Russia and Ukraine

[The Grand Nudger]

Russian propagandists are now telling people that it would take them mere years to capture the donetsk region at current rates.....so things are going well.......

Like a clown rolling around in pig shit trying to put out a garbage fire they've bumbledfucked into.

Donetsk region..for reference, is smaller than most american counties, and they started the full scale invasion with about 50% control. A consequence of a previous decades worth of paramilitary and uniformed action. If those are the metrics, here's to russia continuing it's wildly successful stint of adventurism in ukraine.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5jbj2wz...-in-Moscow

[Leonardo17]

Russian propagandists are now telling people that it would take them mere years to capture the donetsk region at current rates.....so things are going well.......

Like a clown rolling around in pig shit trying to put out a garbage fire they've bumbledfucked into.

Donetsk region..for reference, is smaller than most american counties, and they started the full scale invasion with about 50% control.  A consequence of a previous decades worth of paramilitary and uniformed action.  If those are the metrics, here's to russia continuing it's wildly successful stint of adventurism in ukraine.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5jbj2wz...-in-Moscow

Some sources estimate that Russian death since the starting of this war could be as high as 800,000.
 
North Korean “elite” troops are now being used in zombie waves (they drug the soldiers and send them to die on Ukrainian lines, wave after wave until they are able to takeover Ukrainian positions). The number of confirmed North Korean deaths is actually at 5000.
 
The Wagner Group alone is said to have lost 200,000 men just to take the city of Bakhmut.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-koreas-...p_catchall
 
In “Enemy at the Gates” (Jude Law / 2001) you can see how this human waves technique was used in the Battle of Stalingrad against the Nazis in the 1940’s. But that was a war in which the Survival of the very Nation was in play so Soviet Generals (like Krutchvev) were not hesitating to sacrifice as many lives as necessary because if they ever lost some key cities to the Nazis, they could become just another country who had been crushed by fascist powers.
 
Why does anyone even think of using similar methods to invade a sovereign country?
 
So I don’t know if he is going to be able to solve of even improve anything on the ground, but Donald Trump is absolutely right in saying that this war shouldn’t have started in the first place

[Thumpalumpacus]

So I don’t know if he is going to be able to solve of even improve anything on the ground, but Donald Trump is absolutely right in saying that this war shouldn’t have started in the first place

So long as you remember that this is a man who talks out both sides of his mouth, you'll be fine. From 2022:

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday described Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius” and “savvy,” praising his onetime counterpart for a move that has spurred sanctions and universal condemnation from the U.S. government and its trans-Atlantic allies.

“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump said in a radio interview with “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.” “He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/23...n-00010923

[The Grand Nudger]

Some sources estimate that Russian death since the starting of this war could be as high as 800,000.

That's the total casualty list, only a portion of it are kias, half or more are wia.  The source is the ukranian mod, and open source intelligence analysis as well as western intelligence agencies agree that the estimate is sound.  Every now and again, some russian forgets their script, and we get a glimpse into the internal numbers and domestic propaganda of the russian war effort.  It's not great.  There are so many kia wia and mia that the mod can't both pay their now-reduced-by-90% benefits and the war bill.  There aren't enough care facilities in the country to treat the fraction of wounded they must just for pr purposes. 
 

North Korean “elite” troops are now being used in zombie waves (they drug the soldiers and send them to die on Ukrainian lines, wave after wave until they are able to takeover Ukrainian positions). The number of confirmed North Korean deaths is actually at 5000.
 
The Wagner Group alone is said to have lost 200,000 men just to take the city of Bakhmut.

It's not just the number.  They were russias best troops.  Their token professional forces had already been decimated in the opening stages of the invasion.  The north koreans are also, hilariously, the best troops currently in the russian army.
 

Why does anyone even think of using similar methods to invade a sovereign country?

So I don’t know if he is going to be able to solve of even improve anything on the ground, but Donald Trump is absolutely right in saying that this war shouldn’t have started in the first place

Information.  Russian commanders lie.  Russian troops do not follow orders.  In this environment, the only way to know for sure your orders have been followed is a meatwave.  You just count the dead and the inches.  Trumps never right about anything and he isn't right about that.  Russia has been invading ukraine since 2014.  They were invading ukraine thrughout his entire first presidency and he knew that, which is why he thought he could extort zelensky. 

If russian crimes on ukranian territory against ukranian people were ever to be stopped. If ukraine was ever to be a sovereign country. If international law is still commited to respecting sovreign borders..then the war was always going to happen, and should happen.  The only question that remains is which side a person or nation is on.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The only question that remains is which side a person or nation is on.

Anyone supporting this Russian invasion, such as the late and unlamented @Anomalocaris, is ipso facto supporting the idea that borders and nationalities can be changed by killing people.

This is a clear delineation that Trump and his followers do not understand, so blinded are they by their own bullshit.

[pocaracas]

The only question that remains is which side a person or nation is on.

Anyone supporting this Russian invasion, such as the late and unlamented @Anomalocaris, is ipso facto supporting the idea that borders and nationalities can be changed by killing people.

This is a clear delineation that Trump and his followers do not understand, so blinded are they by their own bullshit.

Historically, that is the main way that borders have been changed, warfare. It would make perfect sense that old power hungry men would think that is the only way.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Historically, that is the main way that borders have been changed, warfare. It would make perfect sense that old power hungry men would think that is the only way.

It doesn't make sense. It's the most expensive way to expand your country in bother treasure and human resources. It's tough on the economy. too.

[pocaracas]

Historically, that is the main way that borders have been changed, warfare. It would make perfect sense that old power hungry men would think that is the only way.

It doesn't make sense. It's the most expensive way to expand your country in bother treasure and human resources. It's tough on the economy. too.

True, but people are not very logical creatures... especially people in power.
You'd think that they would sorround themselves with competent advisors, but... well... : gestures arms in the air hinting that I'm pointing at everywhere:

[The Grand Nudger]

Aside from a general observation about how competent underlings are a threat to an incompetent dictator....the situation for russia was that all of their initial assumptions turned out to be wrong simultaneously. If any one of them or just a couple had been wrong, they could have(at least potentially) dealt with that. Once the decision was made to pursue the active phase of the invasion despite all of this it became a literal death spiral in ukraine and at home in russia.

I suspect that we're dealing with an internal clock. I don't think that everyone from the top to the bottom is ignorant or incompetent in general or of the specific facts of their failure. The decisionmakers believe they have a compelling reason to die trying.

[The Grand Nudger]

-specific examples

They believed that the ukranians would greet them as liberators. However, they clearly had a plan if they were wrong about that - they brought mobile crematoria.
They believed that the ukranian army was incompetent and more than half would defect. They still condensed overwhelming force and the best gear they had into an attempted decapitation attack.
They believed that the world was uninterested in assisting ukraine. They still pursued a reflexive control campaign.

The war in ukraine represents russias best laid plans. When those all went to shit they enacted their best laid contingencies. What you've seen, and what they have now, is the best they can do and all that remains. Just as ukrainians are very lucky that the enemy is stupid, russians are very lucky it hasn't gone worse. I say this for values of worse greater than the situation on the ground. There was a popular meme n ukranian channels before the thunder run up north...where they wagonwheeled through the russian occupation and liberated eastern ukraine from the rear. If Syrski had his way or been overall commander of forces that's exactly what they would have attempted. They ended up completing a portion of a battle plan that was out there as a meme for some time. Since then, another meme circulating has given russia cause for worry. The invasion of russia, and a drive to moscow. As a concept, it's already been tested...by russians. For now it would seem like a costly use of troops and material...but who knows what the decisionmaking process would look like if the ukranian mod felt pushed against a wall and in need of making some last effort. That we even find ourselves in this moment where ukraine is grinding russia to dust in a war of attrition broadens the horizon of what strange things may happen in war.