Update from my old Russian mate on the run in Ukraine...
Saw several punch ups while trying to get money out of the bank and buying stuff in the supermarket. Took the train to the Polish border via Lviv. 20 hour wait at the border. The Ukrainian border guard didn't give a fuck that he was Russian after he gave him 500 €. (Pricey!) Any Ukrainian men who couldn't bribe their way out of it were not allowed to cross to Poland, slung on a KrAZ 7 tonner and told they were going "East". My mate's comments to the reluctant conscripts in the truck: "No sadness! You'll get a Javelin! XAXAXAXA!' He's now in Berlin trying to work out how to get back to SPb. Possibly via Doha. His last comment on WhatsApp to me, "Lace up your boots, old man! You're going to war! XAXAXAXA!"
Don't judge. As a younger man he was a nav on Blinders and has probably given himself brain damage from drinking the avionics coolant.
I’m pleased he survived, you feared he would be dead before the border. But with Mad Putin spending a month like a bad mould all around Ukraine border, he didn’t take flight earlier convincing himself the maddest thing ever just couldn’t be about to happen?
More military analysis of the strategic failings from the Russia, with a total mismatch between battlefield resources and apparent aims. A short summary:
“the whole problem with the Russian way of war so far has been political goals that haven't been militarily resourced properly, particularly in the field of logistics.
So if that's the case, THE LAST THING YOU SHOULD DO IS FURTHER SPREAD YOUR FORCES BY BREAKING THEM UP AROUND KIEV AND OPENING ANOTHER FRONT AROUND LVIV.
So if Putin is still going big, then what should the Ukrainians do?
Keep calm and carry on. Keep hitting the logistics, keep drawing the Russians in - the further they get drawn in the more exposed their logistics are.
Putin is getting bad advice and is making some big mistakes; why interrupt him?”
After rather lacklustre performances in the large invitation agility round, we're now onto the semi-finals of the fun competitions judging the crossbreed entrants. Lots of impressive stories and achievements in the Good Citizen competition.
Tension is building for this evening's crossbreed grand final.
Another day of dogging on PB...
Keep Sean’s private life out of it
A friend's aunt used to enter her dogs in various competitions, and used to refer with gusto to her and her spouse going 'dogging' in their winnebago. She was mortified when someone told her the modern meaning.
Out early this morning for the Doc. Talking about dogging, my lane is on the local dogwalking circuit, and the usual interrupted convoy of dogwalkers were on the move.
It's cold and damp and grey, and they all looked completely miserable.
Not even a single Norfolk Terrier.
Incidentally, the historic definition of terrier is a register of lands in an Anglican (CofE only, most likely) Parish. Glebe lands and such; it comes from the Latin terra (=earth).
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
We really need the Saudis to start pumping more oil. This is the weakness in the current strategy. Energy prices going up and a falling ruble will cushion the blow in Russia.
Don't they care about Putin's support for Assad using chemical weapons? This is the chance to get rid of Assad.
After rather lacklustre performances in the large invitation agility round, we're now onto the semi-finals of the fun competitions judging the crossbreed entrants. Lots of impressive stories and achievements in the Good Citizen competition.
Tension is building for this evening's crossbreed grand final.
Another day of dogging on PB...
Keep Sean’s private life out of it
A friend's aunt used to enter her dogs in various competitions, and used to refer with gusto to her and her spouse going 'dogging' in their winnebago. She was mortified when someone told her the modern meaning.
Anyhow, I'm taking mine to the park in this lovely sunshine; we wouldn't want to miss the International dog dancing competition finals this lunchtime. Later...
Yesterdays heelwork to music was hilariously poor, let's hope the international section is better.
I’m definitely not the military expert in the family but I do have a longstanding interest in prediction and forecasting. Phillip Tetlock and team have shown that, while most pundits’ predictions are no better than random guesses, some people do make consistently better forecasts than others. These “superforecasters” tend to be open-minded, good at seeing a wide range of perspectives, not closely tied to an ideological worldview, and relatively immune to cognitive biases.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
In an age of instant gratification, the fact that just 16 days in Russian has yet to decisively roll over the Ukraine is somehow being interpreted as Russia having "lost".
Timescales in major wars are not like that.
The historical precedent seems to me to be the timescale of the Soviet Ukraine offensive in the late Summer/Autumn of 1943 in the immediate aftermath of the German defeat in the Battle of Kursk. The Soviet Union bythen had decisive material superiority but it was anything but a cakewalk, with plenty of checks and local reverses. It took the Germans about 3 months between Kursk to advance from a similar starting point as now to a position where they were breaking out from bridgeheads on the other side of the Dnieper.
So, 3 months, not 16 days.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force. The crux of the matter seems to me to hinge on whether, in the longer term, the US and Nato are willing to sanction supplies to the Ukrainians on a scale that can once again halt Russian efforts to renew their offensive and maintain the check in the longer term. Based on the backsliding witnessed over the past week, I am by no means convinced by that.
Needs to be said over and over.
People are too used to 24 news cycles. And then if they have a bit of time to spare, rather fancy themselves as the Clausewitz of our day.
There's a difference between losing politically and losing militarily. You can have overwhelming force, and win every battle, but still lose the war - America in Vietnam is probably the most obvious example of this, but Russia in Afghanistan is a close second. Politically, Russia needs a short war with a decisive victory, which they haven't yet been able to achieve.
I have no idea whether they are losing militarily or politically (which polity). There seems to be some support domestically for the war and of course precious little for it internationally.
I'm not sure why you say Russia needs a short war or indeed what constitutes short. 15 days?
I would define it as a war that lasts months not years. Russia doesn't need another Afghanistan.
Or do you think it does?
I really don't know. Both Russia and the West spent years in Afghan for as far as I can see precious little gain but they decided to do it. So I would say probably not.
And months not years still takes us to beyond 16 days.
My only point is and has been we know almost literally nothing about the progress of the war and people posting videos from Twitter showing 40 seconds of something or other and then making a grand pronouncement about how the war is going is asinine in the extreme.
We are sadly just passengers at this point.
I agree with Leon that as amateur spectators we have the problem of too much information of doubtful value. As I said upthread, a lot of the coverage is anecdotal and generally designed to be Ukrainian morale-boosters as that's what most people want to see - a farmer towing away a captured tank, a wrecked Russian fuel tanker, people holding a demo. Some of it, e.g. the enemy losses reported by each side, is clearly both self-serving and possibly self-deluding. Much of the Russian propaganda is both perfunctory and ludicrious ("The Ukranians bombed their own hospital, or maybe they made it an artillery base"), a hallmark of a war conducted entirely by military minds. Much of the Ukrainian propaganda is much more stylish but not that informative either.
The most reliable information is simply the maps. And here it's fairly clear that Russia is inching forward on most fronts. 17 days isn't very long, and we should expect to see encirclements of several cities complete over the next weeks. The fundamental Russian problem is that they can't take the cities by direct assault except by surprise (worked in Kherson, failed in Kharkiv, unlikely to be repeated), house-to-house fighting (horrendous in terms of losses) or long-range bombardment and siege (horrible for civilians). They have form for that in Syria, they're doing it in Mariupol and sadly it seems the most likely. At some point, they reckon, Zelensky will feel it's not worth putting up with that merely to retain a theoretical chance of joining NATO and the theoretical chance of regaining Crimea and Donbas one day.
Could Western sanctions change that? It's doubtful, as we've already unleashed most of them. Our most useful role is probably a Zelensky bargaining chip - "settle for less than you want and I'll bring in Scholz and Macron and get them to loosen the sanctions". I think Putin needs Zelensky for that.
Nick. Do you think there is any possible future for Ukraine as an independent country, a functioning democracy, and a growing western-oriented economy without the military defeat of Russia and the manifest failure of Putin?
The war is not about the borders of Ukraine. It is not about Crimea and the Donbas. It's not even about Ukrainian membership of NATO. It is about the existence of a democratic Ukraine that is free of a dependency on Russia. All the rest is mere pretext.
There may come a point when Ukraine is sufficiently brutalised by war that they choose a future as a Russian vassal state as a least-worst option compared to continued resistance. Given what is happening in Kharkiv, Mariupol and elsewhere it would be an understandable choice. But that is what is at stake.
The Ukrainians could possibly (?probably) had an independent state (sort of) after 1941 if, as I posted yesterday, the Nazis hadn't been so fixated on the idea that all Slavs were the same, and all sub-human.
Edit. When was the last time there was a nation-state which could reasonably be described as 'Ukrainian'?
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Your last two options have far too high a probability assigned. Biden has a cool head and won’t get dragged in. And the aliens aren’t gonna stop shit, not like they’ve done anything to stop human wars up to now.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
On the contrary, I think there is a major lack of progress for the Russian forces at Kyiv, and Ukraine seems to have prevented encirclement from west and south. The counter attacks to the east of Kyiv in the direction of Chernihiv start to make the Russian forces look very exposed, particularly as their supply lines are very insecure.*
I think a disorderly Russian retreat from Kyiv could well be forced over the next 2 weeks, releasing a lot of Ukranian forces for the southern front. Retaking that will be difficult against Russian forces, as the Ukranian forces lack heavy weapons.
* this looks quite damning of Russian fighting capacity. Lightly armed Ukranian volunteer TDF capture a Russian SPG and two tanks.
And you get this searing analysis from Twitter. Or do you have a Tac HQ set up in one of your several spare rooms.
You have absolutely no idea what is happening in Ukraine. You don't know how the overall campaign is going for either side. You post a video of a (supposedly) Russian platoon in a contact and make wild claims about how this shows how the war is going.
You are not alone on PB of course but you should know better. Or perhaps not.
Yes, I am a doctor in the East Midlands with no military background.
However the core facts are out there. After 16 days the Russians have only captured one city (Kherson) while others, even those close to the border and apparently early objectives are still in Ukranian hands, albeit Mariopol is besieged.
The ubiquity of Social Media (though of course one needs to be aware of biases and sources) in this war gives anyone access to knowledge of what is happening at the fronts unprecedented in history.
"After 16 days..."
Fucking hell how long do you think the opposed invasion of a seemingly well-armed country usually takes.
In 1939, Warsaw resisted the Germans for an entire month, yet that campaign is routinely described as a Polish collapse.
In 1939, the equipment of the German army was nearly all horse drawn. Most of the soldier had to march. Blitzkrieg was a series of dashes by the minority of the motorised forces, with the conventional army behind them catching up.
Interestingly, as a result of re-armament, the BEF in 1940 was the first entirely motorised army, in the world.
The Germans never managed to motorise, completely - even their Panzer divisions had lots of horses, right till the end of the war.
Indeed. For the bulk of the German army who invaded Russia in 1941 the experience was little different to napoleons soldiers. They walked nearly to Moscow, and some of them walked all the way back to Berlin. Those that didn’t die in Russia. The myth of the blitzkrieg and the motorised Wehrmacht has a powerful grip, but it is very much an illussion.
The rapid collapse of the French, in the face of the mythical German blitzkrieg, must rank as a very impressive use of illusion to defeat an enemy.
The myth being the all powerful motorised German army. Bltzkreig relied on very mobile armoured brigades happy to operate without infantry support. By dislocating the enemy and ranging at will in the rear, causing the collapse. For France there was no where to retreat to. France is a small country and Paris not that far from the start line. In Russia the paneers surged ahead and encircled vast numbers of Russian troops, but then had to wait for the rest of the army to walk to meet them to finish the job. The myth is that the german army was all this motorised force, when the reality is completely opposite, and as @Malmesbury says the British were the first to be fully motorised. In addition the German had very few cars, lorries and drivers in 1939, compared to say America were car ownership was widespread. This had huge implications for having drivers and indeed mechanics available to maintain armoured forces.
Yes, but it was the marching and wagon drawn infantry that fought the Kessel battles and protected the supply routes after the Panzer breakthroughs and encirclements. That takes a lot of motivated and dismounted infantry, something that Russia seems to lack at the moment in Ukraine.
Academics at leading British universities who push the Kremlin's propaganda are "effectively helping the Russian war effort", @daverich1 from @CST_UK tells @LBC, as we reveal professors at Edinburgh and Leeds have been promoting Putin's lines-to-take on social media.
No worries. There will be mass student protests and they'll be forced out, like Kathleen Stock. No doubt.
(I'm not in favour of academics being forced out for personal views, in general, but this would be more deserved than what happened to Stock)
All Prof Hayward is doing is questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital.
I would have thought that was a perfectly reasonable activity ... and especially for an academic.
Serious allegations deserve a serious investigation in which the evidence is actually scrutinised.
If you just hear the case for the prosecution, you always convict. It seems perfectly reasonable to present the case for the defence .... without a lynch mob organised by LBC, & the media.
Bertrand Russell was sacked by Trinity College Cambridge for opposing the First World War. Cambridge is now very embarrassed to be reminded of this.
It is the job of academics to consider a contrarian view. Prof Hayward is just doing his job .
It's the job of academics to weigh the evidence and draw conclusions and try to get as close to an objective truth as possible.
I've been involved in several systematic reviews. I'm involved in some at the moment that are on a very political subject and many of the primary evidence shows clear biases towards the pre-existing views of the authors (on both sides). My job is not, even if the media are trumpeting one side (which, to an extent, they are) to try and push the flawed evidence from the other side.
Hayward can, of course, write what he likes. His employer can react to that, within employment law, how they like too. I've no problem with Hayward exposing his position on this (he's doing a lot more in his Tweets than "questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital"). I couldn't care less, to be honest and I'm certainly not calling for him to be dismissed or forced out - I'd prefer him not to be, for what it says about academic freedom, including the freedom to be a tit. His Twitter account seems to be posting in a personal capacity and doesn't seem to higlight his academic work (perhaps he has another professional account). Fine. I was merely pointing out that Stock was forced out for less.
This is well worth a read. Written to Ukrainian exiles by a Bosnian who was at college in the US during the siege of Sarajevo ... https://www.upend.com/blog/ukraine-refugees
Nick. Do you think there is any possible future for Ukraine as an independent country, a functioning democracy, and a growing western-oriented economy without the military defeat of Russia and the manifest failure of Putin?
The war is not about the borders of Ukraine. It is not about Crimea and the Donbas. It's not even about Ukrainian membership of NATO. It is about the existence of a democratic Ukraine that is free of a dependency on Russia. All the rest is mere pretext.
There may come a point when Ukraine is sufficiently brutalised by war that they choose a future as a Russian vassal state as a least-worst option compared to continued resistance. Given what is happening in Kharkiv, Mariupol and elsewhere it would be an understandable choice. But that is what is at stake.
I absolutely think there's a possible future for Ukraine as an nidependent country with a functioning democracy and strong western orientation including EU membership which has agreed to be strictly neutral in East-West disputes - the model would be post-WW2 Finland. People used to sneer about "Finlandisation" but they've done well out of it - all the above and zero threat from the big, sometimes bullying, neighbour, what's not to like? Sure, in an ideal world a completely independent nation could choose to join NATO or anything else, but in terms of everyday living agreeing not to be part of a hostile bloc is really not such a big deal - especially when said bloc don't actually want you to join it because you have an ongoing territorial dispute.
Conversely, relying on Putin falling isn't really a guarantee of anything. Say Putin was replaced by Zhirinovsky - would that make Ukraine feel safer?
The problem isn't neutrality IMO. It's agreeing the future of Crimea and the Donbas. That's where emotion takes a grip on both sides.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Your last two options have far too high a probability assigned. Biden has a cool head and won’t get dragged in. And the aliens aren’t gonna stop shit, not like they’ve done anything to stop human wars up to now.
The last two are, of course, a bit of a joke. The aliens will probably just laugh and a strategic nuclear exchange is most unlikely (0.1%? Still enough to jangle the nerves)
But there is a higher chance of the war spreading across Europe/MENA and becoming quite apocalyptic. Cf Serbia, Syria
I am calling that quote from FT completely wrong and bit rubbish for financial paper on basis it must be more like a flat tax than progressive tax? Do you see my point? I feel so sorry for people struggling, pricesly becuase I think thst quote is wrong. we are not all blessed the same with ability to withstand bills going up. ☹️
“The impact of more expensive fuel sources is compounded in rural parts of the country, which often have an older population, lower wages, poorer public transport links and an ageing housing stock.”
I’m definitely not the military expert in the family but I do have a longstanding interest in prediction and forecasting. Phillip Tetlock and team have shown that, while most pundits’ predictions are no better than random guesses, some people do make consistently better forecasts than others. These “superforecasters” tend to be open-minded, good at seeing a wide range of perspectives, not closely tied to an ideological worldview, and relatively immune to cognitive biases.
“ open-minded, good at seeing a wide range of perspectives, not closely tied to an ideological worldview, and relatively immune to cognitive biases “
Do we have any posters like that on pb. I rule myself out because Zelinzskyy is my hero and Putin a total ****.
Is Igor who TV interviewers won’t say where he is the top teams designated survivor?
Interesting that the writer makes EXACTLY the point I’ve been making here, today
“On the other hand, those of us observing from a distance have far more information, whether from geolocated video or open-source satellite footage, than in the past. Anyone on twitter can, if they filter information well, be better informed about the real-time course of the war than Eisenhower was about Korea or LBJ was about Vietnam.”
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
My hunch is that the war will Peter out with the Kherson to Donbas under Russian control. Russia will declare victory, Ukraine will accept a ceasefire, but will survive as a Western orientated state. Then will be re-armed and rebuilt by NATO and EU until it all kicks off again.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘overwhelming strength’ - rather than ‘overall military superiority’ - you use both to describe the situation and I’d agree with the latter not the former. Russia certainly doesn’t have air superiority, isn’t able to decisively defeat Ukraine’s defensive capabilities or eliminate their command structure, and isn’t achieving objectives to their own planned timetable.
May seem like semantics but I do think it has a bearing on possible ways out of the situation.
Academics at leading British universities who push the Kremlin's propaganda are "effectively helping the Russian war effort", @daverich1 from @CST_UK tells @LBC, as we reveal professors at Edinburgh and Leeds have been promoting Putin's lines-to-take on social media.
We had the same in relation to Assad and Syria. It would be interesting to see how many of those doing the former are now doing the same re Putin and Ukraine. A fair amount of crossover I imagine.
As Camus put it some time ago:
"Totalitarianism of the Left, much like an earlier totalitarianism of the Right, was about violence and power and control, and it appealed because of these features, not in spite of them."
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Your last two options have far too high a probability assigned. Biden has a cool head and won’t get dragged in. And the aliens aren’t gonna stop shit, not like they’ve done anything to stop human wars up to now.
The last two are, of course, a bit of a joke. The aliens will probably just laugh and a strategic nuclear exchange is most unlikely (0.1%? Still enough to jangle the nerves)
But there is a higher chance of the war spreading across Europe/MENA and becoming quite apocalyptic. Cf Serbia, Syria
5%?
History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. High food and energy prices is going to have consequences somewhere. Arab Spring 2.0 or something else?
Syria and Libya in particular, Putin seems to be leaving a bit of a vacuum. Probably we’ll be hearing a lot about ISIS again before the end of the year. What a mess.
I’ve checked the non runners and the going stick. All crammed into an hour because we are going out to watch the rugby 🏴
13:50 - Sandown - Thunder Rock A specialist at this distance. Will compete on any ground. Hasn’t raced for a month.
14:05 - Wolverhampton - Scottish Summit An each way bet.
14:25 - Sandown - Hystery Bere Has form, track, distance and going on its side, shouldn’t let down each way bet.
14:40 - Wolverhampton - Amlicar I don’t think I have ever backed a winner in a race this short, but I have given it serious consideration because I would like to.
Cheltenham week. Festival starts Tuesday. 😍 is anyone going?
I always struggle for winners at the festival. I went to Cheltenham in October and had 3 winners. I will likely be on most the races in some form, just chasing a winner, but each morning I will post the four I most fancy just because sharing is caring.
Did you say you were going to give Mike Smithson Cheltenham headers @stodge ?
yes off on Tuesday - in the Club enclosure. Really looking forward to it - It really is the best sporting spectator experience in the world if you like betting, drinking, eating junk - anyone going for the first time needs to stand as close as they can to the winning post and hear what is a unique sustained roar as a heavily backed (Irish all the louder) horse charges up the hill in a close finish. Also if you get there about an hour before gates open at 10.30 you will see the horses arriving and getting out the horseboxes .It is a moving relaxing site before the mayhem a few hours later
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv.
It's difficult to see what the Ukrainians will be willing to give the Russians that they could reasonably present as a win.
But perhaps it's fortunate that the Russians are such shameless liars. If Putin was personally horsewhipped through the streets of Kyiv by Zelensky they would probably present it domestically (and in the UN Security Council) as a win.
I'm surprised we haven't seen any Tory leads yet. I expect at least a couple between now and May even though the Labour vote has been at least 37% in all polls.
Tonight's opinium poll could be tied or 3ven a small Tory lead.
Trigger warning - this has caused great offence in some Nat circles - for an article in a Student rag, no less, for which an apology has been extracted. Principle offence? The author is an English student at St Andrew’s.
Moral of the story, “don’t dish it out if you can’t take it…..”
I like to think of England and Scotland as a middle-aged couple living in the suburbs. The mutual hatred is palpable. They did a pretty good job with the children—the world’s sexiest Empire, modern Industry, and parliamentary democracy—but now the children are gone, and all that’s left is a menopausal Scotland, England (who’s having a midlife crisis), and the family dog, Wales. The cracks are beginning to show: England has just bought a Harley Davidson but no crash helmet (Brexit), and Scotland has turned to pills (Glasgow). Something has got to give—it’s been separate bedrooms since 1997 (or Devolution as they call it). Somebody needs to bite the bullet and move out. Scotland, incidentally, thinks it should be her: she wants to run away and join her French lover, Emmanuel McRon, in the sensual paradise of a Brussels Travelodge. Ideally, Scotland would quite like to fleece England for all he’s worth and leave him paying the mortgage (National Debt). England, meanwhile, is being a bit of a mug and still tries to make an effort once in a while—although Michael Gove in an Aberdeen nightclub didn’t really have the intended aphrodisiac effect.
I thought it truthful (both on a personable scale and a national scale) , funny , clever and inventive. No wonder the Great Offended got offended.
BTW I am in that position personable having agreed to split with my wife in Jan - Just waiting my daughter to do her A-levels and go to university - Put the house on the market yesterday - Looking forward to a new phase in life and wont feel guilty either (as we have both done our parent duties (as article above) and both had enough of each other (or at least living with each other!)
Trigger warning - this has caused great offence in some Nat circles - for an article in a Student rag, no less, for which an apology has been extracted. Principle offence? The author is an English student at St Andrew’s.
Moral of the story, “don’t dish it out if you can’t take it…..”
I like to think of England and Scotland as a middle-aged couple living in the suburbs. The mutual hatred is palpable. They did a pretty good job with the children—the world’s sexiest Empire, modern Industry, and parliamentary democracy—but now the children are gone, and all that’s left is a menopausal Scotland, England (who’s having a midlife crisis), and the family dog, Wales. The cracks are beginning to show: England has just bought a Harley Davidson but no crash helmet (Brexit), and Scotland has turned to pills (Glasgow). Something has got to give—it’s been separate bedrooms since 1997 (or Devolution as they call it). Somebody needs to bite the bullet and move out. Scotland, incidentally, thinks it should be her: she wants to run away and join her French lover, Emmanuel McRon, in the sensual paradise of a Brussels Travelodge. Ideally, Scotland would quite like to fleece England for all he’s worth and leave him paying the mortgage (National Debt). England, meanwhile, is being a bit of a mug and still tries to make an effort once in a while—although Michael Gove in an Aberdeen nightclub didn’t really have the intended aphrodisiac effect.
I thought it truthful (both on a personable scale and a national scale) , funny , clever and inventive. No wonder the Great Offended got offended.
BTW I am in that position personable having agreed to split with my wife in Jan - Just waiting my daughter to do her A-levels and go to university - Put the house on the market yesterday - Looking forward to a new phase in life and wont feel guilty either (as we have both done our parent duties (as article above) and both had enough of each other (or at least living with each other!)
I’ve checked the non runners and the going stick. All crammed into an hour because we are going out to watch the rugby 🏴
13:50 - Sandown - Thunder Rock A specialist at this distance. Will compete on any ground. Hasn’t raced for a month.
14:05 - Wolverhampton - Scottish Summit An each way bet.
14:25 - Sandown - Hystery Bere Has form, track, distance and going on its side, shouldn’t let down each way bet.
14:40 - Wolverhampton - Amlicar I don’t think I have ever backed a winner in a race this short, but I have given it serious consideration because I would like to.
Cheltenham week. Festival starts Tuesday. 😍 is anyone going?
I always struggle for winners at the festival. I went to Cheltenham in October and had 3 winners. I will likely be on most the races in some form, just chasing a winner, but each morning I will post the four I most fancy just because sharing is caring.
Did you say you were going to give Mike Smithson Cheltenham headers @stodge ?
yes off on Tuesday - in the Club enclosure. Really looking forward to it - It really is the best sporting spectator experience in the world if you like betting, drinking, eating junk - anyone going for the first time needs to stand as close as they can to the winning post and hear what is a unique sustained roar as a heavily backed (Irish all the louder) horse charges up the hill in a close finish
Hope you have a great time! The weather looks ideal. 👍🏻
If the rivalry between UK and Ireland is as promised strong in the big races, it might be hard for winners, the winner is likely one of top 3 favourites not from outside that? I can imagine myself struggling already, so will listen to all guidance.
If Rishi has any political sense he will suspend the NI increase. He then needs an an emergency budget in a few weeks. Government should announce full scale review of economic situation for an Autumn budget. In light of changed world an across government strategic review that will include energy supply and defence. That is is what is needed and is also good politics.
Trigger warning - this has caused great offence in some Nat circles - for an article in a Student rag, no less, for which an apology has been extracted. Principle offence? The author is an English student at St Andrew’s.
Moral of the story, “don’t dish it out if you can’t take it…..”
I like to think of England and Scotland as a middle-aged couple living in the suburbs. The mutual hatred is palpable. They did a pretty good job with the children—the world’s sexiest Empire, modern Industry, and parliamentary democracy—but now the children are gone, and all that’s left is a menopausal Scotland, England (who’s having a midlife crisis), and the family dog, Wales. The cracks are beginning to show: England has just bought a Harley Davidson but no crash helmet (Brexit), and Scotland has turned to pills (Glasgow). Something has got to give—it’s been separate bedrooms since 1997 (or Devolution as they call it). Somebody needs to bite the bullet and move out. Scotland, incidentally, thinks it should be her: she wants to run away and join her French lover, Emmanuel McRon, in the sensual paradise of a Brussels Travelodge. Ideally, Scotland would quite like to fleece England for all he’s worth and leave him paying the mortgage (National Debt). England, meanwhile, is being a bit of a mug and still tries to make an effort once in a while—although Michael Gove in an Aberdeen nightclub didn’t really have the intended aphrodisiac effect.
I thought it truthful (both on a personable scale and a national scale) , funny , clever and inventive. No wonder the Great Offended got offended.
BTW I am in that position personable having agreed to split with my wife in Jan - Just waiting my daughter to do her A-levels and go to university - Put the house on the market yesterday - Looking forward to a new phase in life and wont feel guilty either (as we have both done our parent duties (as article above) and both had enough of each other (or at least living with each other!)
Sorry to hear. Hope it all works out as planned
Yes. Good luck to all
I have a couple of friends in similar situations. Kids nearly grown, suddenly divorce looms (and covid hasn’t helped). One of them is particularly messy and sad
I'm surprised we haven't seen any Tory leads yet. I expect at least a couple between now and May even though the Labour vote has been at least 37% in all polls.
Tonight's opinium poll could be tied or 3ven a small Tory lead.
I don't think Ms Patel is doing the Tory vote any favours.
Trigger warning - this has caused great offence in some Nat circles - for an article in a Student rag, no less, for which an apology has been extracted. Principle offence? The author is an English student at St Andrew’s.
Moral of the story, “don’t dish it out if you can’t take it…..”
I like to think of England and Scotland as a middle-aged couple living in the suburbs. The mutual hatred is palpable. They did a pretty good job with the children—the world’s sexiest Empire, modern Industry, and parliamentary democracy—but now the children are gone, and all that’s left is a menopausal Scotland, England (who’s having a midlife crisis), and the family dog, Wales. The cracks are beginning to show: England has just bought a Harley Davidson but no crash helmet (Brexit), and Scotland has turned to pills (Glasgow). Something has got to give—it’s been separate bedrooms since 1997 (or Devolution as they call it). Somebody needs to bite the bullet and move out. Scotland, incidentally, thinks it should be her: she wants to run away and join her French lover, Emmanuel McRon, in the sensual paradise of a Brussels Travelodge. Ideally, Scotland would quite like to fleece England for all he’s worth and leave him paying the mortgage (National Debt). England, meanwhile, is being a bit of a mug and still tries to make an effort once in a while—although Michael Gove in an Aberdeen nightclub didn’t really have the intended aphrodisiac effect.
Better quality analysis than the tripe regularly posted on PB for two decades.
But very sexist too. I see St A hasn't really moved on from the 1970s, at least as regards some of the denizens.
Is it really all that sexist? I’m one of these people that is quite nostalgic for when you were allowed to have a bit of a laugh and poke fun at people. Pretty much verboten these days. Except the Jocks of course.
Yes, because it assumes woman = dependent on male = one with the money and income. But possibly more 1960s/early 70s mindset than primary sexism, on consideration. You know, when Mr Forsyth was still learning to shave and doing his Highers ready to go to the dreaming towers of St Salvator.
I'm surprised we haven't seen any Tory leads yet. I expect at least a couple between now and May even though the Labour vote has been at least 37% in all polls.
Tonight's opinium poll could be tied or 3ven a small Tory lead.
I don't think Ms Patel is doing the Tory vote any favours.
Please don't give the BJ Loyalists ideas.
If it wasn't for Priti the Tories would be 5 pts ahead, it's pathetic that Lab are only 2pts ahead etc
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
In an age of instant gratification, the fact that just 16 days in Russian has yet to decisively roll over the Ukraine is somehow being interpreted as Russia having "lost".
Timescales in major wars are not like that.
The historical precedent seems to me to be the timescale of the Soviet Ukraine offensive in the late Summer/Autumn of 1943 in the immediate aftermath of the German defeat in the Battle of Kursk. The Soviet Union bythen had decisive material superiority but it was anything but a cakewalk, with plenty of checks and local reverses. It took the Germans about 3 months between Kursk to advance from a similar starting point as now to a position where they were breaking out from bridgeheads on the other side of the Dnieper.
So, 3 months, not 16 days.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force. The crux of the matter seems to me to hinge on whether, in the longer term, the US and Nato are willing to sanction supplies to the Ukrainians on a scale that can once again halt Russian efforts to renew their offensive and maintain the check in the longer term. Based on the backsliding witnessed over the past week, I am by no means convinced by that.
Needs to be said over and over.
People are too used to 24 news cycles. And then if they have a bit of time to spare, rather fancy themselves as the Clausewitz of our day.
There's a difference between losing politically and losing militarily. You can have overwhelming force, and win every battle, but still lose the war - America in Vietnam is probably the most obvious example of this, but Russia in Afghanistan is a close second. Politically, Russia needs a short war with a decisive victory, which they haven't yet been able to achieve.
I have no idea whether they are losing militarily or politically (which polity). There seems to be some support domestically for the war and of course precious little for it internationally.
I'm not sure why you say Russia needs a short war or indeed what constitutes short. 15 days?
I would define it as a war that lasts months not years. Russia doesn't need another Afghanistan.
Or do you think it does?
I really don't know. Both Russia and the West spent years in Afghan for as far as I can see precious little gain but they decided to do it. So I would say probably not.
And months not years still takes us to beyond 16 days.
My only point is and has been we know almost literally nothing about the progress of the war and people posting videos from Twitter showing 40 seconds of something or other and then making a grand pronouncement about how the war is going is asinine in the extreme.
We are sadly just passengers at this point.
I agree with Leon that as amateur spectators we have the problem of too much information of doubtful value. As I said upthread, a lot of the coverage is anecdotal and generally designed to be Ukrainian morale-boosters as that's what most people want to see - a farmer towing away a captured tank, a wrecked Russian fuel tanker, people holding a demo. Some of it, e.g. the enemy losses reported by each side, is clearly both self-serving and possibly self-deluding. Much of the Russian propaganda is both perfunctory and ludicrious ("The Ukranians bombed their own hospital, or maybe they made it an artillery base"), a hallmark of a war conducted entirely by military minds. Much of the Ukrainian propaganda is much more stylish but not that informative either.
The most reliable information is simply the maps. And here it's fairly clear that Russia is inching forward on most fronts. 17 days isn't very long, and we should expect to see encirclements of several cities complete over the next weeks. The fundamental Russian problem is that they can't take the cities by direct assault except by surprise (worked in Kherson, failed in Kharkiv, unlikely to be repeated), house-to-house fighting (horrendous in terms of losses) or long-range bombardment and siege (horrible for civilians). They have form for that in Syria, they're doing it in Mariupol and sadly it seems the most likely. At some point, they reckon, Zelensky will feel it's not worth putting up with that merely to retain a theoretical chance of joining NATO and the theoretical chance of regaining Crimea and Donbas one day.
Could Western sanctions change that? It's doubtful, as we've already unleashed most of them. Our most useful role is probably a Zelensky bargaining chip - "settle for less than you want and I'll bring in Scholz and Macron and get them to loosen the sanctions". I think Putin needs Zelensky for that.
Great post, again, Nick, and very good analysis, stopping short of donning a general's uniform and opining on what's next.
I wouldn't rule out "house to house" fighting although as you say hugely attritional to both sides.
The Cold War thinking was 10-day advance, battlefield nukes, negotiation.
Plenty of analysts thought Russia wouldn't attack or would stop at the Donbas or...or...
Just like I'd pay good money to have a dog speak for just one minute the key to it all is locked up in Putin's mind.
As for Zelensky again, there would surely come a point where he would believe his country lost or about to suffer huge casualties. Would he then as you say believe continued resistance would be futile or would he take to the hills.
OT. An excellent interview with Delia Smith on Radio 4.(starts about 8.40) What a nice person she is.
It's quite life affirming to realise that not everyone in the UK who can get their voices heard are like Patel and Johnson though the visa debacle is going to leave a stain on the UK which will take a long while to wash out.
PS. Worth listening till it finishes. it ends with a beautiful piece by Prokofiev
She's obviously a decent sort but a bit naive I think. As I recall she seem to be saying the time for political parties was over and we now needed leaders, that could lead to some unpleasant outcomes.
The piece right at the end was Stravinsky which was indeed glorious.
That explains why I'm not finding it listening through Prokofiev! I was on the move while listening. Yes she was being naive but give me a heart over a head any day and she was talking about Priti who has neither
I’ve checked the non runners and the going stick. All crammed into an hour because we are going out to watch the rugby 🏴
13:50 - Sandown - Thunder Rock A specialist at this distance. Will compete on any ground. Hasn’t raced for a month.
14:05 - Wolverhampton - Scottish Summit An each way bet.
14:25 - Sandown - Hystery Bere Has form, track, distance and going on its side, shouldn’t let down each way bet.
14:40 - Wolverhampton - Amlicar I don’t think I have ever backed a winner in a race this short, but I have given it serious consideration because I would like to.
Cheltenham week. Festival starts Tuesday. 😍 is anyone going?
I always struggle for winners at the festival. I went to Cheltenham in October and had 3 winners. I will likely be on most the races in some form, just chasing a winner, but each morning I will post the four I most fancy just because sharing is caring.
Did you say you were going to give Mike Smithson Cheltenham headers @stodge ?
yes off on Tuesday - in the Club enclosure. Really looking forward to it - It really is the best sporting spectator experience in the world if you like betting, drinking, eating junk - anyone going for the first time needs to stand as close as they can to the winning post and hear what is a unique sustained roar as a heavily backed (Irish all the louder) horse charges up the hill in a close finish
Hope you have a great time! The weather looks ideal. 👍🏻
If the rivalry between UK and Ireland is as promised strong in the big races, it might be hard for winners, the winner is likely one of top 3 favourites not from outside that? I can imagine myself struggling already, so will listen to all guidance.
Not that i am an expert in horse gambling but Cheltenham is one of the few race meetings where you can guarantee all the horses are trying . Its why its magical in the first place (nobody holds a horse up at Cheltenham) - because of that and also the unique loud atmosphere that permutates across to the track you can get long priced winners - I always do an outlandish placepot with not many favourites and back a few horse at the 20/1 mark
So what would both sides have seen as a 'win' before this started? IMV:
Russia: *) A subservient Ukraine under Russia's thumb. *) A big, visible and easy victory for Russia, as they had in Georgia for Crimea. *) Destabilise NATO and the EU.
Ukraine: *) A viable, functioning independent state. *) Potential for EU and NATO membership in the future. *) Preferably, Crimea and the Donbass back.
Russia has lost all three of those, but might, with difficulty, gain the first. They are not going to get a big, visible victory, even if Ukraine collapsed this afternoon. Russian forces have been made to look weak and foolish, winning only by throwing men and machines into the meat grinder. The third point has been lost - NATO and the EU currently appear to be strengthened.
Ukraine still has the possibility of the first two, even if it takes time. In the long term, I think the first is certainly on the cards - even if Russia gains full control over Ukraine, something will give within Russia, as it did in 1989, and it is clear the Ukrainians as a whole want independence. The third point is probably out of their reach.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Your last two options have far too high a probability assigned. Biden has a cool head and won’t get dragged in. And the aliens aren’t gonna stop shit, not like they’ve done anything to stop human wars up to now.
The last two are, of course, a bit of a joke. The aliens will probably just laugh and a strategic nuclear exchange is most unlikely (0.1%? Still enough to jangle the nerves)
But there is a higher chance of the war spreading across Europe/MENA and becoming quite apocalyptic. Cf Serbia, Syria
5%?
History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. High food and energy prices is going to have consequences somewhere. Arab Spring 2.0 or something else?
Syria and Libya in particular, Putin seems to be leaving a bit of a vacuum. Probably we’ll be hearing a lot about ISIS again before the end of the year. What a mess.
I met an old friend yesterday, for a drink. Haven’t seen him since covid kicked off
He has gone from total skepticism to complete conviction that we are being visited by aliens
He’s an interesting case because he’s eccentric, and sometimes prone to mad beliefs - so I should dismiss his views? And yet he is also highly intelligent and has the kind of open mind that sometimes sees things no one else can. So I might believe him?
At the moment I’m in a more skeptical mood. A mixture of America post plague madness and a conspiracy to freak the Chinese seems more likely than alien probes/craft
Covid provides a striking example of how clever, diligent amateurs can use the Net/social media to make analyses and discoveries apparently beyond the wit (or willingness) of professionals
The professionals told us a lab leak was impossible. “A racist conspiracy theory”. The *professionals* actually prohibited us from even talking about a potential lab leak explanation for a year. But a bunch of amateurs got online and dug out the uncomfortable facts until the professionals were forced to admit Yes, OK, it could be true
“For most of last year, the idea that the coronavirus pandemic could have been triggered by a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China, was largely dismissed as a racist conspiracy theory of the alt-right. The Washington Post in early 2020 accused Senator Tom Cotton of "fanning the embers of a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts." CNN jumped in with "How to debunk coronavirus conspiracy theories and misinformation from friends and family." Most other mainstream outlets, from The New York Times ("fringe theory") to NPR ("Scientists debunk lab accident theory"), were equally dismissive.”
But then that all changed, because of
“A group of amateur sleuths, with few resources except curiosity and a willingness to spend days combing the internet for clues. Throughout the pandemic, about two dozen or so correspondents, many anonymous, working independently from many different countries, have uncovered obscure documents, pieced together the information, and explained it all in long threads on Twitter—in a kind of open-source, collective brainstorming session that was part forensic science, part citizen journalism, and entirely new. They call themselves DRASTIC, for Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19.”
The point remains, without amateurs and their “lightly educated guesswork” we wouldn’t even be having this vital discussion. We’d still be in 2020 and literally prevented from talking about it on Facebook
If you like amateur sleuths you should watch Don't F**k with Cats on Netflix.
As for the lab leak theory or aliens it's likely bollocks and illustrative of how you can stay down a rabbit hole on the web.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Your last two options have far too high a probability assigned. Biden has a cool head and won’t get dragged in. And the aliens aren’t gonna stop shit, not like they’ve done anything to stop human wars up to now.
The last two are, of course, a bit of a joke. The aliens will probably just laugh and a strategic nuclear exchange is most unlikely (0.1%? Still enough to jangle the nerves)
But there is a higher chance of the war spreading across Europe/MENA and becoming quite apocalyptic. Cf Serbia, Syria
5%?
History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. High food and energy prices is going to have consequences somewhere. Arab Spring 2.0 or something else?
Syria and Libya in particular, Putin seems to be leaving a bit of a vacuum. Probably we’ll be hearing a lot about ISIS again before the end of the year. What a mess.
I met an old friend yesterday, for a drink. Haven’t seen him since covid kicked off
He has gone from total skepticism to complete conviction that we are being visited by aliens
He’s an interesting case because he’s eccentric, and sometimes prone to mad beliefs - so I should dismiss his views? And yet he is also highly intelligent and has the kind of open mind that sometimes sees things no one else can. So I might believe him?
At the moment I’m in a more skeptical mood. A mixture of America post plague madness and a conspiracy to freak the Chinese seems more likely than alien probes/craft
But I’m not ruling out Martians entirely
I personally think we live in a matrix so the aliens are the Gods if you like- the deadness of the universe we observe now is just undeveloped software
I’m definitely not the military expert in the family but I do have a longstanding interest in prediction and forecasting. Phillip Tetlock and team have shown that, while most pundits’ predictions are no better than random guesses, some people do make consistently better forecasts than others. These “superforecasters” tend to be open-minded, good at seeing a wide range of perspectives, not closely tied to an ideological worldview, and relatively immune to cognitive biases.
“ open-minded, good at seeing a wide range of perspectives, not closely tied to an ideological worldview, and relatively immune to cognitive biases “
Do we have any posters like that on pb. I rule myself out because Zelinzskyy is my hero and Putin a total ****.
Is Igor who TV interviewers won’t say where he is the top teams designated survivor?
Interesting that the writer makes EXACTLY the point I’ve been making here, today
“On the other hand, those of us observing from a distance have far more information, whether from geolocated video or open-source satellite footage, than in the past. Anyone on twitter can, if they filter information well, be better informed about the real-time course of the war than Eisenhower was about Korea or LBJ was about Vietnam.”
I made the point last night, it can affect us in a bad way whilst we go through everything pursue that understanding of what really going on. I went to all the links you posted Leon, up till it was rubble and fires and in the distance voices screaming, and I’ve stopped now. On end of your link was window into actual hell.
This is 2022. With our screens constantly in our hands we may be the generations most exposed to all the horrors and unfairness in the world, and such a thing can change us, we can become something other than who we want to be. So we have to be mindful about that.
I don’t want to get Biblical or sermony but when Adam and Eve ate the apple of tree of knowledge and knowledge changed them, these apples in our hands, this prison of screens could have an even worse affect on us. 😞
Olde posted earlier “I gather it’s going okay for Ukraine at the moment” and I think now it’s just that broad brush thing I need to know to stop it affecting me in a bad way. I read all the front pages online last night and “ Putin closes in on Kyiv - in the city’s outskirts Russians are targetting people who come out for food leaving the streets littered with bodies” and “the howizerts now in position” sent me to bed with very very depressed thoughts.
“Syria’s military has begun recruiting troops from its own ranks to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, promising payments of $3,000 a month – a sum of up to 50 times more than a Syrian soldier’s monthly salary”
Covid provides a striking example of how clever, diligent amateurs can use the Net/social media to make analyses and discoveries apparently beyond the wit (or willingness) of professionals
The professionals told us a lab leak was impossible. “A racist conspiracy theory”. The *professionals* actually prohibited us from even talking about a potential lab leak explanation for a year. But a bunch of amateurs got online and dug out the uncomfortable facts until the professionals were forced to admit Yes, OK, it could be true
“For most of last year, the idea that the coronavirus pandemic could have been triggered by a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China, was largely dismissed as a racist conspiracy theory of the alt-right. The Washington Post in early 2020 accused Senator Tom Cotton of "fanning the embers of a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts." CNN jumped in with "How to debunk coronavirus conspiracy theories and misinformation from friends and family." Most other mainstream outlets, from The New York Times ("fringe theory") to NPR ("Scientists debunk lab accident theory"), were equally dismissive.”
But then that all changed, because of
“A group of amateur sleuths, with few resources except curiosity and a willingness to spend days combing the internet for clues. Throughout the pandemic, about two dozen or so correspondents, many anonymous, working independently from many different countries, have uncovered obscure documents, pieced together the information, and explained it all in long threads on Twitter—in a kind of open-source, collective brainstorming session that was part forensic science, part citizen journalism, and entirely new. They call themselves DRASTIC, for Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19.”
The point remains, without amateurs and their “lightly educated guesswork” we wouldn’t even be having this vital discussion. We’d still be in 2020 and literally prevented from talking about it on Facebook
If you like amateur sleuths you should watch Don't F**k with Cats on Netflix.
As for the lab leak theory or aliens it's likely bollocks and illustrative of how you can stay down a rabbit hole on the web.
Nick. Do you think there is any possible future for Ukraine as an independent country, a functioning democracy, and a growing western-oriented economy without the military defeat of Russia and the manifest failure of Putin?
The war is not about the borders of Ukraine. It is not about Crimea and the Donbas. It's not even about Ukrainian membership of NATO. It is about the existence of a democratic Ukraine that is free of a dependency on Russia. All the rest is mere pretext.
There may come a point when Ukraine is sufficiently brutalised by war that they choose a future as a Russian vassal state as a least-worst option compared to continued resistance. Given what is happening in Kharkiv, Mariupol and elsewhere it would be an understandable choice. But that is what is at stake.
I absolutely think there's a possible future for Ukraine as an nidependent country with a functioning democracy and strong western orientation including EU membership which has agreed to be strictly neutral in East-West disputes - the model would be post-WW2 Finland. People used to sneer about "Finlandisation" but they've done well out of it - all the above and zero threat from the big, sometimes bullying, neighbour, what's not to like? Sure, in an ideal world a completely independent nation could choose to join NATO or anything else, but in terms of everyday living agreeing not to be part of a hostile bloc is really not such a big deal - especially when said bloc don't actually want you to join it because you have an ongoing territorial dispute.
Conversely, relying on Putin falling isn't really a guarantee of anything. Say Putin was replaced by Zhirinovsky - would that make Ukraine feel safer?
The problem isn't neutrality IMO. It's agreeing the future of Crimea and the Donbas. That's where emotion takes a grip on both sides.
I really don't agree that Ukraine, even a strictly neutral in foreign policy Ukraine which had conceded Donbas and Crimea to Russia, would be allowed by the Greater Russian Nationalists to join the EU.
We're arguing here over the motivations of other people. This can often be a fool's errand. Though it can be dismissed as mere propaganda, some of the statements made by Putin, and the tract that he wrote on Ukraine, seem to be evidence for my view of how the Greater Russian Nationalists view Ukraine.
I think the only way that Ukraine can ever be independent, and have a modicum of safety, is by following the example of the Baltic States and being members of NATO. Given NATO policy, this means that Ukraine has to defeat Russia militarily first. That may prove not to be possible, in which case history will judge that the leaders of Ukraine who failed to take Ukraine into NATO doomed their country to a failure to escape from Russian dominance.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
In an age of instant gratification, the fact that just 16 days in Russian has yet to decisively roll over the Ukraine is somehow being interpreted as Russia having "lost".
Timescales in major wars are not like that.
The historical precedent seems to me to be the timescale of the Soviet Ukraine offensive in the late Summer/Autumn of 1943 in the immediate aftermath of the German defeat in the Battle of Kursk. The Soviet Union bythen had decisive material superiority but it was anything but a cakewalk, with plenty of checks and local reverses. It took the Germans about 3 months between Kursk to advance from a similar starting point as now to a position where they were breaking out from bridgeheads on the other side of the Dnieper.
So, 3 months, not 16 days.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force. The crux of the matter seems to me to hinge on whether, in the longer term, the US and Nato are willing to sanction supplies to the Ukrainians on a scale that can once again halt Russian efforts to renew their offensive and maintain the check in the longer term. Based on the backsliding witnessed over the past week, I am by no means convinced by that.
Needs to be said over and over.
People are too used to 24 news cycles. And then if they have a bit of time to spare, rather fancy themselves as the Clausewitz of our day.
There's a difference between losing politically and losing militarily. You can have overwhelming force, and win every battle, but still lose the war - America in Vietnam is probably the most obvious example of this, but Russia in Afghanistan is a close second. Politically, Russia needs a short war with a decisive victory, which they haven't yet been able to achieve.
I have no idea whether they are losing militarily or politically (which polity). There seems to be some support domestically for the war and of course precious little for it internationally.
I'm not sure why you say Russia needs a short war or indeed what constitutes short. 15 days?
I would define it as a war that lasts months not years. Russia doesn't need another Afghanistan.
Or do you think it does?
I really don't know. Both Russia and the West spent years in Afghan for as far as I can see precious little gain but they decided to do it. So I would say probably not.
And months not years still takes us to beyond 16 days.
My only point is and has been we know almost literally nothing about the progress of the war and people posting videos from Twitter showing 40 seconds of something or other and then making a grand pronouncement about how the war is going is asinine in the extreme.
We are sadly just passengers at this point.
I agree with Leon that as amateur spectators we have the problem of too much information of doubtful value. As I said upthread, a lot of the coverage is anecdotal and generally designed to be Ukrainian morale-boosters as that's what most people want to see - a farmer towing away a captured tank, a wrecked Russian fuel tanker, people holding a demo. Some of it, e.g. the enemy losses reported by each side, is clearly both self-serving and possibly self-deluding. Much of the Russian propaganda is both perfunctory and ludicrious ("The Ukranians bombed their own hospital, or maybe they made it an artillery base"), a hallmark of a war conducted entirely by military minds. Much of the Ukrainian propaganda is much more stylish but not that informative either.
The most reliable information is simply the maps. And here it's fairly clear that Russia is inching forward on most fronts. 17 days isn't very long, and we should expect to see encirclements of several cities complete over the next weeks. The fundamental Russian problem is that they can't take the cities by direct assault except by surprise (worked in Kherson, failed in Kharkiv, unlikely to be repeated), house-to-house fighting (horrendous in terms of losses) or long-range bombardment and siege (horrible for civilians). They have form for that in Syria, they're doing it in Mariupol and sadly it seems the most likely. At some point, they reckon, Zelensky will feel it's not worth putting up with that merely to retain a theoretical chance of joining NATO and the theoretical chance of regaining Crimea and Donbas one day.
Could Western sanctions change that? It's doubtful, as we've already unleashed most of them. Our most useful role is probably a Zelensky bargaining chip - "settle for less than you want and I'll bring in Scholz and Macron and get them to loosen the sanctions". I think Putin needs Zelensky for that.
Great post, again, Nick, and very good analysis, stopping short of donning a general's uniform and opining on what's next.
I wouldn't rule out "house to house" fighting although as you say hugely attritional to both sides.
The Cold War thinking was 10-day advance, battlefield nukes, negotiation.
Plenty of analysts thought Russia wouldn't attack or would stop at the Donbas or...or...
Just like I'd pay good money to have a dog speak for just one minute the key to it all is locked up in Putin's mind.
As for Zelensky again, there would surely come a point where he would believe his country lost or about to suffer huge casualties. Would he then as you say believe continued resistance would be futile or would he take to the hills.
Belgium WWI v Belgium WWII. Leopold III's reputation never really recovered though afaics he was acting altruistically.
I’m definitely not the military expert in the family but I do have a longstanding interest in prediction and forecasting. Phillip Tetlock and team have shown that, while most pundits’ predictions are no better than random guesses, some people do make consistently better forecasts than others. These “superforecasters” tend to be open-minded, good at seeing a wide range of perspectives, not closely tied to an ideological worldview, and relatively immune to cognitive biases.
“ open-minded, good at seeing a wide range of perspectives, not closely tied to an ideological worldview, and relatively immune to cognitive biases “
Do we have any posters like that on pb. I rule myself out because Zelinzskyy is my hero and Putin a total ****.
Is Igor who TV interviewers won’t say where he is the top teams designated survivor?
Interesting that the writer makes EXACTLY the point I’ve been making here, today
“On the other hand, those of us observing from a distance have far more information, whether from geolocated video or open-source satellite footage, than in the past. Anyone on twitter can, if they filter information well, be better informed about the real-time course of the war than Eisenhower was about Korea or LBJ was about Vietnam.”
I made the point last night, it can affect us in a bad way whilst we go through everything pursue that understanding of what really going on. I went to all the links you posted Leon, up till it was rubble and fires and in the distance voices screaming, and I’ve stopped now. On end of your link was window into actual hell.
This is 2022. With our screens constantly in our hands we may be the generations most exposed to all the horrors and unfairness in the world, and such a thing can change us, we can become something other than who we want to be. So we have to be mindful about that.
I don’t want to get Biblical or sermony but when Adam and Eve ate the apple of tree of knowledge and knowledge changed them, these apples in our hands, this prison of screens could have an even worse affect on us. 😞
Olde posted earlier “I gather it’s going okay for Ukraine at the moment” and I think now it’s just that broad brush thing I need to know to stop it affecting me in a bad way. I read all the front pages online last night and “ Putin closes in on Kyiv - in the city’s outskirts Russians are targetting people who come out for food leaving the streets littered with bodies” and “the howizerts now in position” sent me to bed with very very depressed thoughts.
One bit of good news to share though. Telegraph has “Biden vetoed Mig deal personally” but there is enough opposition to force him into a climb down. 40 republicans senators have signed a joint letter insisting on reversal, and the move has more than enough support from Democrats too. So that bit of help Ukraine needs might well be coming soon. Mig fighters deal back on with vote over ruling Biden? 🙂
So what would both sides have seen as a 'win' before this started? IMV:
Russia: *) A subservient Ukraine under Russia's thumb. *) A big, visible and easy victory for Russia, as they had in Georgia for Crimea. *) Destabilise NATO and the EU.
Ukraine: *) A viable, functioning independent state. *) Potential for EU and NATO membership in the future. *) Preferably, Crimea and the Donbass back.
Russia has lost all three of those, but might, with difficulty, gain the first. They are not going to get a big, visible victory, even if Ukraine collapsed this afternoon. Russian forces have been made to look weak and foolish, winning only by throwing men and machines into the meat grinder. The third point has been lost - NATO and the EU currently appear to be strengthened.
Ukraine still has the possibility of the first two, even if it takes time. In the long term, I think the first is certainly on the cards - even if Russia gains full control over Ukraine, something will give within Russia, as it did in 1989, and it is clear the Ukrainians as a whole want independence. The third point is probably out of their reach.
Does this seem right?
Ukraine can probably live without Crimea, which was only added to Ukraine in the 1950s after 200 years as part of Russia/USSR. The realpolitik is they can probably agree not to join Nato since Nato shows no interest in accepting that country.
To end this war, Russia needs a way out that can be presented as a victory of sorts. Ruling out Nato might be presented as demilitarisation, if you squint a bit.
This is nice. Mrs Schröder in Moscow praying for peace on her insta.
My brother and I got bored and did some geo-locating followed by hotel website checking for the curtains, and this is the Kremlin Suite of the Kempinski hotel.
So what would both sides have seen as a 'win' before this started? IMV:
Russia: *) A subservient Ukraine under Russia's thumb. *) A big, visible and easy victory for Russia, as they had in Georgia for Crimea. *) Destabilise NATO and the EU.
Ukraine: *) A viable, functioning independent state. *) Potential for EU and NATO membership in the future. *) Preferably, Crimea and the Donbass back.
Russia has lost all three of those, but might, with difficulty, gain the first. They are not going to get a big, visible victory, even if Ukraine collapsed this afternoon. Russian forces have been made to look weak and foolish, winning only by throwing men and machines into the meat grinder. The third point has been lost - NATO and the EU currently appear to be strengthened.
Ukraine still has the possibility of the first two, even if it takes time. In the long term, I think the first is certainly on the cards - even if Russia gains full control over Ukraine, something will give within Russia, as it did in 1989, and it is clear the Ukrainians as a whole want independence. The third point is probably out of their reach.
Does this seem right?
Ukraine can probably live without Crimea, which was only added to Ukraine in the 1950s after 200 years as part of Russia/USSR. The realpolitik is they can probably agree not to join Nato since Nato shows no interest in accepting that country.
To end this war, Russia needs a way out that can be presented as a victory of sorts. Ruling out Nato might be presented as demilitarisation, if you squint a bit.
There's a principle here: Russia should have no right to dictate what supranational groups another nation is in, under threat of violence. If a democratic Ukraine decides to join EU or NATO, and those bodies want them, they should be able to.
Nick. Do you think there is any possible future for Ukraine as an independent country, a functioning democracy, and a growing western-oriented economy without the military defeat of Russia and the manifest failure of Putin?
The war is not about the borders of Ukraine. It is not about Crimea and the Donbas. It's not even about Ukrainian membership of NATO. It is about the existence of a democratic Ukraine that is free of a dependency on Russia. All the rest is mere pretext.
There may come a point when Ukraine is sufficiently brutalised by war that they choose a future as a Russian vassal state as a least-worst option compared to continued resistance. Given what is happening in Kharkiv, Mariupol and elsewhere it would be an understandable choice. But that is what is at stake.
I absolutely think there's a possible future for Ukraine as an nidependent country with a functioning democracy and strong western orientation including EU membership which has agreed to be strictly neutral in East-West disputes - the model would be post-WW2 Finland. People used to sneer about "Finlandisation" but they've done well out of it - all the above and zero threat from the big, sometimes bullying, neighbour, what's not to like? Sure, in an ideal world a completely independent nation could choose to join NATO or anything else, but in terms of everyday living agreeing not to be part of a hostile bloc is really not such a big deal - especially when said bloc don't actually want you to join it because you have an ongoing territorial dispute.
Conversely, relying on Putin falling isn't really a guarantee of anything. Say Putin was replaced by Zhirinovsky - would that make Ukraine feel safer?
The problem isn't neutrality IMO. It's agreeing the future of Crimea and the Donbas. That's where emotion takes a grip on both sides.
I really don't agree that Ukraine, even a strictly neutral in foreign policy Ukraine which had conceded Donbas and Crimea to Russia, would be allowed by the Greater Russian Nationalists to join the EU.
We're arguing here over the motivations of other people. This can often be a fool's errand. Though it can be dismissed as mere propaganda, some of the statements made by Putin, and the tract that he wrote on Ukraine, seem to be evidence for my view of how the Greater Russian Nationalists view Ukraine.
I think the only way that Ukraine can ever be independent, and have a modicum of safety, is by following the example of the Baltic States and being members of NATO. Given NATO policy, this means that Ukraine has to defeat Russia militarily first. That may prove not to be possible, in which case history will judge that the leaders of Ukraine who failed to take Ukraine into NATO doomed their country to a failure to escape from Russian dominance.
You are assuming NATO and the EU are pretty unchanging beasts. A Trump24 win and German militarization could make them and their military influence very different within the decade.
It's the job of academics to weigh the evidence and draw conclusions and try to get as close to an objective truth as possible.
I've been involved in several systematic reviews. I'm involved in some at the moment that are on a very political subject and many of the primary evidence shows clear biases towards the pre-existing views of the authors (on both sides). My job is not, even if the media are trumpeting one side (which, to an extent, they are) to try and push the flawed evidence from the other side.
Hayward can, of course, write what he likes. His employer can react to that, within employment law, how they like too. I've no problem with Hayward exposing his position on this (he's doing a lot more in his Tweets than "questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital"). I couldn't care less, to be honest and I'm certainly not calling for him to be dismissed or forced out - I'd prefer him not to be, for what it says about academic freedom, including the freedom to be a tit. His Twitter account seems to be posting in a personal capacity and doesn't seem to higlight his academic work (perhaps he has another professional account). Fine. I was merely pointing out that Stock was forced out for less.
Stock had (seemingly) some support from her employer.
There was an unpleasant campaign organised against her by the student union. Still, that is what students do, they protest with limited understanding. I did in my student days.
A lecturer acquaintance of mine -- a born again Christian who made very unwise public statements about homosexuality & the Bible -- had a campaign waged against him by a student union. But, he is still there.
Without knowing more details, it is hard to comment on the Stock case.
But, the point is Stock jumped. She resigned.
There may be a number of reasons for that -- but one possibility is that she had offers & opportunities elsewhere. For example, she now has a very high media profile, which means she can write books for a wider audience, appear on radio/TV shows and have a public career commenting on gender matters. And she has a lucrative visiting Professorial appointment at University of Austin, and probably can generated further such appointments in the US.
I don't really think I would say that "Stock was forced out".
She could have stayed and ridden out the furore, she had the support of her Vice Chancellor (as I understand it) .
I agree the behaviour of the Student Union was improper, but the University is not responsible for the Student Union.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
On the contrary, I think there is a major lack of progress for the Russian forces at Kyiv, and Ukraine seems to have prevented encirclement from west and south. The counter attacks to the east of Kyiv in the direction of Chernihiv start to make the Russian forces look very exposed, particularly as their supply lines are very insecure.*
I think a disorderly Russian retreat from Kyiv could well be forced over the next 2 weeks, releasing a lot of Ukranian forces for the southern front. Retaking that will be difficult against Russian forces, as the Ukranian forces lack heavy weapons.
* this looks quite damning of Russian fighting capacity. Lightly armed Ukranian volunteer TDF capture a Russian SPG and two tanks.
And you get this searing analysis from Twitter. Or do you have a Tac HQ set up in one of your several spare rooms.
You have absolutely no idea what is happening in Ukraine. You don't know how the overall campaign is going for either side. You post a video of a (supposedly) Russian platoon in a contact and make wild claims about how this shows how the war is going.
You are not alone on PB of course but you should know better. Or perhaps not.
Yes, I am a doctor in the East Midlands with no military background.
However the core facts are out there. After 16 days the Russians have only captured one city (Kherson) while others, even those close to the border and apparently early objectives are still in Ukranian hands, albeit Mariopol is besieged.
The ubiquity of Social Media (though of course one needs to be aware of biases and sources) in this war gives anyone access to knowledge of what is happening at the fronts unprecedented in history.
"After 16 days..."
Fucking hell how long do you think the opposed invasion of a seemingly well-armed country usually takes.
Georgia took 12 days from first contact to fully negotiated peace treaty
I am calling that quote from FT completely wrong and bit rubbish for financial paper on basis it must be more like a flat tax than progressive tax? Do you see my point? I feel so sorry for people struggling, pricesly becuase I think thst quote is wrong. we are not all blessed the same with ability to withstand bills going up. ☹️
“The impact of more expensive fuel sources is compounded in rural parts of the country, which often have an older population, lower wages, poorer public transport links and an ageing housing stock.”
I think we have some posters “off grid”? We’re you talking about heating oil MarqueeMark?
One for politicians to note with elections coming.
Another thing not in the papers much, generational businesses under threat because their business needs to turn on the gas.
Yes, we have heating oil. Also a few Calor bottles for the house oven/annex heating and water. Calor likely to go through the roof by April, the oil supplier can't tell me what the price will be until the day before delivery. However many noughts that has after it, will need some (although Ash Die-back means plenty of wood to heat the rooms (until clean air laws means we can't burn that either).....
OT. An excellent interview with Delia Smith on Radio 4.(starts about 8.40) What a nice person she is.
It's quite life affirming to realise that not everyone in the UK who can get their voices heard are like Patel and Johnson though the visa debacle is going to leave a stain on the UK which will take a long while to wash out.
PS. Worth listening till it finishes. it ends with a beautiful piece by Prokofiev
She's obviously a decent sort but a bit naive I think. As I recall she seem to be saying the time for political parties was over and we now needed leaders, that could lead to some unpleasant outcomes.
The piece right at the end was Stravinsky which was indeed glorious.
That explains why I'm not finding it listening through Prokofiev! I was on the move while listening. Yes she was being naive but give me a heart over a head any day and she was talking about Priti who has neither
So what would both sides have seen as a 'win' before this started? IMV:
Russia: *) A subservient Ukraine under Russia's thumb. *) A big, visible and easy victory for Russia, as they had in Georgia for Crimea. *) Destabilise NATO and the EU.
Ukraine: *) A viable, functioning independent state. *) Potential for EU and NATO membership in the future. *) Preferably, Crimea and the Donbass back.
Russia has lost all three of those, but might, with difficulty, gain the first. They are not going to get a big, visible victory, even if Ukraine collapsed this afternoon. Russian forces have been made to look weak and foolish, winning only by throwing men and machines into the meat grinder. The third point has been lost - NATO and the EU currently appear to be strengthened.
Ukraine still has the possibility of the first two, even if it takes time. In the long term, I think the first is certainly on the cards - even if Russia gains full control over Ukraine, something will give within Russia, as it did in 1989, and it is clear the Ukrainians as a whole want independence. The third point is probably out of their reach.
Does this seem right?
There are a great number of imponderables. How does Ukrainian morale react to Kyiv receiving the Mariupol treatment? Might Western unity fracture when faced with a relatively stable ceasefire that entrenched further Russian gains? How bad could Russian infighting become if Ukraine manages to significantly reverse Russian gains?
I think there is a wider range of possible outcomes than you allow for.
So what would both sides have seen as a 'win' before this started? IMV:
Russia: *) A subservient Ukraine under Russia's thumb. *) A big, visible and easy victory for Russia, as they had in Georgia for Crimea. *) Destabilise NATO and the EU.
Ukraine: *) A viable, functioning independent state. *) Potential for EU and NATO membership in the future. *) Preferably, Crimea and the Donbass back.
Russia has lost all three of those, but might, with difficulty, gain the first. They are not going to get a big, visible victory, even if Ukraine collapsed this afternoon. Russian forces have been made to look weak and foolish, winning only by throwing men and machines into the meat grinder. The third point has been lost - NATO and the EU currently appear to be strengthened.
Ukraine still has the possibility of the first two, even if it takes time. In the long term, I think the first is certainly on the cards - even if Russia gains full control over Ukraine, something will give within Russia, as it did in 1989, and it is clear the Ukrainians as a whole want independence. The third point is probably out of their reach.
Does this seem right?
Ukraine can probably live without Crimea, which was only added to Ukraine in the 1950s after 200 years as part of Russia/USSR. The realpolitik is they can probably agree not to join Nato since Nato shows no interest in accepting that country.
To end this war, Russia needs a way out that can be presented as a victory of sorts. Ruling out Nato might be presented as demilitarisation, if you squint a bit.
There's a principle here: Russia should have no right to dictate what supranational groups another nation is in, under threat of violence. If a democratic Ukraine decides to join EU or NATO, and those bodies want them, they should be able to.
A noble thought but realpolitik rather than principle might save more Ukrainian cities and lives.
So what would both sides have seen as a 'win' before this started? IMV:
Russia: *) A subservient Ukraine under Russia's thumb. *) A big, visible and easy victory for Russia, as they had in Georgia for Crimea. *) Destabilise NATO and the EU.
Ukraine: *) A viable, functioning independent state. *) Potential for EU and NATO membership in the future. *) Preferably, Crimea and the Donbass back.
Russia has lost all three of those, but might, with difficulty, gain the first. They are not going to get a big, visible victory, even if Ukraine collapsed this afternoon. Russian forces have been made to look weak and foolish, winning only by throwing men and machines into the meat grinder. The third point has been lost - NATO and the EU currently appear to be strengthened.
Ukraine still has the possibility of the first two, even if it takes time. In the long term, I think the first is certainly on the cards - even if Russia gains full control over Ukraine, something will give within Russia, as it did in 1989, and it is clear the Ukrainians as a whole want independence. The third point is probably out of their reach.
Does this seem right?
Ukraine can probably live without Crimea, which was only added to Ukraine in the 1950s after 200 years as part of Russia/USSR. The realpolitik is they can probably agree not to join Nato since Nato shows no interest in accepting that country.
To end this war, Russia needs a way out that can be presented as a victory of sorts. Ruling out Nato might be presented as demilitarisation, if you squint a bit.
There's a principle here: Russia should have no right to dictate what supranational groups another nation is in, under threat of violence. If a democratic Ukraine decides to join EU or NATO, and those bodies want them, they should be able to.
Former Polish president or PM (can't remember which) with years of experience of Putin has told the Spectator that he despises the "Western" way of having "off-ramps" to solve issues. Sees it as a sign of weakness of the West.
1. Russian Blitzkrieg isn't what it is cracked up to be. 2. NATO would now have a much greater degree of confidence it could halt a Russian invasion with conventional forces. 3. Linked to that, our defensive weaponry has proved a very cheap way to kill expensive Russian kit. 4. Russia will be putting a lot of R&D into taking down drones - of any shape or size. And probably hovercraft-based artillery. 5. Comedians can make superb war-time leaders. 6. Ukrainians are world-class internet trolls. 7. Ukrainian farmers rock!
Covid provides a striking example of how clever, diligent amateurs can use the Net/social media to make analyses and discoveries apparently beyond the wit (or willingness) of professionals
The professionals told us a lab leak was impossible. “A racist conspiracy theory”. The *professionals* actually prohibited us from even talking about a potential lab leak explanation for a year. But a bunch of amateurs got online and dug out the uncomfortable facts until the professionals were forced to admit Yes, OK, it could be true
“For most of last year, the idea that the coronavirus pandemic could have been triggered by a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China, was largely dismissed as a racist conspiracy theory of the alt-right. The Washington Post in early 2020 accused Senator Tom Cotton of "fanning the embers of a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts." CNN jumped in with "How to debunk coronavirus conspiracy theories and misinformation from friends and family." Most other mainstream outlets, from The New York Times ("fringe theory") to NPR ("Scientists debunk lab accident theory"), were equally dismissive.”
But then that all changed, because of
“A group of amateur sleuths, with few resources except curiosity and a willingness to spend days combing the internet for clues. Throughout the pandemic, about two dozen or so correspondents, many anonymous, working independently from many different countries, have uncovered obscure documents, pieced together the information, and explained it all in long threads on Twitter—in a kind of open-source, collective brainstorming session that was part forensic science, part citizen journalism, and entirely new. They call themselves DRASTIC, for Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19.”
The point remains, without amateurs and their “lightly educated guesswork” we wouldn’t even be having this vital discussion. We’d still be in 2020 and literally prevented from talking about it on Facebook
If you like amateur sleuths you should watch Don't F**k with Cats on Netflix.
As for the lab leak theory or aliens it's likely bollocks and illustrative of how you can stay down a rabbit hole on the web.
It's the job of academics to weigh the evidence and draw conclusions and try to get as close to an objective truth as possible.
I've been involved in several systematic reviews. I'm involved in some at the moment that are on a very political subject and many of the primary evidence shows clear biases towards the pre-existing views of the authors (on both sides). My job is not, even if the media are trumpeting one side (which, to an extent, they are) to try and push the flawed evidence from the other side.
Hayward can, of course, write what he likes. His employer can react to that, within employment law, how they like too. I've no problem with Hayward exposing his position on this (he's doing a lot more in his Tweets than "questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital"). I couldn't care less, to be honest and I'm certainly not calling for him to be dismissed or forced out - I'd prefer him not to be, for what it says about academic freedom, including the freedom to be a tit. His Twitter account seems to be posting in a personal capacity and doesn't seem to higlight his academic work (perhaps he has another professional account). Fine. I was merely pointing out that Stock was forced out for less.
Stock had (seemingly) some support from her employer.
There was an unpleasant campaign organised against her by the student union. Still, that is what students do, they protest with limited understanding. I did in my student days.
A lecturer acquaintance of mine -- a born again Christian who made very unwise public statements about homosexuality & the Bible -- had a campaign waged against him by a student union. But, he is still there.
Without knowing more details, it is hard to comment on the Stock case.
But, the point is Stock jumped. She resigned.
There may be a number of reasons for that -- but one possibility is that she had offers & opportunities elsewhere. For example, she now has a very high media profile, which means she can write books for a wider audience, appear on radio/TV shows and have a public career commenting on gender matters. And she has a lucrative visiting Professorial appointment at University of Austin, and probably can generated further such appointments in the US.
I don't really think I would say that "Stock was forced out".
She could have stayed and ridden out the furore, she had the support of her Vice Chancellor (as I understand it) .
I agree the behaviour of the Student Union was improper, but the University is not responsible for the Student Union.
The problem as I see it is that these attacks on academics are mob rule, they should definetly be heavily resisted. Adoping Russian talking points on twitter is unwise but not the same as being in the pay of Putin's Russia. It is good that universities generally protect academics, but these mob attacks undoubtedly have an effect on other areas of student life.
Going to university as a student looks to me like a pretty boring experience nowadays. It seems like it would be too dangerous to try and engage in meaningful discourse on certain topics.
In theory: there probably is a way to "win" a nuclear war with Russia, by the way.
Develop a "star wars" defence shield to cover Europe and the continental USA with satellites, drones and networked AI and be in a position to shoot down their missiles with interceptors/phalanxes etc. That's needed first. It needs to be bloody good.
Then launch a massive first strike on all known Russian nuclear sites and silos (low yield weapons only) - I bet Western intelligence knows where they all are - and leave all their major cities/population sites alone. That'd probably take out 80%+ of their capability.
They'd hit back straight away with 8-9 operational subs with a second strike, and probably get away 300-400 nukes, and some wouldn't fire or miss, but the "star wars" shield then takes out 95%+ of those, and then the NATO navies basically know where the submarines are and then take them out.
Net result: only about 20-25 nukes hit the West with 150kT yields whereas the Russian nuclear capability is entirely gone. And then NATO conventional forces clean up.
Russia utterly defeated (for good). Sure the West would probably take casualties in the low millions but it still would definitely have won and 98%+ of the European and US/Canadian population would survive.
(For clarity: I am *not* advocating this - especially since we don't yet have a star wars shield yet - just arguing that lazily assuming that the inevitable result of this at any point in the future is the end of humanity is perhaps a tad overblown)
Indeed. Does potentially show a lack of judgement* though, doesn't it? Although for many of us the decision is made at an early age, if really a conscious decision at all...
Sweden planning to cater for over 210,000 Ukrainian refugees by the summer.
That's in the same ball park as Ireland's planning, relative to their respective populations. On an even basis across the EU it equates to 9 million Ukrainian refugees. If the UK were to take a similar number of refugees we would be looking at 1.3 million.
Very clear that HMG is desperate to avoid taking even one-tenth of that number.
Yes, you need to analyse the contribution of the various states in proportion to their populations. Sweden is only 10 million people.
We have been incredibly generous to refugees from many, many conflicts. Chile, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Syria spring to mind, but hundreds of others too.
In theory: there probably is a way to "win" a nuclear war with Russia, by the way.
Develop a "star wars" defence shield to cover Europe and the continental USA with satellites, drones and networked AI and be in a position to shoot down their missiles with interceptors/phalanxes etc. That's needed first. It needs to be bloody good.
Then launch a massive first strike on all known Russian nuclear sites and silos (low yield weapons only) - I bet Western intelligence knows where they all are - and leave all their major cities/population sites alone. That'd probably take out 80%+ of their capability.
They'd hit back straight away with 8-9 operational subs with a second strike, and probably get away 300-400 nukes, and some wouldn't fire or miss, but the "star wars" shield then takes out 95%+ of those, and then the NATO navies basically know where the submarines are and then take them out.
Net result: only about 20-25 nukes hit the West with 150kT yields whereas the Russian nuclear capability is entirely gone. And then NATO conventional forces clean up.
Russia utterly defeated (for good). Sure the West would probably take casualties in the low millions but it still would definitely have won and 98%+ of the European and US/Canadian population would survive.
(For clarity: I am *not* advocating this - especially since we don't yet have a star wars shield yet - just arguing that lazily assuming that the inevitable result of this at any point in the future is the end of humanity is perhaps a tad overblown)
Well, yes. There’s a reason Russia opposes moves towards missile defence so strongly (despite having its own around Moscow).
Trigger warning - this has caused great offence in some Nat circles - for an article in a Student rag, no less, for which an apology has been extracted. Principle offence? The author is an English student at St Andrew’s.
Moral of the story, “don’t dish it out if you can’t take it…..”
I like to think of England and Scotland as a middle-aged couple living in the suburbs. The mutual hatred is palpable. They did a pretty good job with the children—the world’s sexiest Empire, modern Industry, and parliamentary democracy—but now the children are gone, and all that’s left is a menopausal Scotland, England (who’s having a midlife crisis), and the family dog, Wales. The cracks are beginning to show: England has just bought a Harley Davidson but no crash helmet (Brexit), and Scotland has turned to pills (Glasgow). Something has got to give—it’s been separate bedrooms since 1997 (or Devolution as they call it). Somebody needs to bite the bullet and move out. Scotland, incidentally, thinks it should be her: she wants to run away and join her French lover, Emmanuel McRon, in the sensual paradise of a Brussels Travelodge. Ideally, Scotland would quite like to fleece England for all he’s worth and leave him paying the mortgage (National Debt). England, meanwhile, is being a bit of a mug and still tries to make an effort once in a while—although Michael Gove in an Aberdeen nightclub didn’t really have the intended aphrodisiac effect.
In theory: there probably is a way to "win" a nuclear war with Russia, by the way.
Develop a "star wars" defence shield to cover Europe and the continental USA with satellites, drones and networked AI and be in a position to shoot down their missiles with interceptors/phalanxes etc. That's needed first. It needs to be bloody good.
Then launch a massive first strike on all known Russian nuclear sites and silos (low yield weapons only) - I bet Western intelligence knows where they all are - and leave all their major cities/population sites alone. That'd probably take out 80%+ of their capability.
They'd hit back straight away with 8-9 operational subs with a second strike, and probably get away 300-400 nukes, and some wouldn't fire or miss, but the "star wars" shield then takes out 95%+ of those, and then the NATO navies basically know where the submarines are and then take them out.
Net result: only about 20-25 nukes hit the West with 150kT yields whereas the Russian nuclear capability is entirely gone. And then NATO conventional forces clean up.
Russia utterly defeated (for good). Sure the West would probably take casualties in the low millions but it still would definitely have won and 98%+ of the European and US/Canadian population would survive.
(For clarity: I am *not* advocating this - especially since we don't yet have a star wars shield yet - just arguing that lazily assuming that the inevitable result of this at any point in the future is the end of humanity is perhaps a tad overblown)
Well, yes. There’s a reason Russia opposes moves towards missile defence so strongly (despite having its own around Moscow).
It was the United States that withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, under President GW Bush.
Dunno, but the woman pictured seems to be in the Tory wankbank for reasons unknown to me.
I think the most revealing thing about this post is the evidence it provides for the existence of something truly horrendous to contemplate - the SNP supporters' "wankbank"
OT. An excellent interview with Delia Smith on Radio 4.(starts about 8.40) What a nice person she is.
It's quite life affirming to realise that not everyone in the UK who can get their voices heard are like Patel and Johnson though the visa debacle is going to leave a stain on the UK which will take a long while to wash out.
PS. Worth listening till it finishes. it ends with a beautiful piece by Prokofiev
She's obviously a decent sort but a bit naive I think. As I recall she seem to be saying the time for political parties was over and we now needed leaders, that could lead to some unpleasant outcomes.
The piece right at the end was Stravinsky which was indeed glorious.
That explains why I'm not finding it listening through Prokofiev! I was on the move while listening. Yes she was being naive but give me a heart over a head any day and she was talking about Priti who has neither
I think it was from the Firebird if that helps narrow down the search.
Develop a "star wars" defence shield to cover Europe and the continental USA with satellites, drones and networked AI and be in a position to shoot down their missiles with interceptors/phalanxes etc. That's needed first. It needs to be bloody good.
How possible is it to build a system that could take out >95% of ~400 nuclear missiles?
Indeed. Does potentially show a lack of judgement* though, doesn't it? Although for many of us the decision is made at an early age, if really a conscious decision at all...
*I also a Gooner
My brother also supports the Arsenal. He has four children. One of the twins somehow decided to support Spurs. No idea how that happened, but you'd suspect he's the one most likely to be leading a resistance cell after the Russians have occupied Britain.
It's the job of academics to weigh the evidence and draw conclusions and try to get as close to an objective truth as possible.
I've been involved in several systematic reviews. I'm involved in some at the moment that are on a very political subject and many of the primary evidence shows clear biases towards the pre-existing views of the authors (on both sides). My job is not, even if the media are trumpeting one side (which, to an extent, they are) to try and push the flawed evidence from the other side.
Hayward can, of course, write what he likes. His employer can react to that, within employment law, how they like too. I've no problem with Hayward exposing his position on this (he's doing a lot more in his Tweets than "questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital"). I couldn't care less, to be honest and I'm certainly not calling for him to be dismissed or forced out - I'd prefer him not to be, for what it says about academic freedom, including the freedom to be a tit. His Twitter account seems to be posting in a personal capacity and doesn't seem to higlight his academic work (perhaps he has another professional account). Fine. I was merely pointing out that Stock was forced out for less.
Stock had (seemingly) some support from her employer.
There was an unpleasant campaign organised against her by the student union. Still, that is what students do, they protest with limited understanding. I did in my student days.
A lecturer acquaintance of mine -- a born again Christian who made very unwise public statements about homosexuality & the Bible -- had a campaign waged against him by a student union. But, he is still there.
Without knowing more details, it is hard to comment on the Stock case.
But, the point is Stock jumped. She resigned.
There may be a number of reasons for that -- but one possibility is that she had offers & opportunities elsewhere. For example, she now has a very high media profile, which means she can write books for a wider audience, appear on radio/TV shows and have a public career commenting on gender matters. And she has a lucrative visiting Professorial appointment at University of Austin, and probably can generated further such appointments in the US.
I don't really think I would say that "Stock was forced out".
She could have stayed and ridden out the furore, she had the support of her Vice Chancellor (as I understand it) .
I agree the behaviour of the Student Union was improper, but the University is not responsible for the Student Union.
The problem as I see it is that these attacks on academics are mob rule, they should definetly be heavily resisted. Adoping Russian talking points on twitter is unwise but not the same as being in the pay of Putin's Russia. It is good that universities generally protect academics, but these mob attacks undoubtedly have an effect on other areas of student life.
Going to university as a student looks to me like a pretty boring experience nowadays. It seems like it would be too dangerous to try and engage in meaningful discourse on certain topics.
Sounds like someone been drinking the alt-right kool-aid. Universities are fine - certain students and academics have been and always will be numpties.
If Rishi has any political sense he will suspend the NI increase. He then needs an an emergency budget in a few weeks. Government should announce full scale review of economic situation for an Autumn budget. In light of changed world an across government strategic review that will include energy supply and defence. That is is what is needed and is also good politics.
Rishi will not suspend the NI increase for several reasons, not least NHS and social care needs more money and this increase becomes a separate tax next year on pay slips affirming the extra funding
It is not as unpopular as some think with yesterday's yougov having 43% in favour, 45% against
It also creates a problem for Starmer going forward as he has opposed it and has not put forward a long term alternative
I understand Rishi is to announce a wartime budget whatever that means ,but as far as your strategic review of energy supply is concerned Boris has said he will announce a new transitional energy policy with Kwarteng before the end of the month and expect to see granting of more domestic licences for production of our own oil and gas, onshore wind farms, and maybe Cambo oil field
I am not expecting fracking to get the green light but do not ruie it out
I predict an angry response from the green lobby but we have to accept it is idiotic to close off these areas of domestic self reliance to obtain them from importing not just from Russia but elsewhere
Labour may well face quite a dilemma as this is a big change from their net zero aspiration
This is one of the many challenges facing the country post this war, even if the war has concluded
It's the job of academics to weigh the evidence and draw conclusions and try to get as close to an objective truth as possible.
I've been involved in several systematic reviews. I'm involved in some at the moment that are on a very political subject and many of the primary evidence shows clear biases towards the pre-existing views of the authors (on both sides). My job is not, even if the media are trumpeting one side (which, to an extent, they are) to try and push the flawed evidence from the other side.
Hayward can, of course, write what he likes. His employer can react to that, within employment law, how they like too. I've no problem with Hayward exposing his position on this (he's doing a lot more in his Tweets than "questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital"). I couldn't care less, to be honest and I'm certainly not calling for him to be dismissed or forced out - I'd prefer him not to be, for what it says about academic freedom, including the freedom to be a tit. His Twitter account seems to be posting in a personal capacity and doesn't seem to higlight his academic work (perhaps he has another professional account). Fine. I was merely pointing out that Stock was forced out for less.
Stock had (seemingly) some support from her employer.
There was an unpleasant campaign organised against her by the student union. Still, that is what students do, they protest with limited understanding. I did in my student days.
A lecturer acquaintance of mine -- a born again Christian who made very unwise public statements about homosexuality & the Bible -- had a campaign waged against him by a student union. But, he is still there.
Without knowing more details, it is hard to comment on the Stock case.
But, the point is Stock jumped. She resigned.
There may be a number of reasons for that -- but one possibility is that she had offers & opportunities elsewhere. For example, she now has a very high media profile, which means she can write books for a wider audience, appear on radio/TV shows and have a public career commenting on gender matters. And she has a lucrative visiting Professorial appointment at University of Austin, and probably can generated further such appointments in the US.
I don't really think I would say that "Stock was forced out".
She could have stayed and ridden out the furore, she had the support of her Vice Chancellor (as I understand it) .
I agree the behaviour of the Student Union was improper, but the University is not responsible for the Student Union.
We're going down a bit of a rabbit hole as we're comparing the Stock situation to an (as far as I'm aware) entirely hypothetical student/institution backlash against Hayward. Comparison started by me, of course. You're right the university gave Stock at least some support. UCU less so. Debate about whether the universty had power to do more, or not. I can't comment on the reasons for her deciding to resign.
If visiting positions can be 'lucrative' then I'd better renegotiate mine, for which I don't get paid a penny! Maybe a US thing? We don't routinely pay our visiting people, unless they're actually doing some teaching in which case it's a per hour thing, just a way of them getting access to university facilities, generally. Mine, for example, was to continue collaborating on data held by my old employer.
There are differences between countries on this kind of thing. Our UK advisory board members normally only get expenses, but we've got an international board for a project at the moment and they are all getting paid - there was a clear expectation on their behalf that this was paid work, which is not unreasonable.
It's the job of academics to weigh the evidence and draw conclusions and try to get as close to an objective truth as possible.
I've been involved in several systematic reviews. I'm involved in some at the moment that are on a very political subject and many of the primary evidence shows clear biases towards the pre-existing views of the authors (on both sides). My job is not, even if the media are trumpeting one side (which, to an extent, they are) to try and push the flawed evidence from the other side.
Hayward can, of course, write what he likes. His employer can react to that, within employment law, how they like too. I've no problem with Hayward exposing his position on this (he's doing a lot more in his Tweets than "questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital"). I couldn't care less, to be honest and I'm certainly not calling for him to be dismissed or forced out - I'd prefer him not to be, for what it says about academic freedom, including the freedom to be a tit. His Twitter account seems to be posting in a personal capacity and doesn't seem to higlight his academic work (perhaps he has another professional account). Fine. I was merely pointing out that Stock was forced out for less.
Stock had (seemingly) some support from her employer.
There was an unpleasant campaign organised against her by the student union. Still, that is what students do, they protest with limited understanding. I did in my student days.
A lecturer acquaintance of mine -- a born again Christian who made very unwise public statements about homosexuality & the Bible -- had a campaign waged against him by a student union. But, he is still there.
Without knowing more details, it is hard to comment on the Stock case.
But, the point is Stock jumped. She resigned.
There may be a number of reasons for that -- but one possibility is that she had offers & opportunities elsewhere. For example, she now has a very high media profile, which means she can write books for a wider audience, appear on radio/TV shows and have a public career commenting on gender matters. And she has a lucrative visiting Professorial appointment at University of Austin, and probably can generated further such appointments in the US.
I don't really think I would say that "Stock was forced out".
She could have stayed and ridden out the furore, she had the support of her Vice Chancellor (as I understand it) .
I agree the behaviour of the Student Union was improper, but the University is not responsible for the Student Union.
The problem as I see it is that these attacks on academics are mob rule, they should definetly be heavily resisted. Adoping Russian talking points on twitter is unwise but not the same as being in the pay of Putin's Russia. It is good that universities generally protect academics, but these mob attacks undoubtedly have an effect on other areas of student life.
Going to university as a student looks to me like a pretty boring experience nowadays. It seems like it would be too dangerous to try and engage in meaningful discourse on certain topics.
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Your last two options have far too high a probability assigned. Biden has a cool head and won’t get dragged in. And the aliens aren’t gonna stop shit, not like they’ve done anything to stop human wars up to now.
The last two are, of course, a bit of a joke. The aliens will probably just laugh and a strategic nuclear exchange is most unlikely (0.1%? Still enough to jangle the nerves)
But there is a higher chance of the war spreading across Europe/MENA and becoming quite apocalyptic. Cf Serbia, Syria
5%?
History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. High food and energy prices is going to have consequences somewhere. Arab Spring 2.0 or something else?
Syria and Libya in particular, Putin seems to be leaving a bit of a vacuum. Probably we’ll be hearing a lot about ISIS again before the end of the year. What a mess.
I met an old friend yesterday, for a drink. Haven’t seen him since covid kicked off
He has gone from total skepticism to complete conviction that we are being visited by aliens
He’s an interesting case because he’s eccentric, and sometimes prone to mad beliefs - so I should dismiss his views? And yet he is also highly intelligent and has the kind of open mind that sometimes sees things no one else can. So I might believe him?
At the moment I’m in a more skeptical mood. A mixture of America post plague madness and a conspiracy to freak the Chinese seems more likely than alien probes/craft
But I’m not ruling out Martians entirely
You would do yourself a favour if you stopped going to these weird cult meetings.
If Rishi has any political sense he will suspend the NI increase. He then needs an an emergency budget in a few weeks. Government should announce full scale review of economic situation for an Autumn budget. In light of changed world an across government strategic review that will include energy supply and defence. That is is what is needed and is also good politics.
Rishi will not suspend the NI increase for several reasons, not least NHS and social care needs more money and this increase becomes a separate tax next year on pay slips affirming the extra funding
It is not as unpopular as some think with yesterday's yougov having 43% in favour, 45% against
It also creates a problem for Starmer going forward as he has opposed it and has not put forward a long term alternative
I understand Rishi is to announce a wartime budget whatever that means ,but as far as your strategic review of energy supply is concerned Boris has said he will announce a new transitional energy policy with Kwarteng before the end of the month and expect to see granting of more domestic licences for production of our own oil and gas, onshore wind farms, and maybe Cambo oil field
I am not expecting fracking to get the green light but do not ruie it out
I predict an angry response from the green lobby but we have to accept it is idiotic to close off these areas of domestic self reliance to obtain them from importing not just from Russia but elsewhere
Labour may well face quite a dilemma as this is a big change from their net zero aspiration
This is one of the many challenges facing the country post this war, even if the war has concluded
It’s going to be depressing because no one is going to bother with nuance. It’ll all be “how can you issue new licences when you claim to want to hit net zero” vs. “thank God no more green crap” with no space for the moderate “we need to hit net zero, but get there sustainably and without arming Russia”.
If Rishi has any political sense he will suspend the NI increase. He then needs an an emergency budget in a few weeks. Government should announce full scale review of economic situation for an Autumn budget. In light of changed world an across government strategic review that will include energy supply and defence. That is is what is needed and is also good politics.
Rishi will not suspend the NI increase for several reasons, not least NHS and social care needs more money and this increase becomes a separate tax next year on pay slips affirming the extra funding
It is not as unpopular as some think with yesterday's yougov having 43% in favour, 45% against
It also creates a problem for Starmer going forward as he has opposed it and has not put forward a long term alternative
I understand Rishi is to announce a wartime budget whatever that means ,but as far as your strategic review of energy supply is concerned Boris has said he will announce a new transitional energy policy with Kwarteng before the end of the month and expect to see granting of more domestic licences for production of our own oil and gas, onshore wind farms, and maybe Cambo oil field
I am not expecting fracking to get the green light but do not ruie it out
I predict an angry response from the green lobby but we have to accept it is idiotic to close off these areas of domestic self reliance to obtain them from importing not just from Russia but elsewhere
Labour may well face quite a dilemma as this is a big change from their net zero aspiration
This is one of the many challenges facing the country post this war, even if the war has concluded
If more onshore wind farms survives contact with lobbying then that would be an interesting signal, as it would be indicative of a government response along the lines of, "Oh shit! What do we do now?" rather than one which seeks to use the crisis for short-term political advantage.
As a Green I would always press for more to be done in terms of renewable energy - where's the tidal lagoons? - but drilling for more North Sea oil as a temporary expedient becomes more believable, and grudgingly acceptable, if it's genuinely accompanied by choices, such as more onshore wind farms, which will be equally unpalatable for others with a different view to me.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Your last two options have far too high a probability assigned. Biden has a cool head and won’t get dragged in. And the aliens aren’t gonna stop shit, not like they’ve done anything to stop human wars up to now.
The last two are, of course, a bit of a joke. The aliens will probably just laugh and a strategic nuclear exchange is most unlikely (0.1%? Still enough to jangle the nerves)
But there is a higher chance of the war spreading across Europe/MENA and becoming quite apocalyptic. Cf Serbia, Syria
5%?
History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. High food and energy prices is going to have consequences somewhere. Arab Spring 2.0 or something else?
Syria and Libya in particular, Putin seems to be leaving a bit of a vacuum. Probably we’ll be hearing a lot about ISIS again before the end of the year. What a mess.
I met an old friend yesterday, for a drink. Haven’t seen him since covid kicked off
He has gone from total skepticism to complete conviction that we are being visited by aliens
He’s an interesting case because he’s eccentric, and sometimes prone to mad beliefs - so I should dismiss his views? And yet he is also highly intelligent and has the kind of open mind that sometimes sees things no one else can. So I might believe him?
At the moment I’m in a more skeptical mood. A mixture of America post plague madness and a conspiracy to freak the Chinese seems more likely than alien probes/craft
But I’m not ruling out Martians entirely
You would do yourself a favour if you stopped going to these weird cult meetings.
Is the alien-visitation stuff still a thing? I thought it was now accepted that that curious and brief phenomenon of 2021 was simply a group of UFOlogists cleverly playing the media like a fiddle.
Develop a "star wars" defence shield to cover Europe and the continental USA with satellites, drones and networked AI and be in a position to shoot down their missiles with interceptors/phalanxes etc. That's needed first. It needs to be bloody good.
How possible is it to build a system that could take out >95% of ~400 nuclear missiles?
Probably very. We know where they launch from. We very likely know what the targets are. They have a flight time of 8-15 minutes. They are extremely hot and emit a very clear target to lock onto for that time. Nowadays we have far more sophisticated satellite networks and AI than we did in the 1980s, when this was first mooted, and many more interceptors capable of super hypersonic flight.
So yes, it is possible. I suspect the main obstacles are budgetary and political, not technological. But, if you have a nutcase, you need to prepare to defend against the nutcase.
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Your last two options have far too high a probability assigned. Biden has a cool head and won’t get dragged in. And the aliens aren’t gonna stop shit, not like they’ve done anything to stop human wars up to now.
The last two are, of course, a bit of a joke. The aliens will probably just laugh and a strategic nuclear exchange is most unlikely (0.1%? Still enough to jangle the nerves)
But there is a higher chance of the war spreading across Europe/MENA and becoming quite apocalyptic. Cf Serbia, Syria
5%?
History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. High food and energy prices is going to have consequences somewhere. Arab Spring 2.0 or something else?
Syria and Libya in particular, Putin seems to be leaving a bit of a vacuum. Probably we’ll be hearing a lot about ISIS again before the end of the year. What a mess.
I met an old friend yesterday, for a drink. Haven’t seen him since covid kicked off
He has gone from total skepticism to complete conviction that we are being visited by aliens
He’s an interesting case because he’s eccentric, and sometimes prone to mad beliefs - so I should dismiss his views? And yet he is also highly intelligent and has the kind of open mind that sometimes sees things no one else can. So I might believe him?
At the moment I’m in a more skeptical mood. A mixture of America post plague madness and a conspiracy to freak the Chinese seems more likely than alien probes/craft
But I’m not ruling out Martians entirely
You would do yourself a favour if you stopped going to these weird cult meetings.
Well, maybe, but we're the ones who would be the poorer if he stopped posting on PB.
If Rishi has any political sense he will suspend the NI increase. He then needs an an emergency budget in a few weeks. Government should announce full scale review of economic situation for an Autumn budget. In light of changed world an across government strategic review that will include energy supply and defence. That is is what is needed and is also good politics.
Rishi will not suspend the NI increase for several reasons, not least NHS and social care needs more money and this increase becomes a separate tax next year on pay slips affirming the extra funding
It is not as unpopular as some think with yesterday's yougov having 43% in favour, 45% against
It also creates a problem for Starmer going forward as he has opposed it and has not put forward a long term alternative
I understand Rishi is to announce a wartime budget whatever that means ,but as far as your strategic review of energy supply is concerned Boris has said he will announce a new transitional energy policy with Kwarteng before the end of the month and expect to see granting of more domestic licences for production of our own oil and gas, onshore wind farms, and maybe Cambo oil field
I am not expecting fracking to get the green light but do not ruie it out
I predict an angry response from the green lobby but we have to accept it is idiotic to close off these areas of domestic self reliance to obtain them from importing not just from Russia but elsewhere
Labour may well face quite a dilemma as this is a big change from their net zero aspiration
This is one of the many challenges facing the country post this war, even if the war has concluded
If more onshore wind farms survives contact with lobbying then that would be an interesting signal, as it would be indicative of a government response along the lines of, "Oh shit! What do we do now?" rather than one which seeks to use the crisis for short-term political advantage.
As a Green I would always press for more to be done in terms of renewable energy - where's the tidal lagoons? - but drilling for more North Sea oil as a temporary expedient becomes more believable, and grudgingly acceptable, if it's genuinely accompanied by choices, such as more onshore wind farms, which will be equally unpalatable for others with a different view to me.
I have long since agreed about tidal lagoons, especially as there is one already designed for our area
I remember how my late father in law used to comment on the problems with the power of the tides in the Pentland Firth as, even on full power, his fishing boat would on occasions go backwards to the land, and if this power, which is constant, could be harnessed it would be fantastic
This is interesting given they likely had some sort of authorisation ?
Just watched Russia’s main political talk show with notorious propagandist Soloviev (Mar 9). Couldn’t believe my ears. Two hardcore pro-Putin guests - Shaknazarov and Bagdasarov - acknowledged the impact of sanctions, military failures, and called for an end to the invasion. https://twitter.com/MaximAlyukov/status/1502337993012658177
The thread seems like it's laying the groundwork for a Russian climbdown. I suspect that we'll go back to the status quo ante bellum minus some of the Russian reserves being diverted to rebuilding Ukraine. Putin is realising how badly he miscalculated.
Yes, they don't appear to be calling for withdrawal, but for declaring victory by solidifying the grip on the Donbas, and settling for Ukrainian neutrality without further advances. Which is pretty much what most of us have been suggesting is the outline of a plausible settlement, and they could probably have got without a war, so it'd certainly count as a deserved disaster for Putin.
At the same time, though, the military do seem to be making some progress now, and the air strikes are reaching out further into the west. The Ukrainian successes have an anecdotal flavour, while they're losing ground a few km a day. It's hard to read.
This guy publishes quite a good situation map each day. Quite good level of detail too, down to individual units being identified:
In summary it looks as if the Russian encirclement of Kyiv has stalled, and even been reversed in places, with significant Ukranian counterattacks to the east of the city. The Russians don't seem to have made progress on other bits of the northern front.
On the Southern front there are seems more Russian gains on the Donbas area, and an attempt to consolidate south of the Dneiper, with Mariopol being besieged rather than assaulted. The attack from land and sea on Odesa still hasn't materialised. Clearly logistics remain a major problem everywhere. Food is running out in Kherson for civilians as well as occupation troops.
I think the Russian war aims have been reduced to expanding in the Donbas and controlling the Kherson Oblast and Azov Coast. That is something they could paint as victory, but a ceasefire on that basis is not likely to be acceptable to Ukraine.
I’m not sure where Nick is getting his view from that the Russians are slowly winning this. You highlighted the piece from Jomini whose analysis is that the Russians are not really getting anywhere and that seems to be backed up by most other views. Russian equipment losses are running at over 3x Ukrainian according to Oryx.
Who honestly knows. @viewcode alerted us a while ago to this guys youtube commentry, which at face value seems very convincing.
Also there is Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry. He concluded on Wednesday that the situation is basically hopeless and Ukraine should pretty much stop fighting; as Russia will just resort to using increasingly powerful bombs to pulverise Ukraine, in the face of difficulties with the ground war.
Of course these are just youtube talking heads. But the overriding analysis is that Russia is gradually moving towards an encirclement of and siege of Kiev by way of brutal, heavy bombardment.
Remember Ukraine is a big country and we are only 16 days in.
What matters is that Russia has overwhelming military force.
What is your actual evidence for this, though? Beyond claims about the theoretical strength of Russian conventional forces?
If you’re talking about their nuclear capability then sure, although quite how relevant that is for taking and holding Ukraine is debatable. But in terms of the practical strength of the conventional forces available to them on Ukraine, why are you convinced?
The siege of Mariupol is rather compelling evidence. If the Ukrainians had the capability they would surely have launched a major attempt to lift the siege.
Similarly, the Russians have been able to advance on Kyiv from two directions, and the advance from the east has been over a considerable distance given reported problems with Russian logistics. Again, given the evidence being presented of poor morale, poor communications, deficient tactics, etc, the only explanation for such an advance is overwhelming strength.
It might be that, over time, Ukraine is able to inflict losses that erode this strength, but it does not do any good to deny the evidence of overall Russian military superiority over the Ukrainians at present.
Certainly the Russians have the advantage in heavy weaponry, which is why the Ukranians are avoiding set piece battles and waging partisan type attritional warfare, and dug in positions around cities.
The decisive question is how long each side can sustain the fight. For the Ukranians it is existential, so like the Soviets in 1941 they will fight on. The Russians meanwhile have limited capacity to replace losses and are being economically strangled so need a shorter war.
A lot of Ukrainian cities will be a wasteland afterwards, but it likely will become stalemate in the months ahead, and ultimately Russian defeat.
My educated guesswork says Russia will get something it can present as a “win”. Either a neutralised (and flattened) Ukraine plus bits of the country absorbed into Russia OR a new Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. Russia is too big and this war is too existential for Putin. They HAVE to win so they will
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Your last two options have far too high a probability assigned. Biden has a cool head and won’t get dragged in. And the aliens aren’t gonna stop shit, not like they’ve done anything to stop human wars up to now.
The last two are, of course, a bit of a joke. The aliens will probably just laugh and a strategic nuclear exchange is most unlikely (0.1%? Still enough to jangle the nerves)
But there is a higher chance of the war spreading across Europe/MENA and becoming quite apocalyptic. Cf Serbia, Syria
5%?
History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. High food and energy prices is going to have consequences somewhere. Arab Spring 2.0 or something else?
Syria and Libya in particular, Putin seems to be leaving a bit of a vacuum. Probably we’ll be hearing a lot about ISIS again before the end of the year. What a mess.
I met an old friend yesterday, for a drink. Haven’t seen him since covid kicked off
He has gone from total skepticism to complete conviction that we are being visited by aliens
He’s an interesting case because he’s eccentric, and sometimes prone to mad beliefs - so I should dismiss his views? And yet he is also highly intelligent and has the kind of open mind that sometimes sees things no one else can. So I might believe him?
At the moment I’m in a more skeptical mood. A mixture of America post plague madness and a conspiracy to freak the Chinese seems more likely than alien probes/craft
But I’m not ruling out Martians entirely
You would do yourself a favour if you stopped going to these weird cult meetings.
It's the job of academics to weigh the evidence and draw conclusions and try to get as close to an objective truth as possible.
I've been involved in several systematic reviews. I'm involved in some at the moment that are on a very political subject and many of the primary evidence shows clear biases towards the pre-existing views of the authors (on both sides). My job is not, even if the media are trumpeting one side (which, to an extent, they are) to try and push the flawed evidence from the other side.
Hayward can, of course, write what he likes. His employer can react to that, within employment law, how they like too. I've no problem with Hayward exposing his position on this (he's doing a lot more in his Tweets than "questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital"). I couldn't care less, to be honest and I'm certainly not calling for him to be dismissed or forced out - I'd prefer him not to be, for what it says about academic freedom, including the freedom to be a tit. His Twitter account seems to be posting in a personal capacity and doesn't seem to higlight his academic work (perhaps he has another professional account). Fine. I was merely pointing out that Stock was forced out for less.
Stock had (seemingly) some support from her employer.
There was an unpleasant campaign organised against her by the student union. Still, that is what students do, they protest with limited understanding. I did in my student days.
A lecturer acquaintance of mine -- a born again Christian who made very unwise public statements about homosexuality & the Bible -- had a campaign waged against him by a student union. But, he is still there.
Without knowing more details, it is hard to comment on the Stock case.
But, the point is Stock jumped. She resigned.
There may be a number of reasons for that -- but one possibility is that she had offers & opportunities elsewhere. For example, she now has a very high media profile, which means she can write books for a wider audience, appear on radio/TV shows and have a public career commenting on gender matters. And she has a lucrative visiting Professorial appointment at University of Austin, and probably can generated further such appointments in the US.
I don't really think I would say that "Stock was forced out".
She could have stayed and ridden out the furore, she had the support of her Vice Chancellor (as I understand it) .
I agree the behaviour of the Student Union was improper, but the University is not responsible for the Student Union.
The problem as I see it is that these attacks on academics are mob rule, they should definetly be heavily resisted. Adoping Russian talking points on twitter is unwise but not the same as being in the pay of Putin's Russia. It is good that universities generally protect academics, but these mob attacks undoubtedly have an effect on other areas of student life.
Going to university as a student looks to me like a pretty boring experience nowadays. It seems like it would be too dangerous to try and engage in meaningful discourse on certain topics.
Sounds like someone been drinking the alt-right kool-aid. Universities are fine - certain students and academics have been and always will be numpties.
I don't think I can really be accused of being on the alt right, I can think for myself - which used to be the aim of a university education, although I had my doubts about this even 20 years ago.
It's the job of academics to weigh the evidence and draw conclusions and try to get as close to an objective truth as possible.
I've been involved in several systematic reviews. I'm involved in some at the moment that are on a very political subject and many of the primary evidence shows clear biases towards the pre-existing views of the authors (on both sides). My job is not, even if the media are trumpeting one side (which, to an extent, they are) to try and push the flawed evidence from the other side.
Hayward can, of course, write what he likes. His employer can react to that, within employment law, how they like too. I've no problem with Hayward exposing his position on this (he's doing a lot more in his Tweets than "questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital"). I couldn't care less, to be honest and I'm certainly not calling for him to be dismissed or forced out - I'd prefer him not to be, for what it says about academic freedom, including the freedom to be a tit. His Twitter account seems to be posting in a personal capacity and doesn't seem to higlight his academic work (perhaps he has another professional account). Fine. I was merely pointing out that Stock was forced out for less.
Stock had (seemingly) some support from her employer.
There was an unpleasant campaign organised against her by the student union. Still, that is what students do, they protest with limited understanding. I did in my student days.
A lecturer acquaintance of mine -- a born again Christian who made very unwise public statements about homosexuality & the Bible -- had a campaign waged against him by a student union. But, he is still there.
Without knowing more details, it is hard to comment on the Stock case.
But, the point is Stock jumped. She resigned.
There may be a number of reasons for that -- but one possibility is that she had offers & opportunities elsewhere. For example, she now has a very high media profile, which means she can write books for a wider audience, appear on radio/TV shows and have a public career commenting on gender matters. And she has a lucrative visiting Professorial appointment at University of Austin, and probably can generated further such appointments in the US.
I don't really think I would say that "Stock was forced out".
She could have stayed and ridden out the furore, she had the support of her Vice Chancellor (as I understand it) .
I agree the behaviour of the Student Union was improper, but the University is not responsible for the Student Union.
The problem as I see it is that these attacks on academics are mob rule, they should definetly be heavily resisted. Adoping Russian talking points on twitter is unwise but not the same as being in the pay of Putin's Russia. It is good that universities generally protect academics, but these mob attacks undoubtedly have an effect on other areas of student life.
Going to university as a student looks to me like a pretty boring experience nowadays. It seems like it would be too dangerous to try and engage in meaningful discourse on certain topics.
Sounds like someone been drinking the alt-right kool-aid. Universities are fine - certain students and academics have been and always will be numpties.
I don't think I can really be accused of being on the alt right, I can think for myself - which used to be the aim of a university education, although I had my doubts about this even 20 years ago.
Everyone knows precisely what a woman is, and they also know they can't say it either.
In theory: there probably is a way to "win" a nuclear war with Russia, by the way.
Develop a "star wars" defence shield to cover Europe and the continental USA with satellites, drones and networked AI and be in a position to shoot down their missiles with interceptors/phalanxes etc. That's needed first. It needs to be bloody good.
Then launch a massive first strike on all known Russian nuclear sites and silos (low yield weapons only) - I bet Western intelligence knows where they all are - and leave all their major cities/population sites alone. That'd probably take out 80%+ of their capability.
They'd hit back straight away with 8-9 operational subs with a second strike, and probably get away 300-400 nukes, and some wouldn't fire or miss, but the "star wars" shield then takes out 95%+ of those, and then the NATO navies basically know where the submarines are and then take them out.
Net result: only about 20-25 nukes hit the West with 150kT yields whereas the Russian nuclear capability is entirely gone. And then NATO conventional forces clean up.
Russia utterly defeated (for good). Sure the West would probably take casualties in the low millions but it still would definitely have won and 98%+ of the European and US/Canadian population would survive.
(For clarity: I am *not* advocating this - especially since we don't yet have a star wars shield yet - just arguing that lazily assuming that the inevitable result of this at any point in the future is the end of humanity is perhaps a tad overblown)
"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks..."
If Rishi has any political sense he will suspend the NI increase. He then needs an an emergency budget in a few weeks. Government should announce full scale review of economic situation for an Autumn budget. In light of changed world an across government strategic review that will include energy supply and defence. That is is what is needed and is also good politics.
Rishi will not suspend the NI increase for several reasons, not least NHS and social care needs more money and this increase becomes a separate tax next year on pay slips affirming the extra funding
It is not as unpopular as some think with yesterday's yougov having 43% in favour, 45% against
It also creates a problem for Starmer going forward as he has opposed it and has not put forward a long term alternative
I understand Rishi is to announce a wartime budget whatever that means ,but as far as your strategic review of energy supply is concerned Boris has said he will announce a new transitional energy policy with Kwarteng before the end of the month and expect to see granting of more domestic licences for production of our own oil and gas, onshore wind farms, and maybe Cambo oil field
I am not expecting fracking to get the green light but do not ruie it out
I predict an angry response from the green lobby but we have to accept it is idiotic to close off these areas of domestic self reliance to obtain them from importing not just from Russia but elsewhere
Labour may well face quite a dilemma as this is a big change from their net zero aspiration
This is one of the many challenges facing the country post this war, even if the war has concluded
Rishi and Boris as opposed to Starmer and Kwarteng? Why not Sunak, Johnson, Keir and Kwasi?
It is not a problem for Starmer as that response is due to the artificial framing of the question. Labour will frame it differently, not denying that a funding increase is necessary but pointing out that a simple increase in the rate of NI is just about the worst way to raise taxes.
In theory: there probably is a way to "win" a nuclear war with Russia, by the way.
Develop a "star wars" defence shield to cover Europe and the continental USA with satellites, drones and networked AI and be in a position to shoot down their missiles with interceptors/phalanxes etc. That's needed first. It needs to be bloody good.
Then launch a massive first strike on all known Russian nuclear sites and silos (low yield weapons only) - I bet Western intelligence knows where they all are - and leave all their major cities/population sites alone. That'd probably take out 80%+ of their capability.
They'd hit back straight away with 8-9 operational subs with a second strike, and probably get away 300-400 nukes, and some wouldn't fire or miss, but the "star wars" shield then takes out 95%+ of those, and then the NATO navies basically know where the submarines are and then take them out.
Net result: only about 20-25 nukes hit the West with 150kT yields whereas the Russian nuclear capability is entirely gone. And then NATO conventional forces clean up.
Russia utterly defeated (for good). Sure the West would probably take casualties in the low millions but it still would definitely have won and 98%+ of the European and US/Canadian population would survive.
(For clarity: I am *not* advocating this - especially since we don't yet have a star wars shield yet - just arguing that lazily assuming that the inevitable result of this at any point in the future is the end of humanity is perhaps a tad overblown)
"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks..."
Comments
“Increased cost of heating and lighting equivalent to extra 6p on basic rate of income tax”
https://www.ft.com/content/262801ca-848f-4134-b571-6b73b5338884
More military analysis of the strategic failings from the Russia, with a total mismatch between battlefield resources and apparent aims. A short summary:
“the whole problem with the Russian way of war so far has been political goals that haven't been militarily resourced properly, particularly in the field of logistics.
So if that's the case, THE LAST THING YOU SHOULD DO IS FURTHER SPREAD YOUR FORCES BY BREAKING THEM UP AROUND KIEV AND OPENING ANOTHER FRONT AROUND LVIV.
So if Putin is still going big, then what should the Ukrainians do?
Keep calm and carry on. Keep hitting the logistics, keep drawing the Russians in - the further they get drawn in the more exposed their logistics are.
Putin is getting bad advice and is making some big mistakes; why interrupt him?”
Weekends: leadership focuses on NATO, dire warnings of Armageddon, acts at its most cocky
Early in week: diplomatic moves on talks and possible olive branches offered
Mid-late in the week: diplomacy dies down, Russia steps up attacks, most focus is on Ukraine rather than the West.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u4hAxi5b6o
Out early this morning for the Doc. Talking about dogging, my lane is on the local dogwalking circuit, and the usual interrupted convoy of dogwalkers were on the move.
It's cold and damp and grey, and they all looked completely miserable.
Not even a single Norfolk Terrier.
Incidentally, the historic definition of terrier is a register of lands in an Anglican (CofE only, most likely) Parish. Glebe lands and such; it comes from the Latin terra (=earth).
The term is still in use.
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and honour for the non-participants.
But the “victory” will be illusory. Russia will bleed out economically and Ukraine will become a new Afghanistan yet worse
60% chance of this?
20% chance Ukraine wins, Putin goes
15% chance of a long Korea type stalemate, Ukraine eventually divided
4% chance nuclear/chemical or other apocalypse drags in the world and maybe kills us all
1% chance the aliens intervene and stop it
Don't they care about Putin's support for Assad using chemical weapons? This is the chance to get rid of Assad.
“ open-minded, good at seeing a wide range of perspectives, not closely tied to an ideological worldview, and relatively immune to cognitive biases “
Do we have any posters like that on pb. I rule myself out because Zelinzskyy is my hero and Putin a total ****.
Is Igor who TV interviewers won’t say where he is the top teams designated survivor?
Edit. When was the last time there was a nation-state which could reasonably be described as 'Ukrainian'?
Lab 38%
Con 36%
https://www.techneuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/R8-UK-2022-3-11-DATA.pdf
MoE. How soon crossover?
Form a square around the Pritster, or not...
I've been involved in several systematic reviews. I'm involved in some at the moment that are on a very political subject and many of the primary evidence shows clear biases towards the pre-existing views of the authors (on both sides). My job is not, even if the media are trumpeting one side (which, to an extent, they are) to try and push the flawed evidence from the other side.
Hayward can, of course, write what he likes. His employer can react to that, within employment law, how they like too. I've no problem with Hayward exposing his position on this (he's doing a lot more in his Tweets than "questioning the evidence over the bombing of a maternity hospital"). I couldn't care less, to be honest and I'm certainly not calling for him to be dismissed or forced out - I'd prefer him not to be, for what it says about academic freedom, including the freedom to be a tit. His Twitter account seems to be posting in a personal capacity and doesn't seem to higlight his academic work (perhaps he has another professional account). Fine. I was merely pointing out that Stock was forced out for less.
https://www.upend.com/blog/ukraine-refugees
Conversely, relying on Putin falling isn't really a guarantee of anything. Say Putin was replaced by Zhirinovsky - would that make Ukraine feel safer?
The problem isn't neutrality IMO. It's agreeing the future of Crimea and the Donbas. That's where emotion takes a grip on both sides.
But there is a higher chance of the war spreading across Europe/MENA and becoming quite apocalyptic. Cf Serbia, Syria
5%?
“The impact of more expensive fuel sources is compounded in rural parts of the country, which often have an older population, lower wages, poorer public transport links and an ageing housing stock.”
https://news.sky.com/story/cost-of-living-rural-communities-without-access-to-mains-gas-face-a-tsunami-of-poverty-charity-warns-12563867
I think we have some posters “off grid”? We’re you talking about heating oil MarqueeMark?
One for politicians to note with elections coming.
Another thing not in the papers much, generational businesses under threat because their business needs to turn on the gas.
“On the other hand, those of us observing from a distance have far more information, whether from geolocated video or open-source satellite footage, than in the past. Anyone on twitter can, if they filter information well, be better informed about the real-time course of the war than Eisenhower was about Korea or LBJ was about Vietnam.”
May seem like semantics but I do think it has a bearing on possible ways out of the situation.
As Camus put it some time ago:
"Totalitarianism of the Left, much like an earlier totalitarianism of the Right, was about violence and power and control, and it appealed because of these features, not in spite of them."
Syria and Libya in particular, Putin seems to be leaving a bit of a vacuum. Probably we’ll be hearing a lot about ISIS again before the end of the year. What a mess.
Also if you get there about an hour before gates open at 10.30 you will see the horses arriving and getting out the horseboxes .It is a moving relaxing site before the mayhem a few hours later
But perhaps it's fortunate that the Russians are such shameless liars. If Putin was personally horsewhipped through the streets of Kyiv by Zelensky they would probably present it domestically (and in the UN Security Council) as a win.
Tonight's opinium poll could be tied or 3ven a small Tory lead.
If the rivalry between UK and Ireland is as promised strong in the big races, it might be hard for winners, the winner is likely one of top 3 favourites not from outside that? I can imagine myself struggling already, so will listen to all guidance.
I have a couple of friends in similar situations. Kids nearly grown, suddenly divorce looms (and covid hasn’t helped). One of them is particularly messy and sad
If it wasn't for Priti the Tories would be 5 pts ahead, it's pathetic that Lab are only 2pts ahead etc
I wouldn't rule out "house to house" fighting although as you say hugely attritional to both sides.
The Cold War thinking was 10-day advance, battlefield nukes, negotiation.
Plenty of analysts thought Russia wouldn't attack or would stop at the Donbas or...or...
Just like I'd pay good money to have a dog speak for just one minute the key to it all is locked up in Putin's mind.
As for Zelensky again, there would surely come a point where he would believe his country lost or about to suffer huge casualties. Would he then as you say believe continued resistance would be futile or would he take to the hills.
So what would both sides have seen as a 'win' before this started? IMV:
Russia:
*) A subservient Ukraine under Russia's thumb.
*) A big, visible and easy victory for Russia, as they had in Georgia for Crimea.
*) Destabilise NATO and the EU.
Ukraine:
*) A viable, functioning independent state.
*) Potential for EU and NATO membership in the future.
*) Preferably, Crimea and the Donbass back.
Russia has lost all three of those, but might, with difficulty, gain the first. They are not going to get a big, visible victory, even if Ukraine collapsed this afternoon. Russian forces have been made to look weak and foolish, winning only by throwing men and machines into the meat grinder. The third point has been lost - NATO and the EU currently appear to be strengthened.
Ukraine still has the possibility of the first two, even if it takes time. In the long term, I think the first is certainly on the cards - even if Russia gains full control over Ukraine, something will give within Russia, as it did in 1989, and it is clear the Ukrainians as a whole want independence. The third point is probably out of their reach.
Does this seem right?
He has gone from total skepticism to complete conviction that we are being visited by aliens
He’s an interesting case because he’s eccentric, and sometimes prone to mad beliefs - so I should dismiss his views? And yet he is also highly intelligent and has the kind of open mind that sometimes sees things no one else can. So I might believe him?
At the moment I’m in a more skeptical mood. A mixture of America post plague madness and a conspiracy to freak the Chinese seems more likely than alien probes/craft
But I’m not ruling out Martians entirely
As for the lab leak theory or aliens it's likely bollocks and illustrative of how you can stay down a rabbit hole on the web.
This is 2022. With our screens constantly in our hands we may be the generations most exposed to all the horrors and unfairness in the world, and such a thing can change us, we can become something other than who we want to be. So we have to be mindful about that.
I don’t want to get Biblical or sermony but when Adam and Eve ate the apple of tree of knowledge and knowledge changed them, these apples in our hands, this prison of screens could have an even worse affect on us. 😞
Olde posted earlier “I gather it’s going okay for Ukraine at the moment” and I think now it’s just that broad brush thing I need to know to stop it affecting me in a bad way. I read all the front pages online last night and “ Putin closes in on Kyiv - in the city’s outskirts Russians are targetting people who come out for food leaving the streets littered with bodies” and “the howizerts now in position” sent me to bed with very very depressed thoughts.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1502606808850079746
We're arguing here over the motivations of other people. This can often be a fool's errand. Though it can be dismissed as mere propaganda, some of the statements made by Putin, and the tract that he wrote on Ukraine, seem to be evidence for my view of how the Greater Russian Nationalists view Ukraine.
I think the only way that Ukraine can ever be independent, and have a modicum of safety, is by following the example of the Baltic States and being members of NATO. Given NATO policy, this means that Ukraine has to defeat Russia militarily first. That may prove not to be possible, in which case history will judge that the leaders of Ukraine who failed to take Ukraine into NATO doomed their country to a failure to escape from Russian dominance.
Leopold III's reputation never really recovered though afaics he was acting altruistically.
To end this war, Russia needs a way out that can be presented as a victory of sorts. Ruling out Nato might be presented as demilitarisation, if you squint a bit.
https://twitter.com/ShowerAbsolute/status/1502601129489752065
https://www.kempinski.com/en/moscow/hotel-baltschug/rooms-and-suites/suites/kremlin-suite/
There was an unpleasant campaign organised against her by the student union. Still, that is what students do, they protest with limited understanding. I did in my student days.
A lecturer acquaintance of mine -- a born again Christian who made very unwise public statements about homosexuality & the Bible -- had a campaign waged against him by a student union. But, he is still there.
Without knowing more details, it is hard to comment on the Stock case.
But, the point is Stock jumped. She resigned.
There may be a number of reasons for that -- but one possibility is that she had offers & opportunities elsewhere. For example, she now has a very high media profile, which means she can write books for a wider audience, appear on radio/TV shows and have a public career commenting on gender matters. And she has a lucrative visiting Professorial appointment at University of Austin, and probably can generated further such appointments in the US.
I don't really think I would say that "Stock was forced out".
She could have stayed and ridden out the furore, she had the support of her Vice Chancellor (as I understand it) .
I agree the behaviour of the Student Union was improper, but the University is not responsible for the Student Union.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK8gJZCTGj4
I think there is a wider range of possible outcomes than you allow for.
And you can fuck off too.
1. Russian Blitzkrieg isn't what it is cracked up to be.
2. NATO would now have a much greater degree of confidence it could halt a Russian invasion with conventional forces.
3. Linked to that, our defensive weaponry has proved a very cheap way to kill expensive Russian kit.
4. Russia will be putting a lot of R&D into taking down drones - of any shape or size. And probably hovercraft-based artillery.
5. Comedians can make superb war-time leaders.
6. Ukrainians are world-class internet trolls.
7. Ukrainian farmers rock!
Going to university as a student looks to me like a pretty boring experience nowadays. It seems like it would be too dangerous to try and engage in meaningful discourse on certain topics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tor_missile_system&diff=1076344266&oldid=1076164960
Develop a "star wars" defence shield to cover Europe and the continental USA with satellites, drones and networked AI and be in a position to shoot down their missiles with interceptors/phalanxes etc. That's needed first. It needs to be bloody good.
Then launch a massive first strike on all known Russian nuclear sites and silos (low yield weapons only) - I bet Western intelligence knows where they all are - and leave all their major cities/population sites alone. That'd probably take out 80%+ of their capability.
They'd hit back straight away with 8-9 operational subs with a second strike, and probably get away 300-400 nukes, and some wouldn't fire or miss, but the "star wars" shield then takes out 95%+ of those, and then the NATO navies basically know where the submarines are and then take them out.
Net result: only about 20-25 nukes hit the West with 150kT yields whereas the Russian nuclear capability is entirely gone. And then NATO conventional forces clean up.
Russia utterly defeated (for good). Sure the West would probably take casualties in the low millions but it still would definitely have won and 98%+ of the European and US/Canadian population would survive.
(For clarity: I am *not* advocating this - especially since we don't yet have a star wars shield yet - just arguing that lazily assuming that the inevitable result of this at any point in the future is the end of humanity is perhaps a tad overblown)
*I also a Gooner
It is not as unpopular as some think with yesterday's yougov having 43% in favour, 45% against
It also creates a problem for Starmer going forward as he has opposed it and has not put forward a long term alternative
I understand Rishi is to announce a wartime budget whatever that means ,but as far as your strategic review of energy supply is concerned Boris has said he will announce a new transitional energy policy with Kwarteng before the end of the month and expect to see granting of more domestic licences for production of our own oil and gas, onshore wind farms, and maybe Cambo oil field
I am not expecting fracking to get the green light but do not ruie it out
I predict an angry response from the green lobby but we have to accept it is idiotic to close off these areas of domestic self reliance to obtain them from importing not just from Russia but elsewhere
Labour may well face quite a dilemma as this is a big change from their net zero aspiration
This is one of the many challenges facing the country post this war, even if the war has concluded
If visiting positions can be 'lucrative' then I'd better renegotiate mine, for which I don't get paid a penny! Maybe a US thing? We don't routinely pay our visiting people, unless they're actually doing some teaching in which case it's a per hour thing, just a way of them getting access to university facilities, generally. Mine, for example, was to continue collaborating on data held by my old employer.
There are differences between countries on this kind of thing. Our UK advisory board members normally only get expenses, but we've got an international board for a project at the moment and they are all getting paid - there was a clear expectation on their behalf that this was paid work, which is not unreasonable.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/10/18/kathleen-stock-university-of-sussex-protest/
As a Green I would always press for more to be done in terms of renewable energy - where's the tidal lagoons? - but drilling for more North Sea oil as a temporary expedient becomes more believable, and grudgingly acceptable, if it's genuinely accompanied by choices, such as more onshore wind farms, which will be equally unpalatable for others with a different view to me.
So yes, it is possible. I suspect the main obstacles are budgetary and political, not technological. But, if you have a nutcase, you need to prepare to defend against the nutcase.
https://kyivindependent.com/national/russia-concentrates-military-power-for-kyiv-assault/
I remember how my late father in law used to comment on the problems with the power of the tides in the Pentland Firth as, even on full power, his fishing boat would on occasions go backwards to the land, and if this power, which is constant, could be harnessed it would be fantastic
It is not a problem for Starmer as that response is due to the artificial framing of the question. Labour will frame it differently, not denying that a funding increase is necessary but pointing out that a simple increase in the rate of NI is just about the worst way to raise taxes.
Not the end of humanity, is it?