Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[OSR stands with Israel]

Also, it's clear that China got it right when it decided to ring-fence its internet, bar Western internet and social media companies that wouldn't meet its requirements, which turned out to be all of them, and develop domestic alternatives. Facebook and Twitter are turning out to be huge national security nightmares for Russia as they are clearly intervening on behalf of the Ukrainians and banning them now could cause backlash as there may not be an alternative (maybe Telegram?) and Russians are used to using them. China would not face this issue at all. Yes it's annoying to use the internet in China particularly to browse foreign websites but national security is more important than my convenience.

COPE

[OSR stands with Israel]

British MoD intelligence update, there's less in this one than compared to previous days:

https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1498551511445553158

We've never seen an advanced modern military operate without air superiority.

The most recent I can think of would be the USAF in Korea. Soviet pilots secretly began flying for the Chinese resulting in heavy American losses in the infamous "MiG Alley". But, it's a teeny stretch to call Korea a modern conflict. Maybe one of the Pakistan-India wars didn't involve one side with air superiority? I'm not sure. Even if neither nation gained air superiority, it's a questionable argument to make that they had "advanced modern" militaries.

We never held air superiority over North Vietnam, but I wouldn't even call that modern.

We didnt even invade North Vietnam

[OSR stands with Israel]

British MoD intelligence update, there's less in this one than compared to previous days:

https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1498551511445553158

We've never seen an advanced modern military operate without air superiority.

The most recent I can think of would be the USAF in Korea. Soviet pilots secretly began flying for the Chinese resulting in heavy American losses in the infamous "MiG Alley". But, it's a teeny stretch to call Korea a modern conflict. Maybe one of the Pakistan-India wars didn't involve one side with air superiority? I'm not sure. Even if neither nation gained air superiority, it's a questionable argument to make that they had "advanced modern" militaries.

We never held air superiority over North Vietnam, but I wouldn't even call that modern.

We didnt even invade North Vietnam

We invaded most of it before China joined the war.

That was in Korea not Vietnam

[OSR stands with Israel]

Also, it's clear that China got it right when it decided to ring-fence its internet, bar Western internet and social media companies that wouldn't meet its requirements, which turned out to be all of them, and develop domestic alternatives. Facebook and Twitter are turning out to be huge national security nightmares for Russia as they are clearly intervening on behalf of the Ukrainians and banning them now could cause backlash as there may not be an alternative (maybe Telegram?) and Russians are used to using them. China would not face this issue at all. Yes it's annoying to use the internet in China particularly to browse foreign websites but national security is more important than my convenience.

COPE

Again, this makes no sense. I'm not Russian. I'm basically watching a football game here. I may have picked a side to support but I have no skin in the game. For some reason the vast majority of the forum, minus a few Ukrainians, thinks they do even though they are in the same situation as me.

 

So you view war as just another football game . What an absolutely horrific position to have

[OSR stands with Israel]

What is happening now in Ukraine is the genocide of the Ukrainian people. If we talk about me, everything is calm in my region, except for the shelling of military units. I have now signed up for territorial defense and am preparing to defend my country

You are a hero Andriy and May god bless you in your efforts to defeat the Russian invaders

[OSR stands with Israel]

Ugh, what an embarrassing climbdown. It looked like it was finally time to stand up to the West and challenge them but didn't even last a week. It pains me to admit it but the Americans pushed us around on this. Now this is something I need to cope over.

China ready to ‘play a role’ in Ukraine ceasefire

China signalled it was ready to play a role in finding a ceasefire in Ukraine as it “deplored” the outbreak of conflict in its strongest comments yet on the war.

Beijing said it was “extremely concerned about the harm to civilians” in comments that came after a phone call between Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.

“Ukraine is willing to strengthen communications with China and looks forward to China playing a role in realising a ceasefire,” the Chinese statement said on Tuesday.

It added that it respected “the territorial integrity of all countries”, without indicating whether Beijing accepted Russia’s claim to the Crimean peninsula or shared its recognition of separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Needing to cope about this is mutually exclusive with insisting you don't have a dog in the actual fight, bootlicker.

I definitely have skin in the part of the game where China is involved. The people at the Foreign Ministry know more than me, they're the experts, so I defer to them, but damn it looks a lot like we took an L here and let the Americans push us around.

Why do you live in a country you hate so much . Go move to China or Russia if you think it’s so much better

[OSR stands with Israel]

Uh oh

https://mobile.twitter.com/TristanSnell/status/1498756914263568386

The CIA needs to get involved in Belarus

[OSR stands with Israel]

But that's the issue: A city falling in less than a week of the invasion is falling quickly. The Battle of Basra in 2003 took two days short of three weeks, and, even granted the caveat that Basra is a large city, that was with a modern US/UK army fighting a badly equipped and undermotivated Iraqi army.

Basra was led by the UK not the US . Just look at the article you sent .


Also the US captured Baghdad which is over 420 miles from Kuwait in less than 3 weeks

[OSR stands with Israel]

But that's the issue: A city falling in less than a week of the invasion is falling quickly. The Battle of Basra in 2003 took two days short of three weeks, and, even granted the caveat that Basra is a large city, that was with a modern US/UK army fighting a badly equipped and undermotivated Iraqi army.

Basra was led by the UK not the US . Just look at the article you sent .


Also the US captured Baghdad which is over 420 miles from Kuwait in less than 3 weeks

It was a coalition force. But that only makes a worse comparison, since US/UK military is more effective than Russia's (combined presumably Belarus if they haven't yet intervened).

I won't fall into a time warp thinking that Russia 'lost' if it didn't conquer Ukraine in 48 hours while the coalition of the willing had a month or so to against a weaker opponent.

Kyiv is much closer to the Northern Russian Border than Baghdad was though and the coalition in OIF was trying to avoid causalities as well.

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-calls-russian-invasion-holocaust-140103339.html

Even Trump is now calling it a genocide

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-calls-russian-invasion-holocaust-140103339.html

Even Trump is now calling it a genocide

LOL, let's see whether he sticks with that and ultimately calls out Putin personally. That said, if you're on the opposite side of Sanders, Biden, McConnell AND Trump, perhaos you're on the wrong side.

Well I think this does show that the base of each wing of the parties are anti Russia here which is a good thing. It also shows how social media once again isn’t actually representative of the public

[OSR stands with Israel]

Russian Ministry of Defense claims 2,870 Ukrainian soldiers killed, 498 Russians.

https://twitter.com/DrAlakbarov/status/1499073100067000320

In the first 10 days of the invasion of Iraq the US had 65 deaths. Even if you were to believe the Russian numbers, which I don't, they've had a much worse time of it than the US did in 2003.

The US was able to pull of the entire invasion with less than 200 fatalities

[OSR stands with Israel]

Russian Ministry of Defense claims 2,870 Ukrainian soldiers killed, 498 Russians.

https://twitter.com/DrAlakbarov/status/1499073100067000320

In the first 10 days of the invasion of Iraq the US had 65 deaths. Even if you were to believe the Russian numbers, which I don't, they've had a much worse time of it than the US did in 2003.

The US was able to pull of the entire invasion with less than 200 fatalities

Yeah, and if you take the US occupation of Iraq as a comparison and put this in perspective, you would expect even greater losses during a Russian occupation given how incompetent they have handled this. Furthermore, there was at least a decent number of Iraqis celebrating Saddam's end. Zelenskyy has like >90% behind him now, even in Eastern Ukraine which was more pro-Russia so far.

Yah the invasion of Ukraine would be more comparable to a hypothetical invasion of Iran where unlike Iraq the vast majority of people in Iran would hate the US for invading causing casualties to be very high in both the invading and occupation stage .

In Iraq the Shia population who actually made up a majority of Iraq were oppressed by Suddam so they viewed the US invasion as at worst the lesser evil compared to Suddam .

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1499395103957434369?t=f-yAhOUWL77MFl63W...

[OSR stands with Israel]

With how terrible the Soviet/Russian Army has performed in combat operations (Afghanistan, Chechnya 1994, Georgia 2008, and the current situation). I wonder if the Soviet threat of overrunning Western Europe from East Germany during the cold war was overblown.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1499887787352502273?s=20&t=lNrSXpx...

The USSR was far bigger than Russia and had far far more client states as well so Russia today really isnt comparable in strength to the former USSR. A huge reason for that assement is due to the fact the Soviets moved much faster against Germany from June 1944 then the Western Allies did even though they basically launched Overload/Bagration at the same time.


Also keep in mind that throughout the cold war the Warsaw pact always had far bigger numbers than NATO did and the technological gap between NATO/Warsaw pact wasnt that big in favor of NATO Until the 1980s which is when Id say the advantage in a conventional war moved in favor of NATO. What happened in the 1980s was the US basically rebuilt our military with cutting edge technology especially in regarding our air force.

All the new tactics, technology, and equipment the US used during the Gulf War was basically the military the US had revamped during the 1980s to beat the USSR in a conventional war and its why we won that war so quickly. I doubt we win the Gulf War anywhere near as quickly as we did if we were using 1960s tactics/technology and that I say was the real game changer in swinging the advantage to us.


 

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://mobile.twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1500139415062069257?cxt=HHwWkoCyxbK2y...

[OSR stands with Israel]

Thoughts?

Biden's Bold Gamble Might Just Save Ukraine | Opinion

 Obviously untrue! Fox News has said this is all because Joe Biden is president! Plus beep boop Has ever so brilliantly pointed out that this wouldn't have happened if Mike Pompeo was Secretary of State because the Secretary of State truly guides blah blah blah beep beep beep beep beep 001101101

Biden needs to sanction Russian Oil now

[OSR stands with Israel]

Russia strikes at Ukrainian air bases today

"Russian forces attack airfields in Ukraine as Zelensky pleads for fighter jets

MUKACHEVO, Ukraine — Russia targeted a military air base and a commercial airport in central Ukraine on Sunday, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials, in attacks that could deny Ukraine usable airstrips as Kyiv presses Western allies to send fighter planes to combat Moscow’s invasion.

A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry said the military had struck and disabled Ukraine’s Starokostiantyniv military air base, about 150 miles southwest of Kyiv, early Sunday, using long-range, high precision weapons. The airport was among dozens of targets, including a Russian-made air defense system owned by Ukraine, the spokesman said.

Later Sunday, in a video message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a missile strike on Vinnystia, about 70 miles southeast of the air base, had “completely destroyed the airport.”



"



https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/06/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-live-updates/#link-HD5A5ZR5TBD3HA6BGJPATPXNTY

Bad, bad news if Russia can take out critical airports like that.

They were always going to take out the Ukrainian Air Defense, but they had to be careful of the anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.  The Ukrainians have a large well-trained army and citizenry.  I think people under-estimated the Ukrainians as if it was the Iraqi Army.  

Right now, Ukraine desperately needs a re-supply of anti-aircraft missiles, but the Russians have pretty much taken out their supply lines from the Dneiper River all the way to the Russian border, and they've encircled many Ukrainian Forces in the East.  Russian has taken out communication, energy deposits, and weapons caches throughout Ukraine.  Mobile Networks are down in many parts of the country.  Food supplies are dwindling to the point where everyone is foraging for food like they're living in the 'Walking Dead' Universe.  The last few days have been devastating.  They literally cannot receive weapons unless it's consistently air dropped.  Good Luck!

Well Iraq was fundamentally different cause of the fact Suddam was oppressing a majority of the population and many viewed the US as the lesser evil. Where things started to go wrong in Iraq was the way we implemented de baathification.


The issue with that was given that Iraq was a one party dictatorship for decades at that point, banning any person who had associations with the Ba'th party from employment in public sector jobs was always gonna backfire. The reason is there were probably many Iraqis who had worked in those public sector jobs who were not bad people but because they had to be part of the Ba'th party to get employment and banning them from getting jobs meant we had to build literally every institution from scratch which led to anarchy.

What we should have done is have competent experienced people who not actually horrible people run those institutions and agencies from the start which would have made the transition away from Suddam's Government much more smooth.

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://mobile.twitter.com/vptevo/status/1500307182818054145

[OSR stands with Israel]

What about Iraqi civilians?

They were mostly caused by the Iraqi insurgency much of which was led by former Suddam Hussain Republican guard members who also killed a lot of Iraqis when they were in charge of Iraq . Keep in mind that much of even ISIS military leadership were former members of Suddam Hussain’s Republican guard too

[OSR stands with Israel]

Should Biden bend over on this one as the lesser evil?

No. The Saudi-caused humanitarian crisis in Yemen is still way worse than the Russian-caused one in Ukraine and will probably continue to be so through several more rounds of potential escalation of the latter conflict.

But unironically, Guess who's buddies with Saudi Arabia ? Russia, people.


I wonder why we're still friends with Saudi Arabia, because it's obvious that they have dangerous ties with Russia and other hostile states. It's the oil isn't it ?

Of course it's the oil, plus sheer Cold War inertia from when the overall American Middle East policy was to prop up despotic monarchies against nominally-socialist authoritarian republics. What else would it be?

But they're all the freaking same. Anti Democratic. No Freedoms.

Not really : the Shah was way better than the Ayotallah , the King was better than whoever came next in Afghanistan and Suddam was a greater evil to the Saudis in the Gulf War(given he wanted to invade them too).

[OSR stands with Israel]

Should Biden bend over on this one as the lesser evil?

No. The Saudi-caused humanitarian crisis in Yemen is still way worse than the Russian-caused one in Ukraine and will probably continue to be so through several more rounds of potential escalation of the latter conflict.

But unironically, Guess who's buddies with Saudi Arabia ? Russia, people.


I wonder why we're still friends with Saudi Arabia, because it's obvious that they have dangerous ties with Russia and other hostile states. It's the oil isn't it ?

Of course it's the oil, plus sheer Cold War inertia from when the overall American Middle East policy was to prop up despotic monarchies against nominally-socialist authoritarian republics. What else would it be?

But they're all the freaking same. Anti Democratic. No Freedoms.

Not really : the Shah was way better than the Ayotallah , the King was better than whoever came next in Afghanistan and Suddam was a greater evil to the Saudis in the Gulf War(given he wanted to invade them too).

There were others that would have gone better if we left them alone though. Sometimes it was better to intervene but other times it’s not. I hope that this crisis furthers the conditioning of globalization and economic relationships on human rights. Couch than that terms, I can almost tolerate a “drill baby drill” policy on energy… to a point.

Yah I agree and with Iran it would have been better if we didn’t remove Mosaddegh

[OSR stands with Israel]

The thing about war crimes is that sometimes they're hard to define exactly and there are grey areas and complications and technicalities... and sometimes they're incredibly clear-cut. Bombing a theatre sheltering maybe thousands of people would be an example of the latter. Anyway, the grim and ghastly thing is that none of this is necessarily contradictory with the suggestion that Putin is looking for a way out of this mess. Not remotely.

True but committing more war crimes makes it harder for Ukrainians to accept a ceasefire deal. Some of the more hardline Ukrainian paramilitary groups are already decrying the leaked deal in FT and they're not alone.

What is the "leaked deal" and its provenance? I missed that. Thanks.

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1504115012851413000

No NATO wouldn't mean no EU, though? Remember that this is was initially sparked the entire crisis in 2013/14. It was about an association agreement the European Union, not NATO. That's also why Putin's NATO argument was always a bunch of BS, he's not afraid of NATO, he's afraid of democracy. And strong democratic norms are a key precondition for joining EU.

Also the stopping NATO expansion is necessary for Russian safety is bs given Russia currently has a massive deterrent against an hypothetical invasion by NATO and that is the fact they have thousands of nuclear weapons .

[OSR stands with Israel]

Back to the low effort non sequitur responses again? Who takes the W or L is still to be decided; I will say that if the US and China end up in a trade war, the US will suffer historic inflation and supply shortages among other economic consequences and the Democrats will be utterly destroyed in November.

Speaking of non sequiturs, lol.

Anyway, clearly the biggest L was taken by your parents, whose only child, I presume, ended up being, well, you.

LMAO, they are quite proud that despite being constantly exposed to Western propaganda,  I remain loyal to my people and my country. This is after all a common Western mistake; you love to think that Chinese people are all brainwashed by their government and would overthrow it if they were just informed, does it kill you to know that most Chinese people genuinely support the government and the party, especially when the USA is held up as an alternative?

Why don’t you move to China if  you like it so much , and given you call China your country instead of the US .


You are literally the best possible example of how immigrants should not act and you are a disgrace to the immigrant community

[OSR stands with Israel]

Back to the low effort non sequitur responses again? Who takes the W or L is still to be decided; I will say that if the US and China end up in a trade war, the US will suffer historic inflation and supply shortages among other economic consequences and the Democrats will be utterly destroyed in November.

Speaking of non sequiturs, lol.

Anyway, clearly the biggest L was taken by your parents, whose only child, I presume, ended up being, well, you.

LMAO, they are quite proud that despite being constantly exposed to Western propaganda,  I remain loyal to my people and my country. This is after all a common Western mistake; you love to think that Chinese people are all brainwashed by their government and would overthrow it if they were just informed, does it kill you to know that most Chinese people genuinely support the government and the party, especially when the USA is held up as an alternative?

Why don’t you move to China if  you like it so much , and given you call China your country instead of the US .


You are literally the best possible example of how immigrants should not act and you are a disgrace to the immigrant community

This…is a bit too far. Immigrants can be supportive of certain policies of their homeland even if there were other reasons they left. The only disgraces to the immigrant community imo are those who rally against immigration in general (not illegal immigration so don’t start there) immediately once they get here.

He has gone far beyond that though, and has said multiple times he is loyal to the government of China not the United States and calls China his country over and over while never doing the same to the US.