Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Cassius]

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/volodymyr-zelensky-ukraine-oscars-appearance-russia-1235547499/

"Oscars Reject Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Bid to Appear on Telecast (EXCLUSIVE)"

Does not Zelensky have a war to run? How come he is constantly trying to show up at these types of events?

Because the military runs the war not him. Part of the reason Ukraine has done so well is the Zelensky let’s the military run the war while he goes abroad to build public support as opposition were Putin runs the military operations

It’s not altogether clear that this is the case, given that Zelensky appears to have sent fresh troops to Bakhmut over the objections of his generals, whilst Putin has clearly allowed commanders on ground more latitude in the last few months (for example, allowing Surovikin to withdraw from the symbolically important but difficult to support Kherson bridgehead). Ultimately, the political leadership sets the war goals and this has an inevitable impact on how the military ‘runs’ the war.

One of the problems for Ukraine is the, essentially political, need for it to demonstrate, for the benefit of NATO, that it is constantly on the advance and ‘winning’, which may well lead to some ill-advised offensives in the south without the equipment necessary to achieve serious gains, alongside the increasingly wasteful use of men and resources in Bakhmut.

[Cassius]

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/volodymyr-zelensky-ukraine-oscars-appearance-russia-1235547499/

"Oscars Reject Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Bid to Appear on Telecast (EXCLUSIVE)"

Does not Zelensky have a war to run? How come he is constantly trying to show up at these types of events?

Because the military runs the war not him. Part of the reason Ukraine has done so well is the Zelensky let’s the military run the war while he goes abroad to build public support as opposition were Putin runs the military operations

It’s not altogether clear that this is the case, given that Zelensky appears to have sent fresh troops to Bakhmut over the objections of his generals, whilst Putin has clearly allowed commanders on ground more latitude in the last few months (for example, allowing Surovikin to withdraw from the symbolically important but difficult to support Kherson bridgehead). Ultimately, the political leadership sets the war goals and this has an inevitable impact on how the military ‘runs’ the war.

One of the problems for Ukraine is the, essentially political, need for it to demonstrate, for the benefit of NATO, that it is constantly on the advance and ‘winning’, which may well lead to some ill-advised offensives in the south without the equipment necessary to achieve serious gains, alongside the increasingly wasteful use of men and resources in Bakhmut.

The rumors I heard were the opposite that the generals want to stay in Bakmut and Zelensky wanted to leave?

You maybe right, after all none of us is privy to the inner workings on the Ukrainian high command. I’m basing this off a report from Bild (filtered through the Kyiv Independent summary below) suggesting that Zaluzhny previously wanted to withdraw but was seemingly overruled. This would fit with my understanding of Zaluzhny as being a fairly cautious character.

https://kyivindependent.com/news-feed/bild-zaluzhnyi-and-zelensky-have-conflicting-views-on-bakhmut

[Cassius]

EVERY POST IN THIS THREAD:

Woodbury: posts tweets that show Ukraine is in a bad state
Jaichind: posts some random economic figures that mean nothing
RedVelvet: mentions how one of the random economic figures means the """GLOBAL SOUTH""" is turning on the West
TimTurner: post tweet about something nice the Russians did or does a 'both sides bad' equivocation

This thread has just turned into a circle jerk between these four clowns who get off on the scene in The Man In The High Castle where they blow up the Statue of Liberty.

That was a cracking scene in all fairness.

[Cassius]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/26/its-time-to-bring-back-the-polish-lithuanian-union/

"It’s Time to Bring Back the Polish-Lithuanian Union"

Foreign Policy magazine article on bringing back the Polish-Lithuanian as a counterweight to Russia. Note that the old Polish-Lithuanian did include Western Ukraine which was part of interwar Poland until it was annexed to Ukraine SSR after the 1939 Germany-USSR deal and confirmed after WWII.

Another day, another libertarian advocating the restoration of liberum veto. Honestly surprised they didn’t just wait until April 1st to publish this.

Edit: Wait a moment, Rohač actually has written an article defending liberum veto.

[Cassius]

https://mobile.twitter.com/wgdunlop/status/1641145262209892614
https://mobile.twitter.com/TreasChest/status/1641211884194897920

bawhat?  But General Woody has been suggesting Ukraine leave for months and obviously he knows more than DoD intelligence.

Given the poor track record of US intelligence (right up to and including massive failures in both Afghanistan and Ukraine within the last two years) down the decades he probably does.

[Cassius]

https://mobile.twitter.com/wgdunlop/status/1641145262209892614
https://mobile.twitter.com/TreasChest/status/1641211884194897920

bawhat?  But General Woody has been suggesting Ukraine leave for months and obviously he knows more than DoD intelligence.

Given the poor track record of US intelligence (right up to and including massive failures in both Afghanistan and Ukraine within the last two years) down the decades he probably does.

What failure would that be in Ukraine?

US Intelligence said exactly what was going to happen happened, but Euros weren’t listening because lol Iraq.

The one where they overestimated the strength of the Russian invasion force and predicted that Ukraine would collapse quickly (and if you don’t believe me you can search “US intelligence failure Ukraine” and read more about it). I wouldn’t consider the fact that they correctly predicted that there would be a Russian invasion to obviate the fact that they seemed to lack understanding of Russian strategy, the quality of the invasion force and, most bizarrely, the strength of Ukrainian resistance (given that the US has, you know, been cooperating closely with the Ukrainian military for years). That seems more relevant for assessing their competence in analysing the state of the Russian forces now than the fact that they successfully predicted that an invasion force would… invade.

[Cassius]

https://mobile.twitter.com/wgdunlop/status/1641145262209892614
https://mobile.twitter.com/TreasChest/status/1641211884194897920

bawhat?  But General Woody has been suggesting Ukraine leave for months and obviously he knows more than DoD intelligence.

Given the poor track record of US intelligence (right up to and including massive failures in both Afghanistan and Ukraine within the last two years) down the decades he probably does.

What failure would that be in Ukraine?

US Intelligence said exactly what was going to happen happened, but Euros weren’t listening because lol Iraq.

The one where they overestimated the strength of the Russian invasion force and predicted that Ukraine would collapse quickly (and if you don’t believe me you can search “US intelligence failure Ukraine” and read more about it). I wouldn’t consider the fact that they correctly predicted that there would be a Russian invasion to obviate the fact that they seemed to lack understanding of Russian strategy, the quality of the invasion force and, most bizarrely, the strength of Ukrainian resistance (given that the US has, you know, been cooperating closely with the Ukrainian military for years). That seems more relevant for assessing their competence in analysing the state of the Russian forces now than the fact that they successfully predicted that an invasion force would… invade.

It’s a good meme, but “proper army” or no, taking a large, dense, defended urban area isn’t something that can realistically be done in three days. The only way you’d get that scenario is by assuming one side would collapse (which was apparently the view of most US intelligence sources on the Ukrainian military).

[Cassius]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/26/its-time-to-bring-back-the-polish-lithuanian-union/

"It’s Time to Bring Back the Polish-Lithuanian Union"

Foreign Policy magazine article on bringing back the Polish-Lithuanian as a counterweight to Russia. Note that the old Polish-Lithuanian did include Western Ukraine which was part of interwar Poland until it was annexed to Ukraine SSR after the 1939 Germany-USSR deal and confirmed after WWII.

Is this not just Pilsudski's intermarium?

Polish–Lithuanian union before the partitions were way bigger than interwar Poland and included Western Ukraine and a bunch of other places

Piłsudski actually envisioned the Baltic countries, Central Europe and the Balkans forming part of “intermarium” in addition to the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth lands. Completely unworkable of course, given how even in the smaller countries that emerged out of the Versailles settlement (including Poland) the different “nationalities” always ended up fighting like rabbits in a sack.

[Cassius]

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1642491090392748032?s=20

[Cassius]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Tendar/status/1642891099193704448
So Russia really wants to set itself up for a Operation Uranus style counter attack?

Whilst a counteroffensive directed against the Russian forces in and around Bakhmut is probably one of the easier options for the AFU (certainly easier than the charge across the steppe towards Melitopol/Mariupol or crossing to the left bank of the Dnieper), I think you underestimate just how many men and how much materiel that Ukraine would require to conduct a counteroffensive on the scale of Operation Uranus (or at least one that would achieve similar results).

[Cassius]

The really enlightened position is that the Great War wasn’t a world war. The real World War I was the Seven Years’ War.

The correct position is that the Trojan War was the real First World War (there was even an Ethiopian contingent in the mix).

[Cassius]

Russia embracing it's Soviet past on occupied territories.

https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1646198316688982026

Some other stand out names on that list are: Red Army and Red Fleet, Frunze (after the early Soviet military theorist and general), Voroshilov (presumably after Kliment), Kirov (after Sergei, the former Leningrad party secretary and the eponymous Petersburg based ballet company), Blyukher (after Vasily Blyukher, another early Soviet military commander) and Gaidar (which could be named for either Arkady Gaidar or his son Timur. Highly unlikely to be named for the grandson, Yegor Gaidar of shock therapy fame).

[Cassius]

Woody was declaring Bakhmut "effectively" taken by Russia several weeks ago.

I mean, if 80% of the city, bar some ruined suburbs, is in Russian hands, it effectively is.

[Cassius]

Woody was declaring Bakhmut "effectively" taken by Russia several weeks ago.

I mean, if 80% of the city, bar some ruined suburbs, is in Russian hands, it effectively is.

As other have pointed out though until the Ukraine leaves it’s not taken as Germany controlling 90% of Stalingrad can attest to

Yes, if they can launch a major counterattack that will rescue what’s left of the AFU inside Bakhmut. But given that they seem to have had to postpone the big southern offensive due to ammunition and equipment shortages (and possibly loss of personnel) then that seems unlikely. Obviously, that could be misdirection, but I think it would be very hard to hide a major offensive designed to push the Russians back out of Bakhmut.

[Cassius]

Nobody knows what the real casualties are in Ukraine. High, on both sides, is a good guess. Anything else, especially when expressed in terms of ratios, is pure speculation. An accurate casualty ratio is something that we’ll probably have to wait until the third generation of historians are publishing their books on this conflict in the 2080s.

[Cassius]

Interestingly Kazakhstan also voted in favor of the resolution. The Central Asian countries had all abstained or were/voted absent in previous UN votes related to the war in Ukraine (iirc).

https://twitter.com/Biz_Ukraine_Mag/status/1653036142520856584?s=20

Syria voting against stands out.

Really? Russia (and the Soviet Union as was) and Syria have been close for decades, not least of all during the Syrian Civil War.

https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1653090547853148179
https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1653093775944699905

Surely, this reeks of being a typo/misspeaking.

Not necessarily. With months of fighting and the presumably high casualty rate, getting to 100k doesn't seem all too outlandish. Remember, casualties ≠ deaths.

Assuming Cathcon was referring to Prigozhin, my understanding is that Prigozhin was talking about the last few days, not since December.

[Cassius]

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1671507119458201607

For context, I think their entire fleet of helicopters (attack+support), is in the single digits numbers wise.

[Cassius]

https://twitter.com/WarInstitute/status/1671363561669685253?cxt=HHwWisDT_bqT8LEu...

Interesting and relatively succinct article that sheds some light on why it’s proving so difficult for either side to make any major territorial gains with large concentrations of troops.

[Cassius]

HAHAHAHA RED VELVET IN F@CKING SHAMBLES. GLOBAL SOUTH UNITY CAN GET F@CKING RECKED LMFAO
https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1673768815002537986

If you read the article you’ll see that this is just the same hemming and hawing that China has been doing for the last sixteen months.

[Cassius]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/27/mod-accidentally-sends-classified-emails-meant-for-us-to-russian-ally

"MoD accidentally sends classified emails meant for US to Russian ally"

British officials sent the messages to an address ending with the west African country’s “.ml” domain, rather than the US military’s “.mil”.

The same error in the US was revealed earlier this month to have resulted in millions of military emails going to Mali.

Sounds like some of the emails should be related to Ukraine.

Global Britain^TM moment.

[Cassius]

The Ruble’s reverting to a more normal rate after last year’s unusually large trade surplus stemming from high oil prices and the crash in consumer spending. Both of those factors are now unwinding (oil prices have fallen whilst government and consumer spending is on the up). It’s been a steady decline and it’ll be arrested somewhat by the Central Bank halting foreign currency purchases, so it’s not especially serious in the short term. Squiggly line go down, squiggly line go up, Solovyov’s ravings aren’t especially dissimilar to those of British commentators losing their minds over Sterling hitting $1.10 back in September of last year.

[Cassius]

What is this obsession of some with finance during warfare ?

The things that matter in a war are men and guns, not financial statistics sheets.

When Russia was losing badly the only thing peddled by some pro-russians was useless statistics.

I consider it bad news for Ukraine when it's side does the same.

When the Ruble was strong last year, Putin's propagandists (also those on this board) claimed this was proof that Putin is a genius, and that western sanctions were impotent. If that's the case, what would a collapsing Ruble prove?

Most wars are ultimately won or lost on the home front, after all.

It matters a bit less for Russia due to their autocracy, but there is a certain point at which it the public will have had enough. Although that point is far distances from what optimists want to think.

But even for an autocracy, there's still a need to consider the opinions of the elite. Putin might not care about the opinion of Ivan on the street, but he needs to care about the opinions of the generals, the FSB, and the chef. And, as we saw two months ago, they have their own ways to remove him if they wanted to.

The Ruble is not falling because of sanctions, the Ruble is falling because it went to an unsustainably high value last year due to the unique conditions of extremely high export revenues and a collapse in demand for imports (so, if anything the sanctions actually helped to strengthen the Ruble in 2022). As the balance of payments reverted to a moral normal figure, so did the Ruble, which settled at about P80 to the Dollar in April, May and June (hardly a catastrophic collapse). Then, there was another loss of value at the end of June/early July due to jittery Russians moving their money out of the country because of the Prigozhin shenanigans, which has since been followed by another round of devaluation since the beginning of August, presumably due to an overheating economy.

None of this is indicative of economic collapse in any way. Wages continue to be paid, the shelves are not empty, and the state clearly remains capable of executing the war in Ukraine. We’ll see how the currency evolves in the next few months, but I think it’s quite likely that the Ruble will end up stabilising, albeit at a weaker value than pre-invasion, as it did after the troubles of 2014-15, when it stabilised at  roughly half the value it had before 2014. Note, that (worse) devaluation didn’t cause the collapse of Putin’s regime, so there’s no reason to get excited about this one either.

As for the FSB and the generals, the FSB (if we take FSB as a synecdoche for the siloviki as a whole)  occupy an extremely privileged position in Putin’s Russia, so the chances of them turning against him are slight - they’re heavily implicated in all of his policies and they have no better front man than Putin (although we should be careful not to over-egg the notion of Putin as a ‘front man’). With regards ‘the generals’, Putin is clearly tight with the Chief of the General Staff and the Minister of Defence and was able to remove Surovikin, a general apparently popular with the rank and file, from command with little difficulty (just as he was able with little difficulty to remove Teplinsky, a similarly popular general, for a few months before reinstating him), so where is the opposition going to come from within the army? There seems to be a lot of wishful thinking about Purim’s grip over Russia weakening, when, if anything, it has only strengthened since last year’s invasion, as opponents either emigrate or are arrested.

[Cassius]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/22/ukraines-army-is-running-out-of-men-to-recruit/

"Ukraine’s army is running out of men to recruit, and time to win"
"Victory may be in sight for Vladimir Putin"

Your cope is quite obvious lol

What’s the issue? The Daily Telegraph is not a pro-Russian source and Robert Clark is not a pro-Russian commentator.

[Cassius]

The rebranding of Euromaidan as a “coup” has been one of the most successful Russian propaganda lines and one of the most frustrating considering it’s weak facts. When I think of the term “coup” an event where masses of people protesting the government over an economic policy, the government doing a failed violent crackdown that turns more people against them, the president resigning, his second in command taking over, elections being held, and then a new government taking over isn’t what comes to mind. It’s more worse is the smoking gun of this supposed “coup” is tedious stuff like Nuland or McCain saying in memos or phone calls that Euromaidan could lead to a pro-west government so we should support it. Yeah no sh*t they’d say/think that, any nation in that situation would have government officials saying this. I mean by that logic the American Revolution is a French backed coup

Yes, it was.

[Cassius]

And fwiw, if it weren't for Russians, you would probably be speaking Japanese at the moment. But keep disregarding MILLIONS of lives they gave

I don’t disregard the lives the Soviets “gave”, the vast majority of which weren’t Russian. The Russian misappropriation of that legacy is part of what makes the invasion so grotesque.

Where’s the evidence for this? Estimating the total number of Soviet war dead is not easy, but the credible estimates all put the military and civilian war dead from the Russian SSR at either a majority or near enough to one of the total Soviet war dead (with the Russian SSR suffering a disproportionately large share of the military combat deaths). Of course, estimating by SSR isn’t going to give you a true picture of the war dead by ethnicity, as not every one of the dead from the Russian SSR would’ve been an ethnic Russian (just as not every one of the dead from the Ukrainian SSR would have been an ethnic Ukrainian), but those figures clearly show that the Russians gave a lot of blood, which shouldn’t be a surprise given that a number of the bloodiest battles and sieges (Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Smolensk) took place on the soil of the Russian SSR.

The Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs, unsurprisingly, suffered disproportionately large civilian casualties due to the years of occupation and the genocidal policies of the Nazis and their local collaborators, but again, the Russian SSR also suffered very high civilian casualties (up to one million in Leningrad alone). Whatever you think about the current Russian government’s instrumentalisation of World War II, ‘misappropriation’ is certainly not the correct way to describe it.