Russia, Ukraine and NATO 2022

[Edgy MD]

Well, I certainly wasn't looking to go there.

[MFS62]

I'm getting nervous about Russian troops backing away from some cities in Ukraine.
I'm not sure they're on the run as much as I fear they're clearing out because Putin may start using chemical or biological weapons and they're getting out of harm's way.
I hope I'm wrong.

Later

[metsmarathon]

ugh. that was my fear as well. i hope you're wrong, too.

[Willets Point]

I've read that the Russians have a strategy of digging in on the outskirts of cities in order to carry out constant artillery attacks on the city. Occupying a city is hard because there's a large concentration of people to pacify and the troops become the target of resistance movements. By stopping just outside the city the Russian strategy is to demoralize the people with a constant barrage of artillery while providing no targets for a resistance movement to coalesce around. Hopefully, it fails.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, that's my guess. An external siege.

A chemical or biological attack against a civilian population would be a tough sell even in media-controlled Russia, while simultaneously claiming to be de-Nazifying a country. When the Soviet regime fell in Russia, the Red Army didn't do much to stop it from falling. I know despots like to think of themselves as untouchable right up until they are not, but such a maneuver will tend to further destabilize his rule.

Also, the victims of a biological weapon will not only be Ukranian patriots. It will be the ethno-Russians he's allegedly trying to liberate, as well as Russian soldiers, and will quickly spread into Russia itself.

It strikes me that arms reductions are one thing the US has to trade here. That may have some appeal, because, if Russia pulls out, no matter what face President Putin may somehow save, one has to think Ukraine will be bending over backwards to gain NATO membership ASAP, and the NATO defensive perimeter would quickly expand to cover Ukrain's internal borders shortly after.

[Edgy MD]

The Snake Island confrontation seemed like an impressively defiant but tragic story, when the garrison defending the island radioed "Russian warship, go fuck yourself," and no further signals were heard.

Amazingly, seven weeks later, the members of the Ukrainian Garrison not only turn out to have survived, but have been repatriated following a prisoner exchange. And the warship, the Russian flagship of the Black Sea, is now sitting on the floor of that same Black Sea.

I hesitate to glean any meaning in the face of war's ugly futility, but what a turn of events.

[Lefty Specialist]

Ukraine two days ago issued a stamp with a Ukrainian soldier flipping the bird at that very ship. Almost like they knew this was coming.



This might be the next stamp they issue:

[MFS62]

"Buy Me a Fighter Jet" is a go fund me page set up to buy aircraft for Ukraine.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainians-s ... 00669.html

Later

[Edgy MD]

A terrific piece from The Washington Post about the early days of the invasion and the unlikely job the Ukrainians did holding Kyiv.

As the day went on, Arestovych became convinced the Ukrainian military would not be able to defend the capital and told the president as much. “People who understood military things went up to him and said, ‘We’re not going to hold,’ ” Arestovych said.

Zelensky eventually erupted. He was staying.

“This is the last time I am going to hear this,” Arestovych recalled him saying. “I don’t want to hear it again.”

Zelensky told Danilov to stop annoying him with constant warnings about threats to his life, asking the National Security and Defense Council chief whether he had anything else to say — anything more important.

“Listen, I am a living person. I don’t want to die, like any other person,” Zelensky said. “But I definitely know that if I think about that, then I’m already dead.”

Zelensky suspected that some of his foreign interlocutors simply wanted the conflict to end as quickly as possible, with his administration effectively surrendering to Russia.

“Of all those who called me, there was no one who believed we would survive. Not because they didn’t believe in Ukraine, but because of this demonization of the leader of the Russian Federation — his power, his philosophy, the way he advertised the might of the Russian army. And so [they thought], with all due respect to the Ukrainians: They won’t bring it, they’ll be finished off in two or three days, maybe five, and then it will all end.”

[Lefty Specialist]

It's a series, with three parts so far. Cracking good read.

[Edgy MD]

So, I went and re-read this thread, and I want to salute Lefty on this bold and dramatic reversal.

Ukraine will inevitably fall, but so far it's not going as smoothly as the Russians (and everybody else) expected. Even once they get control, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

So we're a month in. Ukraine is getting pummeled in many cities, but the Russians are pretty much stalled. Putin will never be able to take Ukraine.

[Edgy MD]

The routing of Russian troops from the area around Kharkiv not only really exposes a Russian military that couldn't defend a force close to their own border, but apparently has also proven expensive, as reports have them leaving behind "at least 338 fighter jets or tanks or trucks."

Not that I expect anyone is in a hurry to climb into any Russian tanks, which appear to be death traps whether or not they've been booby trapped.

[Edgy MD]

How about Ukraine liberating Lyman one day after Russia's annexation, a rule that President Putin had declared to be "forever"?

This would all be a wonderfully impressive display of the human spirit, but the deaths are still real as is the threat of a nuclear endgame.

[MFS62]

Hunting the Red October? (I know. It's a reprint of a FOX story, but ...)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-nucl ... 14665.html

A top-of-the-line Russian nuclear-powered submarine has gone missing from its harbor in the Arctic along with its rumored "doomsday weapon," according to multiple reports.

NATO has reportedly warned members that Russia's Belgorod submarine no longer appeared to be operating out of its White Sea base, where it has been active since July. Officials warned that Russia may plan to test Belgorod's "Poseidon" weapons system, a drone equipped with a nuclear bomb that Russia has claimed is capable of creating a "radioactive tsunami," according to Italian media.

The drone can be deployed from the submarine at any time and detonated at a depth of 1 kilometer near a coastal city. Russian state media has claimed the device can create a 1,600-ft. wave that smashes into the coast and irradiates it.

Scary if true.
Later

[Lefty Specialist]

So, I went and re-read this thread, and I want to salute Lefty on this bold and dramatic reversal.

Ukraine will inevitably fall, but so far it's not going as smoothly as the Russians (and everybody else) expected. Even once they get control, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

So we're a month in. Ukraine is getting pummeled in many cities, but the Russians are pretty much stalled. Putin will never be able to take Ukraine.

Like most people I assumed that Russia had the second-best military in the world. Turns out they only had the second-best military in Ukraine. The recipe was simple: shock and awe, march into Kyiv (an hour's drive from the border) and install a puppet government. It's like having the US Army in Manhattan and being unable to take Trenton, like, ever. They had one job. Once they failed at that the main goal was lost. And I don't think I was the only one surprised by that, as well as the spectacular corruption and incompetence of the Russian military

(Yeah, I know that getting to Trenton probably takes longer than an hour in rush-hour traffic.)

[Edgy MD]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and "The Spirit of Ukraine" have been named Time's persons of the year.

Apart from figuring out how to word the second half of that, I imagine it was one of the shortest editorial meetings they've ever had.

[MFS62]

My second place vote would have gone to Liz Cheney.
Later

[kcmets]

There were whispers earlier in the week it would be Putin. That would
really have sucked donkey tail.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

There were whispers earlier in the week it would be Putin. That would
really have sucked donkey tail.

Remember, these days more than ever, the purpose of these special issues is to sell magazines. Ain't nobody buying a Putin Man of the Year magazine cover.

[Ceetar]

all the other finalists were outright evil right? Not that that stops 'em, whatever gets attention/sales.

[Edgy MD]

Well, they've been clear since forever that "of the year" is not a moral triumph, and they've long given the moniker to unvarnished scoundrels.

But, no, not all the other finalists were outright evil.

[Ceetar]

I don't know, I've never read it. It's just this weird legacy thing we talk about for a day or so every year. It's weird. But beyond morals, seems bad to purposely put evil people on the cover in what's basically treated as an award.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

Well, they've been clear since forever that "of the year" is not a moral triumph, and they've long given the moniker to unvarnished scoundrels.

But, no, not all the other finalists were outright evil.

Back in the day, for sure. Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1979, might be the last over-top-scoundrel. They were selling a lot more issues back then.:)

[batmagadanleadoff]

Because of course, Donald Trump, 2016's winner, isn't a scumbag scoundrel. No - he's a nice guy, which you even posted on this forum. Adolf Hitler also was a TIme Man of the Year which I take as more evidence of Trump and Hitler's similarities.

[TransMonk]

Adolf Hitler also was a TIme Man of the Year

JACK LEMMON: Not twice!