Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Alcibiades]

Personally I think it was a huge mistake expanding the EU eastwards. One can wonder whether certain countries were ready for liberal democracy,  because the illiberal turn of Poland and Hungary suggests otherwise. It should have been a more gradual process,  imo. As for expanding the NATO to the Russian borders, it's hard to argue this move is unrelated to the rise of certain forms of Russian nationalism. In other words, western countries can't criticize Putin's nationalism without asking themsrlves in what degree they've contributed to that. Maybe the architecture of security and international relationships could have been different

If the EU, and especially NATO, hadn’t expanded eastwards, Putin would be doing exactly what he is doing right now. The difference is it would be not just to Ukraine, but also to the Baltics and perhaps Poland. This is such a tired talking point, and it’s a damn good thing for the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of eastern and central Europeans that NATO and the EU did manage to expand eastwards before Russia could pull the kind of sh—t that it’s pulling now.

[Alcibiades]

Just waking up to this absolutely awful news. It makes my blood boil that so many innocent people are going to die for no good reason other than the insanity of one very deeply evil man. I can only offer my sincerest best wishes to the people of Ukraine.

[Alcibiades]

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1496966529136881667

I know there have been a million and one different reports over the day of the situation at Hostomel, but there seems to be an emerging consensus among people in the know that the Ukrainians have definitely taken it and routed the VDV. A heroic tale — more than anything this could be a hugely symbolic moment and morale victory.

[Alcibiades]

We probably lack the info needed to put a (likely) Russian defeat at Hostomel airport in a wider context. It's definitely good for Ukraine on net in terms of winning or losing this war, but it's not necessarily good enough for Ukraine. We shall see a more complete picture in due time.

Even the significant tactical successes that Ukraine is achieving are, in my opinion, striking, regardless of whether it is realistic to expect them to lead to any sort of immediate strategic conventional victory.

There is a marked contrast between e.g. the US/allied military performance in the First Gulf war, the 2nd Gulf War, and whatever you call what Russia is doing right now.

Russia should be able to eventually win the conventional part of the war (the occupation and potential insurgency being another phase and another matter), but this looks a lot more like a fight between semi-equal/competitive powers, not the sort of curbstomp that I think a lot of people were expecting.

Russia is showing surprising weakness. Unless they have something significant up their sleeves, this can't have been what Putin had hoped for when he put this into motion.

If Russia is having this much difficulty already, they may have a lot more difficulty if and win urban combat gets going.


And by the way, just because I really need to get it off my chest and feel like I really need to say this, F*** Putin.

Considering that the war doesn't seem to be that popular in Russia, is it possible that at least some Russian troops just don't put that much effort into it?

Absolutely — I think a huge factor in explaining the relative Ukrainian successes so far is the fact that they’re a hell of a lot more motivated to fight than the Russians.

[Alcibiades]

I can't help but feel that given almost 90 days of preparation the Ukraine could have made plans to turn the road to Kiev a bigger hardship than it is. A swarm of small AT units and some artillery support could have slowed the Russians down significantly.
Or in Kherson for that matter where the Russians moving out of Crimean moved almost 80km with no resistance.


It seems the Donbass (which is awfully quite today) is the only place the Ukrainians had any solid defence plan

The thing is, it is possible that the Ukrainians starting to prepare earlier may just have meant Putin attacked earlier before they had had the chance to do what you are suggesting. And, at least so far, the Russians are not rolling over them, so things could evidently have been worse.

[Alcibiades]

https://twitter.com/Blake_Allen13/status/1497332333778718720

This is an insanely risky move by Russia — it’s not like they’ve got Kyiv fully encircled yet. Putin is clearly in a hurry. If the Russians fail, which we can only hope they do, it would be a major blow to their entire plan. The Ukrainians will have had time to take up good positions throughout the day, so they should be able to put up a good fight (after all, they have already demonstrated their indomitable spirit many times over), but this could get extremely nasty for both soldiers and civilians.

[Alcibiades]

https://twitter.com/herszenhorn/status/1497598155621380101

Better late than never…

[Alcibiades]

https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/1497573785414901760

This perfectly encapsulates the chaos and amateurism of the Russian campaign so far.

[Alcibiades]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Bundeskanzler/status/1497632817450266632

Good to see Germany finally stepping up their game. Having authorised the Netherlands to send 400 German-manufactured RPGs to Ukraine, Scholz is now sending 1000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stingers directly.

[Alcibiades]

https://twitter.com/Ondrejcsak/status/1497524166160965636
Slovakia punching way above its weight.

Meanwhile Germany gave 5,000 helmets.

Germany have actually given quite a lot of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons now.

[Alcibiades]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-chechen-leader-says-his-forces-deployed-ukraine-2022-02-26/?taid=621a48a73cade0000100f946&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

Chechen deployment now confirmed. God help all Ukrainians, this will be ugly.

Already today there was a report that Ukrainian soldiers had killed a whole bunch of Chechens. Not surprising as Kadyrov’s thugs are more of a glorified police force than an army, so they should be no match for the Ukrainians.

[Alcibiades]

These stories and pictures of Ukrainian civilians being given weapons create images of the Volkssturm in 1945.  They were and are still are bad idea not just because of the lives it cost but they were mostly ineffective.  German generals in 1945 often complain that the Volkssturm units were better of being disbanded and instead working in the German army itself to work on logistics and communications versus trying to fight the USSR forces in battle,

The main difference between the German Volkssturm in 1945 and Ukrainian civilians today is certainly a significantly different level in morale. My own grandfather deserted before he could be drafted into the Volkssturm.

Maybe more importantly, why do you continue to be Putin's useful idiot? Are you getting paid by him or what?

We don't need this sort of toxicity in here. Cut it out.

No, what we don’t need are Putin shills and pathetic both-sides equivocators.

[Alcibiades]

A very interesting read from the UK’s leading war studies academic, Lawrence Freedman, on the huge difficulties the Russians are facing:

https://samf.substack.com/p/the-fight-for-ukraine

In my previous post I explained why I thought that this war had begun badly for Russia and was likely to end badly. Even if the military campaign progressed with greater efficiency Putin was still likely to lose because he was following a delusional strategy – reflecting his belief that Ukraine was a non-state with no national identity, that Kyiv could be taken quickly, so that President Zelensky could be deposed, and that a compliant puppet regime could be installed in his stead. Nothing has yet happened to make me change that view.

I also warned that the coming days would be rougher and tougher, and so sadly it is proving, although if anything I understated the faltering character of the first waves of the Russian offensive. A high human and strategic price is now being paid by Moscow for some haphazard and arrogant planning, and for failing to think through the worst case as well as the best. 

It might be thought that a few days of limited progress will soon become irrelevant once the raw power of the Russian armed forces are brought to bear, but this is wrong. The first days set the conditions for those to come. They affect the transition from the first stage of conventional warfare to the next stage of urban warfare and potentially the stage after that of resistance to an unwelcome occupation.

[Alcibiades]

https://twitter.com/b_nishanov/status/1498008314218745861

Seems like Klitschko has walked this back:

https://mobile.twitter.com/johannesboie/status/1498016772829679621?cxt=HHwWisC4w...

[Alcibiades]

I assume this means the Russians have brought out the thermobarics, this is gonna get real nasty.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1498037904496418817?s=20&t=06qxSG-uBQZFA...

People in the replies saying that it’s unlikely to be a thermobaric, but rather a more conventional missile perhaps striking an oil pipeline or refinery.

[Alcibiades]

Turns out that big explosion may not have actually been from today.

https://mobile.twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1498054955269345283?cxt=HHwWhsC-7e7Cl...

[Alcibiades]

https://mobile.twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1497953304378327043?cxt=HHwWhoC-...

Further evidence that this is turning into a historic disaster for Russia.

[Alcibiades]

Quite masterful of the EU to simply sidestep NATO militarily. And NATO letting them.

From an anti-war standpoint, steps that take us toward a European army involve massive militarization, which cannot possibly be a good thing. Liberals who were critical of American imperialism can easily be won over to militarism when it's couched in the language of "European values". Certainly from an American perspective, the creation of an independent European military force involves a substantial diminution of American power abroad, which is not good. From my standpoint as a non-white non-European I have no interest in European values or the European political project, so it is distressing that NATO is allowing the European Union to absorb its role, even if there is nothing that can be done about it.

As Zelenskyy said in his call to EU leaders which was vital in motivating them to step up their support, Ukrainians are dying for European values. It is a very good thing for anyone who supports liberal democracy that Europe’s leaders are more boldly standing up, united, for these values than ever before.

[Alcibiades]

At this point I’m pretty sceptical that the Russians will ever be able to recover from their disastrous start, and that their apparent tactical pause will be able to fix the fundamental issues they face. As far as I see it, their best-case scenario is now a crushingly pyrrhic victory.

The problems with the Russian army we’ve been seeing go well beyond simply an initial bad plan; it seems pretty clear that it is rotten from top to bottom, with gross incompetence at all levels. Ultimately, I think, what we are seeing are the consequences of having an army deeply embedded within a kleptocracy.

In addition, I fail to see how Russian morale is ever going to improve from its current rock-bottom status. It’s difficult to overemphasise how crippling this has been to the Russian effort so far, and it really seems that many analysts totally overlooked that morale is still very relevant to modern war prior to the invasion.

My biggest fear is that the Russians ramp up the indiscriminate bombing of civilians — the absolute nightmare scenario is that Putin turns Kyiv into another Grozny. I in no way want to minimise how awful this would be for the people of Ukraine, but the actual strategic value of this, especially in anything other than the very short term, is doubtful for Russia; particularly I imagine this would cause any last sanctions and measures that Western nations are holding back to be implemented, possibly plunging the Russian economy into total meltdown.

[Alcibiades]

Russian Air Force getting battered today.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1500110655956955145?cxt=HHwWksC...

[Alcibiades]

Russia bringing in the elite reinforcements:

https://twitter.com/girkingirkin/status/1500101026015289347?s=21

[Alcibiades]

https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1504507707629395970?s=20&t=r-0eBJpFY8...
Read a few other reports confirming this; if true, it not only increases the chances of a possible assault to liberate Kherson but also strengthens the defenses of Mykolaiv and reduces the chance of the city being surrounded by Russian forces.

And pushes back when any kind of assault on Odesa could possibly happen (if it ever comes). The Russians need to take Mykolaiv to have any realistic chance of taking Odesa.

Indeed. Unless Russia decides to invade from the coast; as was feared just a few days ago (I suppose that was a confirmed feint, now?) although it's highly debatable whether they actually have that capacity I suppose.

Does anyone know what Ukrainian defenses in Odessa are like?

I presume fairly decent, since they’ve had a while to prepare now. More to the point, an opposed beach landing is one of the most difficult operations any army, even a very skilled one, can attempt. I can’t imagine the Russians have much of a chance of success at one when they’ve failed so dismally at far easier tasks. There’s a reason they’ve left Odesa untouched so far.

[Alcibiades]

I'd love to see good relations between China and the USA, but not on American terms based on the attitude of the last two presidents. Trump hated China on a deeply personal level, and was an untrustworthy piece of sh**t, and Biden seems to think the world is still as it was 20 years ago and the USA can dictate terms to China. The call between Xi and Biden is a great example, Biden demands that China withdraw support for Russia without offering anything to bargain. Naturally Xi doesn't give him anything, and today the Vice Foreign Minister calls sanctions "outrageous" and blames NATO expansionism for the war. Yeah, relations between China and USA got worse, and that's unfortunate, but the alternative for Xi was to surrender to Biden and that's just plain unacceptable. I think a deal could have been acceptable, for example where China backed away from Russia in exchange for American action on trade or Taiwan, and this would improve the relations between the two countries, but Biden was not interested.

I suppose the real question is do you believe in any sort of political philosophy or principles other than the basest realpolitik* and spectator-sport approach? For instance, what do you make of the fact that you can spew this crap without fear of repercussions from the safety of your New Jersey home, but if you tried to promote pro-Western positions in China, well…

*And even this is not really true — see lfromnj’s comment.

[Alcibiades]

Why are screenshots of Mail Online stories with no further comment considered acceptable contributions to this thread?