plan for resistance then they're fools. Dangerous fools, in fact.
Basically: flexibility.
As an aside, this feeds into an engineering saying that I used to drum into graduates: "What if it fails?"
Something Boeing didn't consider when installing the MCAS into the 737Max with power to override the pilot based on data from a single sensor.
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
As it stands they are now facing de facto NATO armoury
They are not facing NATO tanks and vehicles, they are not facing NATO planes, they are not facing the NATO troops, some of the finest anywhere on the planet.
They are facing a conveyor belt of very fine Ruskie-killing kit, however. Defensive kit they would have to face in any push into a NATO country. Where everything else in our armoury is waiting to kill them too.
A lot of posters are betraying a youth spent reading those pamphlet sized strip cartoon magazines about ww2 full of Germans saying kamerad. How do you know about the relative excellence of NATO troops? There's a pretty strong consensus that UK and US soldiers in ww2 were comparative pussies because overly squeamish about actually killing people at close quarters. I don't think things will have improved since then.
Great header from @Cyclefree, and worth noting that we have rolled out the red carpet in London to kleptocrats from a far wider range of counties than Russia.
Though not sure about the final paragraphs on Ukranian refugees. If we should be more open to them, then why should we not be as open to those fleeing Yemen, for similar reasons? Asylum policy has been made as hostile as possible in recent years to those fleeing all sorts of warzones.
And that is to our shame. I've posted about asylum seekers and policy before and it always gets fractious.
Offering people sanctuary is a rather basic human action. That our response to those seeking it - even our supposed allies like the Ukrainians - is "no" really brings back to earth any lofty claims of how good we are.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Are you serious? Are you suggesting both sides are to blame for this? Seriously?
He’s just taking the opportunity to virtue signal. Those ‘cheering on’ the Ukrainians should clearly be maintaining more decorum rather than voicing full throated support, admittedly from their sofas.
Reading Sandpit’s earlier post about how even seemingly trivial gestures of support (like the Simpsons pic) are actually boosting Ukrainian morale, you can see why the above plan would be welcomed by the Kremlin…
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Which is why there is a prohibition on wars of aggression in international law. There are other, legal ways of resolving disputes between countries. Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council; there is no excuse for their behaviour.
Hand wringing in the face of war crimes is no solution, either.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
(Snip)
That's been well known about wars for centuries. I can't remember who said it, but there's a quote about how military planning should encompass not just one scenario (Ukraine giving up, in this case) but others as well, just in case. If Russia really didn't plan for resistance then they're fools. Dangerous fools, in fact.
Basically: flexibility.
As an aside, this feeds into an engineering saying that I used to drum into graduates: "What if it fails?"
Something Boeing didn't consider when installing the MCAS into the 737Max with power to override the pilot and information derived from a single sensor.
I read a story once about a company that were bidding for computer parts for the Apollo program. At the first bid meeting, they were surprised when NASA turned up with a load of engineers and one manager. The bidding team consisted of only managers.
The bidding team made a presentation, and asked for questions. As the first question, one of the engineers asked: "What if it fails?"
They assumed the company could deliver what they said; they were more concerned about the effects of their subsystem on the rest of the system. If it fails, does it blow up? Does it heat up? Does it put voltage transients through other wiring? Does it take down other systems? Does it give you warnings of failure, etc, etc.
None of the managers knew the answer to a simple question. After that, the bidding team always put engineers in the meetings.
There were reports of Germany imposing a flight ban - and a couple of Lufthansa jets en-route to the Far East turned back - but there are currently Aeroflot jets in German skies. Britain led this and we've yet to see similar action from any other large European country - though hats off to the Poles and the Baltics (for whom this can't have been easy) they've really stuck a spanner in Aeroflots routing work.
It's not just "sanctions" - its getting the message through to ordinary Russians why your flight is now hours longer.
I see at the bottom of the UK NOTAM there's a phone number for Russian owned/operated aircraft to get an exemption from the airspace ban. Hopefully some journalist has spotted this and will be putting in the FOI request in due course.
The USAF is active in the air above South Eastern Poland.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
As it stands they are now facing de facto NATO armoury
They are not facing NATO tanks and vehicles, they are not facing NATO planes, they are not facing the NATO troops, some of the finest anywhere on the planet.
They are facing a conveyor belt of very fine Ruskie-killing kit, however. Defensive kit they would have to face in any push into a NATO country. Where everything else in our armoury is waiting to kill them too.
A lot of posters are betraying a youth spent reading those pamphlet sized strip cartoon magazines about ww2 full of Germans saying kamerad. How do you know about the relative excellence of NATO troops? There's a pretty strong consensus that UK and US soldiers in ww2 were comparative pussies because overly squeamish about actually killing people at close quarters. I don't think things will have improved since then.
Whilst it not the worst insult to be told you have scruples about killing people , the evidence of wars since WW2 do not back that up -Vietnam, Falklands , Afghanistan , Iraq etc. In WW2 D-Day etc
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
So far the ones wanting to come here are those with family already in the UK, for whom entry rather than housing is the problem.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
I remain a little confused as to your posts about Syria. Standing up to the evil Assad regime and replacing them with the psychotic Islamic State regime was a better option because...?
I was very pleased that we didn't enmesh ourselves in a civil war where there appeared to be about 4 sides fighting none of whom were the good guys.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
(Snip)
That's been well known about wars for centuries. I can't remember who said it, but there's a quote about how military planning should encompass not just one scenario (Ukraine giving up, in this case) but others as well, just in case. If Russia really didn't plan for resistance then they're fools. Dangerous fools, in fact.
Basically: flexibility.
As an aside, this feeds into an engineering saying that I used to drum into graduates: "What if it fails?"
Something Boeing didn't consider when installing the MCAS into the 737Max with power to override the pilot and information derived from a single sensor.
I read a story once about a company that were bidding for computer parts for the Apollo program. At the first bid meeting, they were surprised when NASA turned up with a load of engineers and one manager. The bidding team consisted of only managers.
The bidding team made a presentation, and asked for questions. As the first question, one of the engineers asked: "What if it fails?"
They assumed the company could deliver what they said; they were more concerned about the effects of their subsystem on the rest of the system. If it fails, does it blow up? Does it heat up? Does it put voltage transients through other wiring? Does it take down other systems? Does it give you warnings of failure, etc, etc.
None of the managers knew the answer to a simple question. After that, the bidding team always put engineers in the meetings.
The sadness about the Downfall film I plugged yesterday is that Boeing was a story of the opposite - a company with an engineering-led culture, where the performance and safety of the product did the selling - taken over and transformed into one where managers took over and marginalised the engineers.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
As it stands they are now facing de facto NATO armoury
They are not facing NATO tanks and vehicles, they are not facing NATO planes, they are not facing the NATO troops, some of the finest anywhere on the planet.
They are facing a conveyor belt of very fine Ruskie-killing kit, however. Defensive kit they would have to face in any push into a NATO country. Where everything else in our armoury is waiting to kill them too.
A lot of posters are betraying a youth spent reading those pamphlet sized strip cartoon magazines about ww2 full of Germans saying kamerad. How do you know about the relative excellence of NATO troops? There's a pretty strong consensus that UK and US soldiers in ww2 were comparative pussies because overly squeamish about actually killing people at close quarters. I don't think things will have improved since then.
Whilst it not the worst insult to be told you have scruples about killing people , the evidence of wars since WW2 do not back that up -Vietnam, Falklands , Afghanistan , Iraq etc. In WW2 D-Day etc
Vietnam and Afghanistan the west lost for precisely the reason I stated, the others were about technology not sticking bayonets in people
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
As it stands they are now facing de facto NATO armoury
They are not facing NATO tanks and vehicles, they are not facing NATO planes, they are not facing the NATO troops, some of the finest anywhere on the planet.
They are facing a conveyor belt of very fine Ruskie-killing kit, however. Defensive kit they would have to face in any push into a NATO country. Where everything else in our armoury is waiting to kill them too.
A lot of posters are betraying a youth spent reading those pamphlet sized strip cartoon magazines about ww2 full of Germans saying kamerad. How do you know about the relative excellence of NATO troops? There's a pretty strong consensus that UK and US soldiers in ww2 were comparative pussies because overly squeamish about actually killing people at close quarters. I don't think things will have improved since then.
Based on my experience the nationality of the foreign troops I'd least like to fight are:
1. Turkey 2. South Korea 3. Australia
E2A: Coincidentally, these are also the three I'd least like to be occupied by...
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Are you serious? Are you suggesting both sides are to blame for this? Seriously?
Both sides are to blame in the case of almost every war. It is different from the question of what is in our interest. In the case of Putin, Trump's tenure proves beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no possibility of a rapproachment. Macron's efforts prove beyond doubt the futility of diplomatic engagement. And so, confrontation with the bear becomes inevitable. We've been fleeing the bear for years, it is not a strategy that has worked or reflected well on us. Regrettably, this leads to the conclusion that you have to fight it. I do agree with Roger though, that we shouldn't be glorifying deaths or casualties, and made this point a few times yesterday.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Don't be fooled by the tory bullshit on 148 Challenger 3. They have only ordered 48 sets of Trophy APS so that's how many will be combat capable. The rest will be christmas trees or used for training.
Talking of combat capable - you're the expert on this, in more ways than one (you're an ex-military pilot and speak Russian). How on Earth has Russia not yet got total control of the air? It seems bizarre on the figures provided that they haven't blown the Ukrainian Air Force and air defence systems all the way to Italy. Is it incompetence, paper Air Force or something else?
Latest: Russians have sent what looks suspiciously like a pretend peace delegation to talk to the Ukrainians. Said delegation has set itself up in Belarus, of all places.
Leaving aside the fact that they're most likely still expecting the Ukrainian armed forces to surrender before these talks take place (which they then won't, as an unfortunate "accident" would doubtless befall Zelenskyy under such circumstances,) the Ukrainians have told them that they're ready for talks, but obviously not on the territory of Putin's glove puppet.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)
Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?
Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:
Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
That's rubbish.
Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.
Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.
There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.
No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects: 1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more. 2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win. 3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.
Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.
Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.
But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.
We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.
And then Salisbury.
I remain a little confused as to your posts about Syria. Standing up to the evil Assad regime and replacing them with the psychotic Islamic State regime was a better option because...?
I was very pleased that we didn't enmesh ourselves in a civil war where there appeared to be about 4 sides fighting none of whom were the good guys.
You evidently have not read my posts then. firstly, it was not simply a case of replacing them with ISIS. The situation was much more complex than that. It created a vacuum that Russia gladly stepped into.
But most importantly, it is to do with standing up for our values. Thanks to Miliband, the west did not. He stopped the UK taking part, which stopped the US. The use of chemical weapons became acceptable: the poor mans nukes.
Then Salisbury.
It also showed that the west was divided when it come to defending values. Putin got the message that he could do whatever he wants, and we would argue amongst ourselves and not respond.
I hope he's wrong.
I guess you agreed with his u-turn, which might be why you're keen not to accept the consequences it has had.
“The Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine a few minutes ago shot down a winged rocket launched in the capital of Ukraine from the territory of the Republic of Belarus by a TU-22 plane,” Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said in a statement about 9am local time.
“This is another war crime of the Russian Federation and Russia,” he added.
Zaluzhnyi did not provide further detail surrounding what kind of weapon was used.
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
So far the ones wanting to come here are those with family already in the UK, for whom entry rather than housing is the problem.
Yes - I suggested yesterday that people could be granted a visa on arrival where they have a sponsor (either a citizen or existing long term resident).
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is asked foreign citizens around the world to join in the war against Russia.
by Decree of the President of Ukraine #248 of June 10, 2016, foreigners have the right to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine for military service under Contract of a voluntary basis to be included in the Territorial Defence Forces of the Armed Forced of Ukraine.
A separate subdivision is being formed of foreigners entitled the International Legion for the Territorial Defence of Ukraine. There is no greater contribution which you can make for the sake of peace.”
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
Would you suggest the Gandhi method to the Uighurs?
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Don't be fooled by the tory bullshit on 148 Challenger 3. They have only ordered 48 sets of Trophy APS so that's how many will be combat capable. The rest will be christmas trees or used for training.
Talking of combat capable - you're the expert on this, in more ways than one (you're an ex-military pilot and speak Russian). How on Earth has Russia not yet got total control of the air? It seems bizarre on the figures provided that they haven't blown the Ukrainian Air Force and air defence systems all the way to Italy. Is it incompetence, paper Air Force or something else?
No idea, but I can expertly speculate.
The Ukranian AF and AD system are hard targets because the soviets designed and built them to be that way. Russia put a lot of effort into attacking Mykolaiv and Chuhuiv with missiles but didn't do any air strikes to crack the HAS so it wasn't decisive. I suspect, but don't know, they thought they could do it without conventional air strikes and therefore didn't have to take the risks of losing jets and crews. There is every possibility that most of the planning officers involved in this knew it wouldn't work but, like every other armed force all over the world, the VVS is structurally ill-suited for the upward transmission of bad news through the ranks.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Don't be fooled by the tory bullshit on 148 Challenger 3. They have only ordered 48 sets of Trophy APS so that's how many will be combat capable. The rest will be christmas trees or used for training.
Talking of combat capable - you're the expert on this, in more ways than one (you're an ex-military pilot and speak Russian). How on Earth has Russia not yet got total control of the air? It seems bizarre on the figures provided that they haven't blown the Ukrainian Air Force and air defence systems all the way to Italy. Is it incompetence, paper Air Force or something else?
Its only the 4th day - we live in a social media world where something has to happen every hour to maintain interest - Even the yanks in Iraq took about 5 days to get this and about a month to fully invade
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is asked foreign citizens around the world to join in the war against Russia.
by Decree of the President of Ukraine #248 of June 10, 2016, foreigners have the right to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine for military service under Contract of a voluntary basis to be included in the Territorial Defence Forces of the Armed Forced of Ukraine.
A separate subdivision is being formed of foreigners entitled the International Legion for the Territorial Defence of Ukraine. There is no greater contribution which you can make for the sake of peace.”
A better idea in this situation, in my view, than the Gandhi method.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Don't be fooled by the tory bullshit on 148 Challenger 3. They have only ordered 48 sets of Trophy APS so that's how many will be combat capable. The rest will be christmas trees or used for training.
Talking of combat capable - you're the expert on this, in more ways than one (you're an ex-military pilot and speak Russian). How on Earth has Russia not yet got total control of the air? It seems bizarre on the figures provided that they haven't blown the Ukrainian Air Force and air defence systems all the way to Italy. Is it incompetence, paper Air Force or something else?
No idea, but I can expertly speculate.
The Ukranian AF and AD system are hard targets because the soviets designed and built them to be that way. Russia put a lot of effort into attacking Mykolaiv and Chuhuiv with missiles but didn't do any air strikes to crack the HAS so it wasn't decisive. I suspect, but don't know, they thought they could do it without conventional air strikes and therefore didn't have to take the risks of losing jets and crews. There is every possibility that most of the planning officers involved in this knew it wouldn't work but, like every other armed force all over the world, the VVS is structurally ill-suited for the upward transmission of bad news through the ranks.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
1. Torture, maim and murder the leadership 2. Break up any remaining protests with machine gun fire
The Mahatma was up against the late era British Raj which, for all its obscenities (including the Amritsar massacre) wasn't utterly and completely ruthless and evil. If he could come back to life and lead such a movement in the circumstances that you describe, he (and the rest of its leadership) would be shot in the first five minutes.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Are you serious? Are you suggesting both sides are to blame for this? Seriously?
Read the quote supplied by Dura Ace earlier that I was referring to
"A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends" as Father Lenin said.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Don't be fooled by the tory bullshit on 148 Challenger 3. They have only ordered 48 sets of Trophy APS so that's how many will be combat capable. The rest will be christmas trees or used for training.
Talking of combat capable - you're the expert on this, in more ways than one (you're an ex-military pilot and speak Russian). How on Earth has Russia not yet got total control of the air? It seems bizarre on the figures provided that they haven't blown the Ukrainian Air Force and air defence systems all the way to Italy. Is it incompetence, paper Air Force or something else?
Its only the 4th day - we live in a social media world where something has to happen every hour to maintain interest - Even the yanks in Iraq took about 5 days to get this and about a month to fully invade
In 1967, Israel had total command of the air before war was even declared. That was before the social media age...
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
Whilst I dont go fully with what Roger is saying , it is getting tedious on here listening to many glorifying killing and posting (sometimes fakes) reports from twitter about it. Also the armchair generals who based on nothing are talking as if the collective PB was in charge of the Russian operation it would be over by now . All points to a secret love of war sadly which may be a human condition more prevalent in politicos . We even have had somebody this morning calling post WW2 UK and US troops pussies for not loving bayoneting people.
The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.
Don't be fooled by the tory bullshit on 148 Challenger 3. They have only ordered 48 sets of Trophy APS so that's how many will be combat capable. The rest will be christmas trees or used for training.
Talking of combat capable - you're the expert on this, in more ways than one (you're an ex-military pilot and speak Russian). How on Earth has Russia not yet got total control of the air? It seems bizarre on the figures provided that they haven't blown the Ukrainian Air Force and air defence systems all the way to Italy. Is it incompetence, paper Air Force or something else?
Its only the 4th day - we live in a social media world where something has to happen every hour to maintain interest - Even the yanks in Iraq took about 5 days to get this and about a month to fully invade
The German invasion of Poland took twelve days to conquer the entire country other than Warsaw; Warsaw was the objective of the German invasion thrusts and was put under siege, holding out until the beginning of October. In strategic terms it is often described as a 'Polish collapse' - a large country being overrun in the shortest ever time - although the reality was that the Poles fought furiously, as you would expect, against a superior enemy. They held out in the capital for the whole month, which in the circumstances was truly heroic.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
Whilst I dont go fully with what Roger is saying , it is getting tedious on here listening to many glorifying killing and posting (sometimes fakes) reports from twitter about it. Also the armchair generals who based on nothing are talking as if the collective PB was in charge of the Russian operation it would be over by now . All points to a secret love of war sadly which may be a human condition more prevalent in politicos . We even have had somebody this morning calling post WW2 UK and US troops pussies for not loving bayoneting people.
I wish PB was in charge of the Russian war operation, for the very good reason it would never have started if we were.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
This is an excellent point.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
As it stands they are now facing de facto NATO armoury
They are not facing NATO tanks and vehicles, they are not facing NATO planes, they are not facing the NATO troops, some of the finest anywhere on the planet.
They are facing a conveyor belt of very fine Ruskie-killing kit, however. Defensive kit they would have to face in any push into a NATO country. Where everything else in our armoury is waiting to kill them too.
A lot of posters are betraying a youth spent reading those pamphlet sized strip cartoon magazines about ww2 full of Germans saying kamerad. How do you know about the relative excellence of NATO troops? There's a pretty strong consensus that UK and US soldiers in ww2 were comparative pussies because overly squeamish about actually killing people at close quarters. I don't think things will have improved since then.
Based on my experience the nationality of the foreign troops I'd least like to fight are:
1. Turkey 2. South Korea 3. Australia
E2A: Coincidentally, these are also the three I'd least like to be occupied by...
After a spell on the Somme, my grandfather was sent out as an infantry private to fight the Turks in Mesopotamia. In particular he fought at the Kadhari bend and second battle of Kut. He was much impressed by the Turkish soldiers, for their bravery, skill despite being outnumbered and honorable behaviour.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Are you serious? Are you suggesting both sides are to blame for this? Seriously?
Read the quote supplied by Dura Ace earlier that I was referring to
"A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends" as Father Lenin said.
Leftists glorifying the words of a murderous tyrant.
I have no doubts that we let in all sorts of shady people and do “business” with them, but I’d rather if a header like this named some names.
On house prices, printing money and ultra low interest rates have done far more to hurt the prospects of young workers in London and the South East.
Britain is helping Ukraine with intelligence and military equipment. This is to its credit.
Very good of you to mention. We’re far from perfect, but I’d suggest Germany has a lot more to be ashamed of in respect to Ukraine.
I’d suggest countries, like people, should start examining their own actions and consciences before moralising about others. Doing it arse over tit suggests an evasion of responsibility, if not something worse.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
Whilst I dont go fully with what Roger is saying , it is getting tedious on here listening to many glorifying killing and posting (sometimes fakes) reports from twitter about it. Also the armchair generals who based on nothing are talking as if the collective PB was in charge of the Russian operation it would be over by now . All points to a secret love of war sadly which may be a human condition more prevalent in politicos . We even have had somebody this morning calling post WW2 UK and US troops pussies for not loving bayoneting people.
I wish PB was in charge of the Russian war operation, for the very good reason it would never have started if we were.
And I forgot to add smugness has always been a key point of many on PB . There are a suspicious large amounts of Pbers who revel in military "strategy" and detail of killings to take the view they are all peace loving virtuous people underneath
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
Whilst I dont go fully with what Roger is saying , it is getting tedious on here listening to many glorifying killing and posting (sometimes fakes) reports from twitter about it. Also the armchair generals who based on nothing are talking as if the collective PB was in charge of the Russian operation it would be over by now . All points to a secret love of war sadly which may be a human condition more prevalent in politicos . We even have had somebody this morning calling post WW2 UK and US troops pussies for not loving bayoneting people.
I wish PB was in charge of the Russian war operation, for the very good reason it would never have started if we were.
And I forgot to add smugness has always been a key point of many on PB . There are a suspicious large amounts of Pbers who revel in military "strategy" and detail of killings to take the view they are all peace loving virtuous people underneath
Don't be so hard on yourself. I quite enjoy your posts.
My biggest fear now is that Putin doubles down and starts using thermobaric weapons. Could these be taken out with drone strikes.
There seems to be a couple of scenarios as to what we are seeing: Putin using conscripts to soften up the Ukranians and make them think they are winning before brutally crushing them with regular troops and heavy weapons Putin has already seen his war plan collapse and is on plan G trying to figure out what next.
Question - if its the latter what does he do? A climbdown and withdrawal into the Donbass can be spun, but makes him look like a girly man. Or does he double down and decide that Ukraine needs to be made an example of?
This is a very fine article by Cyclefree. The UK has done great things in providing the Ukrainians with military kit and intelligence, but we are letting ourselves down with our failure to waive visa requirements for refugees and in doing next to nothing to tackle the dirty money floating around the upper echelons of the economy.
That Abramovich can retain control of Chelsea while saying he is giving it up tells you all you need to know about how Londonograd works.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is asked foreign citizens around the world to join in the war against Russia.
by Decree of the President of Ukraine #248 of June 10, 2016, foreigners have the right to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine for military service under Contract of a voluntary basis to be included in the Territorial Defence Forces of the Armed Forced of Ukraine.
A separate subdivision is being formed of foreigners entitled the International Legion for the Territorial Defence of Ukraine. There is no greater contribution which you can make for the sake of peace.”
A better idea in this situation, in my view, than the Gandhi method.
Perhaps. Although I have read Orwell's Homage and his experience gave him an education in Spanish revolutionary politics but was otherwise utterly futile.
You don't need much imagination to envisage various ways in which a ragtag of European youth pitching up in Ukraine and being handed guns might end rather badly.
Comments
The problem with something like Kharkiv falling in a matter of hours is that it’s functionally impossible for that to happen.
Sure Russian forces could push into the city in that amount of time, but then they’re surrounded.
Unless the Ukrainians fall back the Russians are going to have to push them back street by street.
https://twitter.com/osinttechnical/status/1497822826656636928?s=21
They are not being “welcomed as liberators” or “on an exercise” as some have been briefed. Ukrainians are trying to kill them, and sometimes succeeding.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
I've said for a few years that Putin's Russia is not as powerful as people imagine it to be. Russia is poorer and more corrupt than Italy, and you wouldn't imagine Italy conquering Europe.
The only reason that Russia is considered strong is due to legacy and the fact that Putin has been funnelling as much as he can into his perceived strength - but the problem with that is there's nothing else behind the curtain and with a country as corrupt as Russia don't expect anywhere near as much as is claimed to make it to the front end.
Russia may still be too powerful for Ukraine, but I doubt they can occupy it for years and they may not even succeed in doing so to begin with it seems. They certainly aren't strong enough to have faced NATO in a conventional war.
Plus there is no great evidence that they were the second tier. The Chechen contingent were supposed to be crack troops. Reports are, they got handed their arses. You don't use second tier troops to take important day one targets, the airports and important facilities. The reports of destruction inflicted seem to cover all types of kit (and anyway you'd expect the shittier tanks and vehicles to make up a disproportionate share of the kit taken out).
And if the better kit and troops ARE being held back, it might be because some generals take the view that having provoked such a broad response from NATO, that NATO might now might take the opportunity to go hunting Bear. We might consider it crazy that we would chase troops right back into Russia proper; but the action of invading Ukraine shows smart thinking wasn't present in abundance either. Defence of Russia might be in their minds, from a vengeful world looking to make Russia pay the price. What if NATO arms Ukraine to ensure it takes back Donbas? Crimea? They are going to need more than conscripts to keep those gains.
I certainly expect it to get much tougher in the coming days for the Ukrainian defenders. Russia knows where they are - and are likely to take much more destructive measures to flatten them. But that means the certainty of a grim resistance in any land they do take and try to hold. And perhaps there are some generals looking months into the future thinking "this isn't going to work...." We can only hope for such sanity to ultimately prevail in Moscow.
As for values: we had 'values' that use of chemical weapons were a massive no-no.
Four years after we let a tyrant use a chemical weapon, another tyrant (strongly connected with the first) used a nerve agent on our own shores. They used it laughably ineptly, but still tragically.
We let the genie out of the box. We said: "Do what you want, and we will not respond because our values mean zilch to us, and we are fractured."
Thoughtful, and thought-provoking header from Ms Cyclefree, as usual.
To be fair, I didn't think it's only in UK that dodgy Russian, and other, money is sloshing about.
(As an aside, people also conveniently forget the Kurds, whose Rojava region is essentially an independent state, carved out of Syria. The idea that other groups could not have bene helped to do similar is utterly bogus.)
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
However I can see why wise Russian generals might worry about that though.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Far from our WhisperingOracle's claim that our non-interventionism allowed ISIS to fail, it was our non-intervention following chemical weapons used on Syrians that initially saw ISIS go from strength to strength.
Prior to our non-intervention it was conventional Syrian rebels that were most powerful. However after we refused to support them, they withered away and ISIS helped take their place. ISIS reached its peak well after we said we weren't supporting the Syrian population to defend themselves, so they had a choice of the Assad regime that was gassing them, or ISIS.
Whether that would have been an altogether desirable outcome given how fractious a coalition they were is again another question, but it would have been better than what transpired.
They are facing a conveyor belt of very fine Ruskie-killing kit, however. Defensive kit they would have to face in any push into a NATO country. Where everything else in our armoury is waiting to kill them too.
Not good. The next 48 hours are going to be crucial.
I hope we delivered lots of extra weapons and ammunition overnight.
Sir Richard Dearlove in the Telegraph yesterday said that the Russians would need at least 600,000 troops to maintain a semblance of control across the whole country. They don't have those unless Putin calls up nationwide.
Reminds me a bit of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain.
However even if it was ISIS, which it wasn't, that doesn't justify turning a blind eye to Assad using chemical weapons.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
Now I think it’s just improvisation, and there is no real knowing what happens from here.
Btw, from reports it appears that there was a ‘thunder run’ into Kharkiv, but that it has not fallen and fighting is ongoing. It again looks like a tactic used in the belief that there would not be very substantial resistance.
I’m not entirely sure the Russians have much more idea than we do what they’re doing now. I could be quite wrong, but that’s my impression, FWIW.
Putin salutes 'heroism' of Russian forces in Ukraine
Russian president Vladimir Putin has made a brief televised address this morning, marking his first public remarks since Friday.
Putin referred to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special operation to provide assistance to the people’s republics of the Donbas” and saluted the “heroism” of Russian special forces fighting in Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reports.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/feb/27/russia-ukraine-latest-news-missile-strikes-on-oil-facilities-reported-as-some-russian-banks-cut-off-from-swift-system-live
https://www-bbc-com.translate.goog/russian/features-60528746?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
I mean, it's obvious. It's so tempting. Oh well, I guess I should.
You mean... like Brexit?
(gaggles manically as he runs for cover.)
Ukraine encompasses an area larger than Metropolitan France, is now absolutely awash with weapons, and one would imagine that a large majority of the population despises the invaders. Russia hasn't a snowball's chance in Hell of putting down an insurgency. The Ukrainian leadership (government and opposition alike,) Russian brutality and a huge amount of support from abroad have all seen to that.
A few days ago I posited support for a Ukrainian government in exile. If the worst happens and Ukraine does fall, that should happen. Who heads it is another matter...
Eden's four goals were to secure the canal; to make sure it remained open and that oil shipments would continue; to depose Nasser; and to prevent the USSR from gaining influence. The immediate consequence of the crisis was that the Suez Canal was blocked, oil supplies were interrupted, Nasser's position as the leader of Arab nationalism was strengthened, and the way was left open for Russian intrusion into the Middle East.
-AFAIK, Western support and aid, in terms of arms and finance, to the FSA, was a given at this time. I don't think it was ever Labour Party policy to stop that.
-The issue wasn't whether it was isis alone by 2013, but islamists being the majority of the opposition by then, and then removing Asad as an actor from this situation through a bombing campaign. That is what Miliband absolutely correctly identified as an error.
-Asad and his regime are disgusting war criminals, much like Saddam. But intervening on what the world pereceived to be a very similar basis as Iraq, a decade after Western moral and military authority had been comprehensively trashed by it, wouldn't have drawn the line in the sand that some imagine.
"My paratroopers would be liberating cities - if your pilots didn't drop them in the fucking sea!" (Punches traded.)
"Generals, you can't fight in here - it's the War Room!"
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Basically: flexibility.
As an aside, this feeds into an engineering saying that I used to drum into graduates: "What if it fails?"
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
Aeroflot says hello:
https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/ukraine-aviation-situation-updates/
There were reports of Germany imposing a flight ban - and a couple of Lufthansa jets en-route to the Far East turned back - but there are currently Aeroflot jets in German skies. Britain led this and we've yet to see similar action from any other large European country - though hats off to the Poles and the Baltics (for whom this can't have been easy) they've really stuck a spanner in Aeroflots routing work.
It's not just "sanctions" - its getting the message through to ordinary Russians why your flight is now hours longer.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
Offering people sanctuary is a rather basic human action. That our response to those seeking it - even our supposed allies like the Ukrainians - is "no" really brings back to earth any lofty claims of how good we are.
Reading Sandpit’s earlier post about how even seemingly trivial gestures of support (like the Simpsons pic) are actually boosting Ukrainian morale, you can see why the above plan would be welcomed by the Kremlin…
There are other, legal ways of resolving disputes between countries. Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council; there is no excuse for their behaviour.
Hand wringing in the face of war crimes is no solution, either.
The bidding team made a presentation, and asked for questions. As the first question, one of the engineers asked: "What if it fails?"
They assumed the company could deliver what they said; they were more concerned about the effects of their subsystem on the rest of the system. If it fails, does it blow up? Does it heat up? Does it put voltage transients through other wiring? Does it take down other systems? Does it give you warnings of failure, etc, etc.
None of the managers knew the answer to a simple question. After that, the bidding team always put engineers in the meetings.
The USAF is active in the air above South Eastern Poland.
I was very pleased that we didn't enmesh ourselves in a civil war where there appeared to be about 4 sides fighting none of whom were the good guys.
1. Turkey
2. South Korea
3. Australia
E2A: Coincidentally, these are also the three I'd least like to be occupied by...
Look like banging value to me
Leaving aside the fact that they're most likely still expecting the Ukrainian armed forces to surrender before these talks take place (which they then won't, as an unfortunate "accident" would doubtless befall Zelenskyy under such circumstances,) the Ukrainians have told them that they're ready for talks, but obviously not on the territory of Putin's glove puppet.
The fighting continues.
But most importantly, it is to do with standing up for our values. Thanks to Miliband, the west did not. He stopped the UK taking part, which stopped the US. The use of chemical weapons became acceptable: the poor mans nukes.
Then Salisbury.
It also showed that the west was divided when it come to defending values. Putin got the message that he could do whatever he wants, and we would argue amongst ourselves and not respond.
I hope he's wrong.
I guess you agreed with his u-turn, which might be why you're keen not to accept the consequences it has had.
“This is another war crime of the Russian Federation and Russia,” he added.
Zaluzhnyi did not provide further detail surrounding what kind of weapon was used.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is asked foreign citizens around the world to join in the war against Russia.
by Decree of the President of Ukraine #248 of June 10, 2016, foreigners have the right to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine for military service under Contract of a voluntary basis to be included in the Territorial Defence Forces of the Armed Forced of Ukraine.
A separate subdivision is being formed of foreigners entitled the International Legion for the Territorial Defence of Ukraine. There is no greater contribution which you can make for the sake of peace.”
The Ukranian AF and AD system are hard targets because the soviets designed and built them to be that way. Russia put a lot of effort into attacking Mykolaiv and Chuhuiv with missiles but didn't do any air strikes to crack the HAS so it wasn't decisive. I suspect, but don't know, they thought they could do it without conventional air strikes and therefore didn't have to take the risks of losing jets and crews. There is every possibility that most of the planning officers involved in this knew it wouldn't work but, like every other armed force all over the world, the VVS is structurally ill-suited for the upward transmission of bad news through the ranks.
2. Break up any remaining protests with machine gun fire
The Mahatma was up against the late era British Raj which, for all its obscenities (including the Amritsar massacre) wasn't utterly and completely ruthless and evil. If he could come back to life and lead such a movement in the circumstances that you describe, he (and the rest of its leadership) would be shot in the first five minutes.
"A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends" as Father Lenin said.
Ukraine is just starting day four.
Over a century ago of course!
Putin using conscripts to soften up the Ukranians and make them think they are winning before brutally crushing them with regular troops and heavy weapons
Putin has already seen his war plan collapse and is on plan G trying to figure out what next.
Question - if its the latter what does he do? A climbdown and withdrawal into the Donbass can be spun, but makes him look like a girly man. Or does he double down and decide that Ukraine needs to be made an example of?
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497845325242982403
Russia's morning assualt from NE Kharkov has apparently failed.
https://twitter.com/khalfaguliyev/status/1497846197511462916
Also video of Ukrainians taking equipment from abandoned Russian vehicles
That Abramovich can retain control of Chelsea while saying he is giving it up tells you all you need to know about how Londonograd works.
You don't need much imagination to envisage various ways in which a ragtag of European youth pitching up in Ukraine and being handed guns might end rather badly.