Russia and Belarus are “mightily close” to default as western sanctions cripple their economies, the World Bank has warned.
Telegraph business blog
The Belarus domino falling is the one I am watching. There was already a robbed election, an illegitimate leader, a mighty pissed off population.... Now they are chained to the corpse of Putin.
Correction, multiple robbed elections. They were just brave and defiant enough for it to kick up more notice this time.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
The US led coalition made exactly the same mistake in Iraq - they at least had a vaguely competent invasion plan but they had no occupation plan.
The Russian invasion plan looks more like it was put together by someone playing hex-and-counter wargames and forbidding their opponent from rolling too high. (Like the mad attempt at the Hostomel airport grab right at the start, they just assumed the 'nearby' Russian forces would link up which works fine when you have abstracted everything into a hex grid but fails when you have to actually use real roads and shit)
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
They believed their own propaganda about "the Kiev regime" and thought Zelensky would flee to the west, the army would surrender and the people would welcome them with open arms.
If so. That would explain the FSB being unhappy. Why pay for spies when, at best, they are ignored? At worst, not allowed to report their assessment.
Some thoughts on the FSB's problems from the Russian journalist Andrei Soldatov in this article:
"They are narrow-minded people. They are not like MI6 officers who have been to Cambridge and are supposedly the cream of the crop. They have left school and been educated at the FSB academy."
Explains the total misreading of the Western reaction, too. Not convinced they understand the Chinese. Or even Venezuela. Spectacular failure of intelligence. Which is unsettling for where this goes next.
One minor aspect of the Salisbury affair was the impression given by the two FSB blokes in their 'not me guv' interview. They looked & sounded like a couple of heavies used to put the frighteners on a rival drug operation, not superagents charged with a difficult and dangerous task; the shambles they made of it suggests that was their level. I did think at the time thast Russian seceret services may now not be quite at the Karla level.
Yeah, that was pointed out at the time. A question is if it was unplanned incompetence, or whether it was "We don't give a f*** if you know it's us." by the Russians.
Given the Litvinenko poisoning was also fairly incompetent, even if it worked, I might be tempted by the former.
However, a book highlights that lots of Russians, or people linked to them, have met interesting deaths in recent years. Haven't read it though. But the following article has some:
You and the TUDster raised a good point about that - sadly, some people buy into the idea Russia couldn't be behind such things as they couldn't possibly be so incompetent.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
The US led coalition made exactly the same mistake in Iraq - they at least had a vaguely competent invasion plan but they had no occupation plan.
The Russian invasion plan looks more like it was put together by someone playing hex-and-counter wargames and forbidding their opponent from rolling too high.
I was going to say planned using an early version of Harpoon.....
Beautiful beautiful day here. Bright blue skies, 14C, the first real day of spring
March 10! Somehow it is always March 10, the second week of March, the true end of winter.
Life is still shit, but, hey, spring. That's something
No, the true end of winter and start of spring is March 20th, so we still have 10 days of astronomical winter to go
Spring is a botanical concept, hence the name.
Well, yes, but it's been applied to other signals of seasonal variation, with consequently different definitions.
So people will talk about an Arctic Sea Ice Spring (April-May-June), which I think is the latest definition of spring that exists, because the thermal lags are greatest with sea-ice, and the far north is the last to see the light of a new year.
There is no One True Spring. There are different springs more or less appropriate to different contexts.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h If it's true that Putin has committed 65% of his land forces to the invasion of Ukraine, are there any non-Ukraine territorial implications for him if they are annihilated there? Could he struggle to hold disputed territories in central or east Asia, anywhere? Or the Caucasus?
One might think it would be a good time for Georgia and some others to flex their own muscles regarding territory forcibly taken off them. Unfortunately I get the impression Western support would collapse at the prospect of any aggressive action, or reversal of initiative into such areas, as it would inevitably mean some amount of civilian casualties and collateral damage even if not going in with the attitude of the Russian armed forces.
Andrew Neil @afneil · 4h Using conscripts to invade Ukraine big problem for Putin. April is when terms of service reviewed. Rotating invasion force logistically impossible so their term will be extended. Very low morale will be even lower. US is mulling financial incentives to encourage deserters
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
The thread linked to above seems to suggest no attempt has been made to gather intelligence in Ukraine regarding what your ordinary citizens thought. They simply think like Russia. Amazing if true.
I think the talk about nuclear war is being overdone - there is a very nasty but very localised war, with no sign that anyone wants to extend it anywhere else. Because it all feels so close and 24/7 coverage is focusing on the worst scenes, it feels more End of Days than it actually is. It's horrible but it's not obviously leading to a global meltdown as some have been suggesting.
On the domestic side, some selections which show where the Opposition is initially targeting as we gear up for a possible election:
Thats fine Nick and I agree with you as far as the war currently goes. Do you think that will still be the case if NATO start bombing targets inside Russia in support of a No Fly Zone?
If Nick Palmer is right then SKS's stance (and other European opposition parties) is inexplicable. Let's say that Biden, Boris et al have cold feet at an outside risk and so take the line they do. If they were obviously wrong on the basis of confidential briefings to opposition leaders Labour would have an open goal to urge the government to back NATO in getting involved, with emotional support from the public as they watch maternity hospitals being attacked.
SKS, and others, are not. They think solidarity in the west too important + the risks of NFZ etc are too great. Sadly I think we should trust their judgement for now.
I agree (and agree with both front benches) that an NFZ would make the war no longer localised. That's why we're not doing it. As I said, I don't think either the West or Russia have any interest in spreading it. I don't follow @algarkirk's reasoning, unless you feel that NATO intervention would not bring other countries into the conflict. Of course it would - every NATO country intervening would be another country involved. If, for example, Polish air bases were used to launch attacks on Russian aircraft in an NFZ, then Russia would attack the bases, then we'd attack them in turn, and WW3 would have arrived.
But it's not happening, so the predictions that we are about to have a nuclear war are, I feel, too alarmist, and I was concerned about some of the despairing posts here. Is it a bad situation? Yes. Is the invasion a crazy aggression? Yes. Is it an impending nuclear war? No.
Can I just put down a "So much for your bloody assessment!" now, as I won't have a chance once I've been incinerated.... Easy thing to say. Can never be called out.
You'll have at least a window between the Russians using a tactical nuke in Ukraine, and whatever the Western response is...
Beautiful beautiful day here. Bright blue skies, 14C, the first real day of spring
March 10! Somehow it is always March 10, the second week of March, the true end of winter.
Life is still shit, but, hey, spring. That's something
No, the true end of winter and start of spring is March 20th, so we still have 10 days of astronomical winter to go
Spring is a botanical concept, hence the name.
Well, yes, but it's been applied to other signals of seasonal variation, with consequently different definitions.
So people will talk about an Arctic Sea Ice Spring (April-May-June), which I think is the latest definition of spring that exists, because the thermal lags are greatest with sea-ice, and the far north is the last to see the light of a new year.
There is no One True Spring. There are different springs more or less appropriate to different contexts.
I thank Leon for sharing his definition.
Ice free day for the Great Lakes is traditionally 20 February hence why P&I club policies run from then, apparently.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
I think it is either that, or despite his rather loopy rants which suggest wider conquest was the goal, this really was just about stomping down Ukraine - and its just that the cost of that has been far higher than he thought, with the endgame being leaving once the stomping is done, and presenting it as magnanimous as he could have stayed.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
The US led coalition made exactly the same mistake in Iraq - they at least had a vaguely competent invasion plan but they had no occupation plan.
The Russian invasion plan looks more like it was put together by someone playing hex-and-counter wargames and forbidding their opponent from rolling too high.
I was going to say planned using an early version of Harpoon.....
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division.
Can I just put down a "So much for your bloody assessment!" now, as I won't have a chance once I've been incinerated.... Easy thing to say. Can never be called out.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
They believed their own propaganda about "the Kiev regime" and thought Zelensky would flee to the west, the army would surrender and the people would welcome them with open arms.
If so. That would explain the FSB being unhappy. Why pay for spies when, at best, they are ignored? At worst, not allowed to report their assessment.
If you were the Russian spy in Kiev, observing and noting that the Ukranian army were getting trained up by a bunch of British special forces, were amassing large supplies of weapons from Western countries, and that the mood was becoming very hostile towards Russia, you’d be mighty peeved that the word that got back to the top man in Moscow was rather different.
In the beginning, there was a plan, And then came the assumptions, And the assumptions were without form, And the plan without substance,
And the darkness was upon the face of the workers, And they spoke among themselves saying, "It is a crock of shit and it stinks."
And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pile of dung, and we cannot live with the smell."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers saying, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, Such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide by its strength."
And the Directors spoke among themselves saying to one another, "It contains that which aids plants growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents saying unto them, "It promotes growth, and it is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went to the President, saying unto him, "This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigor Of the company With very powerful effects."
And the President looked upon the Plan And saw that it was good, And the Plan became Policy.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
The US led coalition made exactly the same mistake in Iraq - they at least had a vaguely competent invasion plan but they had no occupation plan.
The Russian invasion plan looks more like it was put together by someone playing hex-and-counter wargames and forbidding their opponent from rolling too high. (Like the mad attempt at the Hostomel airport grab right at the start, they just assumed the 'nearby' Russian forces would link up which works fine when you have abstracted everything into a hex grid but fails when you have to actually use real roads and shit)
America at least had plane loads of dollar bills to try to oil the wheels.
Russia has roubles. And planes that get blasted out the sky.
Russia and Belarus are “mightily close” to default as western sanctions cripple their economies, the World Bank has warned.
Telegraph business blog
The Belarus domino falling is the one I am watching. There was already a robbed election, an illegitimate leader, a mighty pissed off population.... Now they are chained to the corpse of Putin.
If one must spend time with Putin, with his corpse seems the most acceptable way in fairness.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
They believed their own propaganda about "the Kiev regime" and thought Zelensky would flee to the west, the army would surrender and the people would welcome them with open arms.
If so. That would explain the FSB being unhappy. Why pay for spies when, at best, they are ignored? At worst, not allowed to report their assessment.
If you were the Russian spy in Kiev, observing and noting that the Ukranian army were getting trained up by a bunch of British special forces, were amassing large supplies of weapons from Western countries, and that the mood was becoming very hostile towards Russia, you’d be mighty peeved that the word that got back to the top man in Moscow was rather different.
In the beginning, there was a plan, And then came the assumptions, And the assumptions were without form, And the plan without substance,
And the darkness was upon the face of the workers, And they spoke among themselves saying, "It is a crock of shit and it stinks."
And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pile of dung, and we cannot live with the smell."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers saying, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, Such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide by its strength."
And the Directors spoke among themselves saying to one another, "It contains that which aids plants growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents saying unto them, "It promotes growth, and it is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went to the President, saying unto him, "This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigor Of the company With very powerful effects."
And the President looked upon the Plan And saw that it was good, And the Plan became Policy.
And this, my friend, is how shit happens.
Brilliant.
It's not mine - very old, in fact. Just so, so true.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
That is true, but it's also one reason for leaving a small West Ukraine, as the anticipated minority opposed to Mother Russia's embrace would have somewhere to go, making opposition harder to sustain.
Beautiful beautiful day here. Bright blue skies, 14C, the first real day of spring
March 10! Somehow it is always March 10, the second week of March, the true end of winter.
Life is still shit, but, hey, spring. That's something
No, the true end of winter and start of spring is March 20th, so we still have 10 days of astronomical winter to go
Spring is a botanical concept, hence the name.
Quite.
I've had - green hellebore in flower, lesser celandine in flower, (Native) daffodils in flower, hawthorn in leaf, first peacock butterfly flying and frogspawn in the pond.
It is Spring. It might not be terribly warm at times, but is is 100% Spring.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h If it's true that Putin has committed 65% of his land forces to the invasion of Ukraine, are there any non-Ukraine territorial implications for him if they are annihilated there? Could he struggle to hold disputed territories in central or east Asia, anywhere? Or the Caucasus?
It’s yet another indication of the lack of planning, and the thought that the Russian troops would be welcomed rather than reviled in Ukraine.
It was clear within the first couple of days that there was little in the way of logistics capability, and the Ukranians immediately blew up all the railway lines on the border as soon as the invasion started.
We obviously take the Ukranian military’s casualty figures with a large pinch of salt, but they suggest that the Russians are losing 1% of their capability per day over the past fortnight, much of it simply abandoned for lack of fuel. They are also losing thousands of men every day too, possibly 1,000 dead, 2,000 injured and 2,000 captured.
Give it a couple more months, and there won’t be much of a Russian military left.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
It seems "likely" to you based on no evidence at all except Russia claims it.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
Yes, I got my first real sense of Ukrainian media manipulation yesterday. The images from the hospital were a little TOO perfect in their emotionality. Nearly all the papers used the same harrowing photo on the front page, a sure sign that someone knew what to put out there
Doesn't mean the photo is necessarily 100% fake, or even 1% fake. But, hmm. Also, the whole hospital got hit and only 3 died?
Nonetheless, as you say, the Russians ARE the evil fuckers and Ukraine IS the innocent victim. It really is that simple
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
The US led coalition made exactly the same mistake in Iraq - they at least had a vaguely competent invasion plan but they had no occupation plan.
The Russian invasion plan looks more like it was put together by someone playing hex-and-counter wargames and forbidding their opponent from rolling too high.
I was going to say planned using an early version of Harpoon.....
I started off by playing the original game. The game has multiple divisions clashing with one another which is more 20th Century warfare. The Ukraine 2014 update changes this to having units as combined arms brigades and task forces. The other unique element in the update is the placement of demonstrators and how they can deny the use of your supply lines or not give you control of a city.
Probably the most interesting element is Political Points. Any time you want to launch an attack or raise a unit you need to pay a certain number of political points against your favor. This reflects the fact the in modern warfare, public opinion can go against you if conflicts expand and you need to call up reservists or introduce conscription.
The other unique element is the Information Warfare segment. The game uses cyber cadres to disrupt enemy units or gain Political Points in your favor. In the 2014 update, you can even use Information Warfare to place demonstrations in the opposing player's cities.
The game abstracts air warfare into an Air Superiority die roll, but the Air War expansion increases the complexity of the game, as well as adds to the realistic aspect of the use of airpower. Players will find themselves committing more air units in a conflict to gain objectives rather than sacrifice ground units.
Overall this is an excellent pocket game and highly recommend both the Air War expansion as well as the 2014 update. The only downside is the multiple booklets and you will find yourself flipping back and forth looking for the various charts and tables. The game may be hard to find now, but you can probably find a copy on auction sites.
Perhaps the FSB should have bought this for Putin at Christmas?
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
We do seem to have plenty on here who believe, with childlike credulity, any old toss the Ukranians say.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
The Ukrainians are doing what they need to do to . In their position any country faced with such huge odds would do the same. They need to keep the pressure up on the west .
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
It seems "likely" to you based on no evidence at all except Russia claims it.
That is a fair point, though the second para of LuckyGuy1983's post is still worthwhile - one side is right anad one is wrong, there can be no attempt at equivalence whatsoever in this, but the general point of not automatically believing everything Ukraine says does remain. None of which detracts from that they should be given everything we possibly can.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
The thread linked to above seems to suggest no attempt has been made to gather intelligence in Ukraine regarding what your ordinary citizens thought. They simply think like Russia. Amazing if true.
Remember Putin was paranoid of COVID given the Russian vaccine was dog shit and he wouldn't trust Western ones. Hence why he won't sit within 30 feet of anyone. He has been locked up in his palace with 4-5 yes men for three years.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
The Ukrainians are doing what they need to do to . In their position any country faced with such huge odds would do the same. They need to keep the pressure up on the west .
While I don't think it was faked, I don't agree with you that they are free to claim whatever they like.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
We do seem to have plenty on here who believe, with childlike credulity, any old toss the Ukranians say.
Eh, not as many as you generally imply. I think most people are pretty clear they don't believe the figures on casualties for example, even if there's no agreement on how far they are likely out by. Hence a lot of comments like 'Even if that is 1/4 right it is bad'. You see a lot more credulity than exists.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
That is true, but it's also one reason for leaving a small West Ukraine, as the anticipated minority opposed to Mother Russia's embrace would have somewhere to go, making opposition harder to sustain.
West Ukraine would have become - might still become - North Vietnam, which successfully whacked the USA out of the war
The parallels are striking, right down to "West Ukraine" having a handy border with NATO, so arms and materiel can flood across, as they flowed from China and the USSR into North Vietnam, over a shared frontier
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
Even if you accept what you say is true:
1. The Russians bombed during a ceasefire.
2. The Ukrainians had bomb-blasted pregnant women nearby.
3. The images were as bad as they could be for the Russians, used by social media around the world. Now, if the Russians were complete innocents in the use of social media to achieve their ends that would be one thing. But an entire part of their arsenal is the use of bot farms to promulgate their view of the world, and disrupt that of others. So you might say it was karma.
A good joke ruined by the idea Vlad would ever think to pay for his drink rather than take it.
And that you get time off from hell for good behaviour. Surely you'd be rewarded for evil behaviour?
Maybe hell is more about the rehabilitation.
Have you been watching Lucifer?
Yes. And the end of the Good Place.
Dont know that, is it any good?
I bloody loved it. Loved the characters, loved the four season plot which went continuously in directions I did not expect, and while it can be a bit pretentious at times it was still clever and hilarious throughout, with some proper emotion and character growth along the way. One of the best comedies in years in my opinion.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
It seems "likely" to you based on no evidence at all except Russia claims it.
No, it seemed likely to me BEFORE I read the Russians' claims. As I said, basing themselves in a building like a hospital is a common and logical tactic for a military defending urban territory. It also seemed unlikely that Russia would actively bomb a hospital full of expectant mothers and newborns, even if they were the embodiment of evil, because it would hand a propaganda coup to the other side. The other alternative was that it was a cock up, which was highly possible.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
All of which is true, but still does not preclude the possibility that it was still nothing more than a functioning hospital
It was not an option, if it was the very religious would likely have got it to at least 10 to 20%
Really? When <1.5% of the population are regular attenders of religious worship, and a whole bunch of those are probably not that radically superstitious, a 10x multiplier on that number seems a bit heavy.
Blooming heck! Just reading Chelsea can't sell any more tickets.
Sanctions designed by rugger buggers with no understanding of the beautiful game. Chelsea can't sell the necessary tickets to away fans, and can't travel to away games.
Blooming heck! Just reading Chelsea can't sell any more tickets.
Chelsea will be in the championship in 2 years if they still exist
Chelsea 2022, the newly formed club from the embers of the current club when it goes bump, should start at the very foot of the football league pyramid.
Enjoyed the vicious debate last night on "red lines". I'm on the NATO side of the argument, though think Sweden/Finland are deeply awkward exceptions. Perhaps also a CBRN attack on Lviv, given proximity to Poland.
Turkey is interesting. Would we defend them, with Erdogan as leader? Why hasn't Putin gone after them already given the extraordinary success of their drones?
Beautiful beautiful day here. Bright blue skies, 14C, the first real day of spring
March 10! Somehow it is always March 10, the second week of March, the true end of winter.
Life is still shit, but, hey, spring. That's something
No, the true end of winter and start of spring is March 20th, so we still have 10 days of astronomical winter to go
Seriously, what is wrong with you?
Nothing, I still keep my winter coat and scarf on and drink red wine and eat winter vegetables until March 20th.
I only take off my coat and scarf and switch to white wine and salad once spring starts on March 21st
Bloody hell, Putin won't have a clue what he's up against if he takes on the English.
If I’d said that they’d be asking for Patel to string me up by my bollocks.
That's a 'stimulating' fantasy for some of them, her and the Truss tightening the straps with the speeches of the Blessed Margaret on a loop. Far too good for Jocks.
There can't be any moral equivalence in this war, even if the Ukrainians are (understandably) exploiting social media to drum up support
My family whatsapp has one elderly relative (reminds me of NPXMP at times) with a lifelong affection for Russia. I suspect he basically supports the Russians in this war, but daren't say it out loud, too much, because the rest of the family is largely pro-Ukrainian and quite outraged
There was a scene yesterday when he said the Ukrainian "nation" is only "30 years old". He put the word nation in inverted commas, he really believes it is Russia. He then tried to claim that the invasion is perhaps somehow justifiable, because the history is "complex" - NATO expansion blah blah
It was pointed out to him that saying the history is complex is simultaneously a truism - all history is complex - and also quite pathetic. It is like watching some big guy beat his much smaller wife to death, while passively saying, "Well, it's complicated. She slept with the neighbour".
Who cares if she did sleep with the neighbour. He is beating her to death. It is not *complicated*
The older relative has now gone quiet but I fear further skirmishes
Blooming heck! Just reading Chelsea can't sell any more tickets.
Chelsea will be in the championship in 2 years if they still exist
Chelsea 2022, the newly formed club from the embers of the current club when it goes bump, should start at the very foot of the football league pyramid.
Same for Everton 2022 when that happens
Everton ain't going bust though. Nor are we Russian owned.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
It seems "likely" to you based on no evidence at all except Russia claims it.
No, it seemed likely to me BEFORE I read the Russians' claims. As I said, basing themselves in a building like a hospital is a common and logical tactic for a military defending urban territory. It also seemed unlikely that Russia would actively bomb a hospital full of expectant mothers and newborns, even if they were the embodiment of evil, because it would hand a propaganda coup to the other side. The other alternative was that it was a cock up, which was highly possible.
Without commenting on the likelihood of it in this instance, I would point out that Russia has already undertaken many totally verified actions which hand propaganda coups to the other side, so that in itself would not be a reason they wouldn't do something like that. They would and have taken such actions, this one would merely be a change of degree.
A good joke ruined by the idea Vlad would ever think to pay for his drink rather than take it.
And that you get time off from hell for good behaviour. Surely you'd be rewarded for evil behaviour?
Maybe hell is more about the rehabilitation.
Have you been watching Lucifer?
Yes. And the end of the Good Place.
Dont know that, is it any good?
I bloody loved it. Loved the characters, loved the four season plot which went continuously in directions I did not expect, and while it can be a bit pretentious at times it was still clever and hilarious throughout, with some proper emotion and character growth along the way. One of the best comedies in years in my opinion.
Thanks for the tip - always like to find any half-way decent comedies. Most stuff nowadays is the same grotesque serial killers or superheroes - and to paraphrase Peter Cook, why watch that when you already have it at home?
In a completely different style (well to Lucifer, at least), I enjoyed Alma Isn't Normal recently, but it doesn't keep you busy for long.
I also accidentally watched an episode of The Cleaner, which I immediately realised is a very weak copy of the brilliant German series Der Tatortreiniger - but maybe it works if you haven't seen the original? Der Tatortreiniger is easily the best German TV series I know of, not sure if I can recommend it to non-German speakers, humour often doesn't translate very well.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
We do seem to have plenty on here who believe, with childlike credulity, any old toss the Ukranians say.
True. And others* who give credence to Russian claims, despite the ample evidence that they've been largely talking bollocks for weeks.
Blooming heck! Just reading Chelsea can't sell any more tickets.
Chelsea will be in the championship in 2 years if they still exist
Chelsea 2022, the newly formed club from the embers of the current club when it goes bump, should start at the very foot of the football league pyramid.
Same for Everton 2022 when that happens
Everton ain't going bust though.
Well nobody wants to buy their players, so they would be uneffected by that :-)
There can't be any moral equivalence in this war, even if the Ukrainians are (understandably) exploiting social media to drum up support
My family whatsapp has one elderly relative (reminds me of NPXMP at times) with a lifelong affection for Russia. I suspect he basically supports the Russians in this war, but daren't say it out loud, too much, because the rest of the family is largely pro-Ukrainian and quite outraged
There was a scene yesterday when he said the Ukrainian "nation" is only "30 years old". He put the word nation in inverted commas, he really believes it is Russia. He then tried to claim that the invasion is perhaps somehow justifiable, because the history is "complex" - NATO expansion blah blah
It was pointed out to him that saying the history is complex is simultaneously a truism - all history is complex - and also quite pathetic. It is like watching some big guy beat his much smaller wife to death, while passively saying, "Well, it's complicated. She slept with the neighbour".
Who cares if she did sleep with the neighbour. He is beating her to death. It is not *complicated*
The older relative has now gone quiet but I fear further skirmishes
You've been really on the ball on this issue, I must say. Some of these attempts at complexity and nuance are at best misplaced and at worst outright defences for what is going on.
Most things are very complex. There are associated matters in the region which are indeed complex. But this war? It is very simple indeed.
Beautiful beautiful day here. Bright blue skies, 14C, the first real day of spring
March 10! Somehow it is always March 10, the second week of March, the true end of winter.
Life is still shit, but, hey, spring. That's something
No, the true end of winter and start of spring is March 20th, so we still have 10 days of astronomical winter to go
Seriously, what is wrong with you?
Nothing, I still keep my winter coat and scarf on and drink red wine and eat winter vegetables until March 20th.
I only take off my coat and scarf and switch to white wine and salad once spring starts on March 21st
Really - you are jesting surely
It’s quite an observation that most of us are wondering whether this is serious or not…
I've had a brief moment of doubt and considered that HYUFD might be SeanT's only successful deep cover creation, then remembered that he'd be far too lazy to pore over all these polls, let alone base the fiction on them that HYUFD does.
Football bod saying on Sky typical spend for EPL club on away travel to other EPL games is £30k. Puts into perspective what a totally different world players live in.
It was not an option, if it was the very religious would likely have got it to at least 10 to 20%
Really? When 1.5% of the population are regular attenders of religious worship, and a whole bunch of those are probably not that radically superstitious, a 10x multiplier on that number seems a bit heavy.
17% attend services at least once a month whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu etc, over a third less regularly. So wrong
Quite unexpected to find it is not old Victorian engineering* that was the problem but very modern contractor work.
Indeed. Also note that there were issues with Network Rail not inspecting the upper parts of the drainage system, at all - because it had not been entered onto the system. This is where (in the good old days) linesmen would have known 'their' patrol stretch like the back of their hand, and would have known to look at the state of the drains.
Having said that, these sorts of things were also much more frequent in those days...
The video you cite video is quite the modern equivalent of those engravings in the Sapper Colonels' reports for the Railway Inspectorate in Victorian times. Very substantial report, too; have only dipped into it; look forward to taking a proper look later.
Football bod saying on Sky typical spend for EPL club on away travel to other EPL games is £30k. Puts into perspective what a totally different world players live in.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
Even if you accept what you say is true:
1. The Russians bombed during a ceasefire.
2. The Ukrainians had bomb-blasted pregnant women nearby.
3. The images were as bad as they could be for the Russians, used by social media around the world. Now, if the Russians were complete innocents in the use of social media to achieve their ends that would be one thing. But an entire part of their arsenal is the use of bot farms to promulgate their view of the world, and disrupt that of others. So you might say it was karma.
Not that I accept what you say is true.
1. I didn't know it was a ceasefire, if so, yes, they broke the ceasefire. 2. Yep. And it wouldn't surprise me even a bit. Compared to other such propaganda efforts, doing that is mild. 3. Yes, you could argue what's sauce for the goose is source for the gander, and it's hard to blame them - you or I might do the same. However, as a nation that is being asked to become a combatant, it is very important that such events are subjected to very close scrutiny. We do not want to enter a war with a nuclear power on the strength of this type (if it is) of media manipulation.
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
Given the famous map shown by Lukashenko, and the attempt to capture Hostomel airport, I think we can surmise it would have been something like this.
Day 1 - Capture Hostomel airport and begin flying in troops and equipment. Capture Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson and Melitopol.
Day 2 - Capture and execute Zelenskyy as part of capture of Kyiv. Amphibious landing near Mariupol. Capture Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Day 3 - Capture Mariupol, completing land bridge to Crimea, as destruction of Ukrainian central government leads to a collapse of resistance. Armoured columns head towards Dnipro from NE and S, to encircle Ukrainian army in Donbas. Amphibious landing near Odessa to combine with column from Crimea.
Day 4 - Capture Odessa and Dnipro, cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and dividing remaining Ukrainian forces.
Day 5 - Destroy any elements of Ukrainian army in the Donbas that continue to resist. Accept surrender of Poltava.
Day 6 - Establish puppet government in Kyiv. Announce plebiscites in southern provinces on joining Russian Federation. Capture remaining nuclear power plants near Rivne.
Day 7 - Announce ceasefire with de facto division between West Ukraine, capital Lviv, bordering NATO, and East Ukraine, bordering Belarus, Russia and Moldova/Transnistria
But even that hymn of military optimism doesn't have an endgame. An exit plan. It just presumes the Ukrainians will accept all this, and that they won't resist, and cause terrible problems for the "occupiers". How do you repress 44m people, forever, even if you do somehow install a puppet government?
History has a million examples of this going wrong. It is extremely hard to occupy and repress sizeable countries which do not want to be occupied. Russia knows this from Afghanistan, as does the USA. Vietnam says Hello
So there must have been a fundamental misperception from the start. Vlad really believed his own propaganda that Ukraine is not a real "nation" ; Putin really thought Ukrainian identity was a mirage, and that many - most? - would welcome the Russian troops
The US led coalition made exactly the same mistake in Iraq - they at least had a vaguely competent invasion plan but they had no occupation plan.
The Russian invasion plan looks more like it was put together by someone playing hex-and-counter wargames and forbidding their opponent from rolling too high.
I was going to say planned using an early version of Harpoon.....
I started off by playing the original game. The game has multiple divisions clashing with one another which is more 20th Century warfare. The Ukraine 2014 update changes this to having units as combined arms brigades and task forces. The other unique element in the update is the placement of demonstrators and how they can deny the use of your supply lines or not give you control of a city.
Probably the most interesting element is Political Points. Any time you want to launch an attack or raise a unit you need to pay a certain number of political points against your favor. This reflects the fact the in modern warfare, public opinion can go against you if conflicts expand and you need to call up reservists or introduce conscription.
The other unique element is the Information Warfare segment. The game uses cyber cadres to disrupt enemy units or gain Political Points in your favor. In the 2014 update, you can even use Information Warfare to place demonstrations in the opposing player's cities.
The game abstracts air warfare into an Air Superiority die roll, but the Air War expansion increases the complexity of the game, as well as adds to the realistic aspect of the use of airpower. Players will find themselves committing more air units in a conflict to gain objectives rather than sacrifice ground units.
Overall this is an excellent pocket game and highly recommend both the Air War expansion as well as the 2014 update. The only downside is the multiple booklets and you will find yourself flipping back and forth looking for the various charts and tables. The game may be hard to find now, but you can probably find a copy on auction sites.
Perhaps the FSB should have bought this for Putin at Christmas?
I've got Millenium Wars Iraq, its veracity is slightly marred by it giving Iraq numerous weapons of mass destruction for the allied coalition to find.
Football bod saying on Sky typical spend for EPL club on away travel to other EPL games is £30k. Puts into perspective what a totally different world players live in.
Football bod saying on Sky typical spend for EPL club on away travel to other EPL games is £30k. Puts into perspective what a totally different world players live in.
I dread to think what is is for the NFL.
Oh its totally nuts. They all have special modified jumbo jets because of the size of the players and all the kit. I think Wendover Productions did an epsiode on the logistics of NFL.
Regarding the maternity hospital, the Russians claim that the hospital had ceased to function as a hospital several days ago, and had become a base for a Ukrainian military division. This seemed likely to me yesterday, even without the claims - using schools, hospitals, Churches, Mosques etc. as military bases is a very common tactic of urban warfare, because when they're attacked, it's of course considered an atrocity.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
All of which is true, but still does not preclude the possibility that it was still nothing more than a functioning hospital
According to RT (I know), the Russians reported the change of use of the building to the UN days ago. This would be verifiable I suppose. I am not going down the rabbit hole.
Comments
The Russian invasion plan looks more like it was put together by someone playing hex-and-counter wargames and forbidding their opponent from rolling too high. (Like the mad attempt at the Hostomel airport grab right at the start, they just assumed the 'nearby' Russian forces would link up which works fine when you have abstracted everything into a hex grid but fails when you have to actually use real roads and shit)
https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1501894188337618946?s=20&t=U5v3vnWGKdUFKBfAaHOnNA
I only take off my coat and scarf and switch to white wine and salad once spring starts on March 21st
So people will talk about an Arctic Sea Ice Spring (April-May-June), which I think is the latest definition of spring that exists, because the thermal lags are greatest with sea-ice, and the far north is the last to see the light of a new year.
There is no One True Spring. There are different springs more or less appropriate to different contexts.
I thank Leon for sharing his definition.
@afneil
·
4h
Using conscripts to invade Ukraine big problem for Putin. April is when terms of service reviewed. Rotating invasion force logistically impossible so their term will be extended. Very low morale will be even lower. US is mulling financial incentives to encourage deserters
They simply think like Russia.
Amazing if true.
One side of this conflict is in the right, one side is in the wrong, but that doesn't stop the Ukrainians from fighting a propaganda war. As Western countries, we need to be extremely conscious of this, because the Ukrainians are desperate for Western nations to attack Russia, and will use every lever possible to make this a reality.
This is better than Godzilla.
The danger for Chelsea is that its achievements will be seen to be down to dirty money and many present associations may well seek a divorce
It cannot have been helped by their fans chanting Abramovich at the last game
Not relevant to anything but thought I'd share
Russia has roubles. And planes that get blasted out the sky.
I've had - green hellebore in flower, lesser celandine in flower, (Native) daffodils in flower, hawthorn in leaf, first peacock butterfly flying and frogspawn in the pond.
It is Spring. It might not be terribly warm at times, but is is 100% Spring.
It was clear within the first couple of days that there was little in the way of logistics capability, and the Ukranians immediately blew up all the railway lines on the border as soon as the invasion started.
We obviously take the Ukranian military’s casualty figures with a large pinch of salt, but they suggest that the Russians are losing 1% of their capability per day over the past fortnight, much of it simply abandoned for lack of fuel. They are also losing thousands of men every day too, possibly 1,000 dead, 2,000 injured and 2,000 captured.
Give it a couple more months, and there won’t be much of a Russian military left.
Doesn't mean the photo is necessarily 100% fake, or even 1% fake. But, hmm. Also, the whole hospital got hit and only 3 died?
Nonetheless, as you say, the Russians ARE the evil fuckers and Ukraine IS the innocent victim. It really is that simple
I will then switch back once autumn starts on September 22nd
I started off by playing the original game. The game has multiple divisions clashing with one another which is more 20th Century warfare. The Ukraine 2014 update changes this to having units as combined arms brigades and task forces. The other unique element in the update is the placement of demonstrators and how they can deny the use of your supply lines or not give you control of a city.
Probably the most interesting element is Political Points. Any time you want to launch an attack or raise a unit you need to pay a certain number of political points against your favor. This reflects the fact the in modern warfare, public opinion can go against you if conflicts expand and you need to call up reservists or introduce conscription.
The other unique element is the Information Warfare segment. The game uses cyber cadres to disrupt enemy units or gain Political Points in your favor. In the 2014 update, you can even use Information Warfare to place demonstrations in the opposing player's cities.
The game abstracts air warfare into an Air Superiority die roll, but the Air War expansion increases the complexity of the game, as well as adds to the realistic aspect of the use of airpower. Players will find themselves committing more air units in a conflict to gain objectives rather than sacrifice ground units.
Overall this is an excellent pocket game and highly recommend both the Air War expansion as well as the 2014 update. The only downside is the multiple booklets and you will find yourself flipping back and forth looking for the various charts and tables. The game may be hard to find now, but you can probably find a copy on auction sites.
Perhaps the FSB should have bought this for Putin at Christmas?
The parallels are striking, right down to "West Ukraine" having a handy border with NATO, so arms and materiel can flood across, as they flowed from China and the USSR into North Vietnam, over a shared frontier
1. The Russians bombed during a ceasefire.
2. The Ukrainians had bomb-blasted pregnant women nearby.
3. The images were as bad as they could be for the Russians, used by social media around the world. Now, if the Russians were complete innocents in the use of social media to achieve their ends that would be one thing. But an entire part of their arsenal is the use of bot farms to promulgate their view of the world, and disrupt that of others. So you might say it was karma.
Not that I accept what you say is true.
They will be known as Threephone
London
LLG 72%
Rest of South
LLG 52%
Midlands/Wales
LLG 53%
North
LLG 66%
Scotland
LLG 32%
(YG; Sample Size: 1,700; Fieldwork: 8- 9 March 2022)
Falling on deaf ears
Just reading Chelsea can't sell any more tickets. Club shop shut. Can't buy or sell players. Nor can the club be sold.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60689645
The Yellowstone Caldera will go up one day and this one I read about recently caused cooling for 100 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
Same for Everton 2022 when that happens
Turkey is interesting. Would we defend them, with Erdogan as leader? Why hasn't Putin gone after them already given the extraordinary success of their drones?
Maybe its a legal thing where open yourself to legal challenge if you pick and choose your sanctions too much?
My family whatsapp has one elderly relative (reminds me of NPXMP at times) with a lifelong affection for Russia. I suspect he basically supports the Russians in this war, but daren't say it out loud, too much, because the rest of the family is largely pro-Ukrainian and quite outraged
There was a scene yesterday when he said the Ukrainian "nation" is only "30 years old". He put the word nation in inverted commas, he really believes it is Russia. He then tried to claim that the invasion is perhaps somehow justifiable, because the history is "complex" - NATO expansion blah blah
It was pointed out to him that saying the history is complex is simultaneously a truism - all history is complex - and also quite pathetic. It is like watching some big guy beat his much smaller wife to death, while passively saying, "Well, it's complicated. She slept with the neighbour".
Who cares if she did sleep with the neighbour. He is beating her to death. It is not *complicated*
The older relative has now gone quiet but I fear further skirmishes
Nor are we Russian owned.
In a completely different style (well to Lucifer, at least), I enjoyed Alma Isn't Normal recently, but it doesn't keep you busy for long.
I also accidentally watched an episode of The Cleaner, which I immediately realised is a very weak copy of the brilliant German series Der Tatortreiniger - but maybe it works if you haven't seen the original? Der Tatortreiniger is easily the best German TV series I know of, not sure if I can recommend it to non-German speakers, humour often doesn't translate very well.
*not you
Most things are very complex. There are associated matters in the region which are indeed complex. But this war? It is very simple indeed.
17% attend services at least once a month whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu etc, over a third less regularly. So wrong
http://www.brin.ac.uk/changes-in-attendance-at-religious-services-in-britain/
The video you cite video is quite the modern equivalent of those engravings in the Sapper Colonels' reports for the Railway Inspectorate in Victorian times. Very substantial report, too; have only dipped into it; look forward to taking a proper look later.
2. Yep. And it wouldn't surprise me even a bit. Compared to other such propaganda efforts, doing that is mild.
3. Yes, you could argue what's sauce for the goose is source for the gander, and it's hard to blame them - you or I might do the same. However, as a nation that is being asked to become a combatant, it is very important that such events are subjected to very close scrutiny. We do not want to enter a war with a nuclear power on the strength of this type (if it is) of media manipulation.