Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Antonio the Sixth]

I can't f**king believe anyone is still taking "fears of escalation" seriously with Putin. This is ridiculous. We keep tying one hand behind Ukraine's back because we're afraid that if we untie it Putin will whine that it's unfair and then... do what? Launch nukes? It's obvious he won't do that and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I can't f**king believe anyone is still taking "fears of escalation" seriously with Putin. This is ridiculous. We keep tying one hand behind Ukraine's back because we're afraid that if we untie it Putin will whine that it's unfair and then... do what? Launch nukes? It's obvious he won't do that and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

There will always be a certain amount of caution as long as Russia has nukes, that's just how it is.

There's "some amount of caution" and then there's drawing completely arbitrary red lines for yourself based on vibes rather than any concrete rationale.

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1645189373728632836?s=20

What matters for our purposes is that "what came next" was that many countries previously under the Russian imperial yoke took the opportunity to gain their full freedom. We can only hope history will repeat in that regard.

What happens to Russia proper is up for Russians to decide.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Russia tried to destroy US-made Patriot system in Ukraine.

Russia tried to destroy a US-made Patriot air defense system in Ukraine last week with a hypersonic missile, two US officials told CNN.

The attack failed, and the Ukrainian military instead intercepted the missile using the Patriot system, the officials said, marking their first known successful Ukrainian use of the advanced air defense system only weeks after it arrived in country.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/12/politics/russia-patriot-missiles-ukraine/index.html

It's seems that Woody's hypersonic missiles failed.

When you're a Russian hypersonic missile, Patriot destroys YOU

[Antonio the Sixth]

US Defense ghouls setting up unrealistic expectations for Ukraine's offensive after denying them the equipment they needed to meet those expectations and then proclaiming the whole thing "a failure" is the perfect illustration of why the US has suffered nothing but geopolitical setbacks for the past 20 years despite being objectively the most powerful country in human history.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Personally I never got why people saw Prigozhin as a potential political successor, to me he always seemed an Ernst Rohm type rather than a politician.

Called it.

Night of the Short Flights?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sounds just like the script of the movie "Face/Off"

It would be hilarious if we start seeing a bunch of False Prigozhins crop up like the False Dmitrys of the 17th century.

[Antonio the Sixth]

jaichind, I don't want to put you on ignore again because unlike the other Kremlin gremlins you actually occasionally provide useful data or commentary, but you need to f**king cool it with the constant spamming. I can tolerate a couple of these "here's a random stat showing Russia is winning" posts every now and then, but the constant barrage is tedious and makes it impossible to take you seriously.

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/10/27/orban-opposes-the-eus-50-billion-support-plan-for-ukraine-while-fico-raises-corruption-con

"Orbán opposes the EU's €50-billion support plan for Ukraine, while Fico raises corruption concerns"

EU plan for EUR 50 billion aid to Ukraine stuck due to opposition from Fico and Orbán 

lmao, I assume he means he's concerned by the lack of corruption

[Antonio the Sixth]

Interesting how dead this thread is since both Hamas-Israel War plus putting (2-3) s**t posters on ignore from this very thread.

I still follow it regularly but the urge to post here to update people on [lots of dead people] or [more equipment that doesn't fundamentally move the needle] is receding. Maybe I'm just getting jaded, but there is also a part of me that doesn't want to keep engaging on this topic because of how utterly negative it is for my mental health and how futile the war effort is starting to look. It doesn't matter to me how many Russian soldiers / equipment are blown up in one suicidal operation after another if the end result is no change in territory and Russia just mobilizes more men and refurbishes more heavy weapons from its seemingly bottomless stockpiles.

I think you're having your expectations shaped by some bad Western commentary (this is actually something both pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian sources are guilty of). This is clearly an attrition war now, and we should expect that stability on the front will remain the norm for a long time. People who expected a sweeping counteroffensive that would liberate all of occupied Ukraine in one fell swoop were always full of sh*t - that's just not a plausible outcome, or at least it would take orders of magnitude more tanks and artillery shells to make it plausible.

Attrition warfare is bleak and depressing, and it's totally fair to take a break from it for your own mental health, but it's not meaningless. Eventually the strain on resources becomes too much for one side. If the West puts in the resources, it's pretty much mathematically ensured that Russia will exhaust its ability to carry on the war sooner or latter (probably a matter of years, sadly, but still). If Western support weakens, things start looking a lot worse. This is why our collective resolve to support Ukraine should not falter, especially now. In a way, expending great effort in the spur of the moment is the "easy" part. The hard part is sustaining that effort in the long run, long enough to make it actually count. It's doesn't feel grand or glorious, but it is meaningful. So I'd implore everyone who wants Ukraine to win to keep pushing their respective countries to keep up and ideally increase support. Ukrainians don't have the luxury to give in to "fatigue" right now, and neither should we.

[Antonio the Sixth]

are there still people who don't think Ukraine should attack Russia proper?

Apparently the responsible and reasonable way to handle a war of national defense against a genocidal invader is to make sure the invaded party is fighting with one hand tied behind its back. To do otherwise would be "escalating"... somehow.

[Antonio the Sixth]

We might be at a point where a ceasefire might be useful to both parties - Putin to shore up internal support and present himself as a reasonable leader, and Ukraine because it needs more Western support and hopefully this will allow enough time for the US and EU to finalize their aid packages.

Of course, we should all be clear that it won't be the end of the war. As long as we use the time we have intelligently, and not as an excuse to scale down support, this could be an opportunity to put Ukraine on a better footing for the next phase.

[Antonio the Sixth]

we really need to make a rule that you can't make more than 2 posts in the same thread in a row

[Antonio the Sixth]

Regardless of who's right on the specific strategic questions involved, it's particularly imperative in times of war that the chain of command be adhered to, and if Zaluzhny cannot be trusted to do so then he can't possibly keep his post.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Regardless of who's right on the specific strategic questions involved, it's particularly imperative in times of war that the chain of command be adhered to, and if Zaluzhny cannot be trusted to do so then he can't possibly keep his post.

But I’m not entirely sure if this is a chain of command issue because from what I understood of how Ukraine’s government functions Zelensky can hire/fire Zaluzhny but he isn’t the actual CIC of the military like a US president is. Regardless I’m hoping they can find some way to resolve this beef as I dread the thought of Syrskyi taking over

Doesn't the power to fire implicitly entail a chain of command? Like, even if the "commander in chief" role is not necessarily spelled out in every constitution, civilian control of the military is a fundamental pillar of liberal democracy, and that implies that Zaluzhny had a duty to defer to Zelensky on fundamental matters of strategy (as long as his commands aren't illegal or otherwise corrupt, of course).

[Antonio the Sixth]

If he's going to fire him he should do it swiftly. Letting this drag out for weeks is the worst of both worlds. For morale and hierarchical clarity's sake, there needs to be a military commander who has the President's full confidence.

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/28/politics/pentagon-considering-tapping-last-source-ukraine-funding/index.html

The Pentagon is weighing whether to tap into the last remaining source of funding it has for military aid to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia even without guarantees that those funds will be replenished by Congress, multiple defense officials told CNN.

The Defense Department still has around $4 billion in presidential drawdown authority funds available for Ukraine, which allows the Pentagon to draw from its own stockpiles to send military equipment to Kyiv.

But the Pentagon had previously been reluctant to spend any of that remaining money without assurances it would be reimbursed by Congress through the administration’s $60 billion supplemental funding request, because taking from DoD stockpiles with no plan to replenish that equipment could impact US military readiness.

“At issue here again is the question of impacting our own readiness, as a nation, and the responsibilities that we have,” he said last month when asked about the money. “And so, yes, while we do have that $4.2 billion in authority, we don’t have the funds available to us to replenish those stocks should we expend that. And with no timeline in sight, we have to make those hard decisions.”

This is so unbelievably idiotic. The US military has tons of spare, and besides they have no plausible reason to be fighting a war in the next decade. The Pentagon should be scraping the bottom of its reserves to send to Ukraine right now and it's shameful that they keep dithering over bullsh*t reasons like this.

[Antonio the Sixth]

2nd country that uses our arms that's ignoring what we tell them.

To a certain degree, that is to be expected.

Idiotic, self-destructive US demands for Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back should be ignored. Especially right now when the US isn't even holding up its end of the bargain.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Horrifying. The guy seemed like a piece of work but I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

[Antonio the Sixth]

"Military equipment, including longer-range ATACMS, is expected to be sent to Ukraine by the end of the week, Senate Intelligence Committee's @MarkWarner told @margbrennan on CBS Face the Nation."

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1782057943036289051
 

Thank God. No more playing with kid gloves.

[Antonio the Sixth]

US aid package is in

Still no more ATACMS? That's disappointing.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh, excellent news.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Strange.

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1793340982496264274

Is it me or is Sullivan just like. A complete moron? He seems to be on the wrong side of every foreign policy debate within the Biden administration.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Finally:

""The Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia — solely near the area of Kharkiv — using U.S.-provided weapons"

“'The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,' a U.S. official confirmed," @ErinBanco
 
https://politico.com/news/2024/05/30/biden-ukraine-weapons-strike-russia-00160731"

This is something but it's way narrower than Ukraine can make use of. The bare minimum here is the ability to hit military targets 50 - 60km from the border inside Russia. Otherwise, Russia is going to continue staging forces and weapons all along the border and using them against Ukraine. What is to stop them from invading Sumy and Chernihiv Oblasts again? By these rules, Ukraine would have to just sit there, watching them assemble on the Russian side, just like Kharkiv. It's nuts.

/rant

With the precedent now set for Ukraine being able to strike on internationally recognized Russian territory, I think it's only a matter of time before any further guardrails (short of like, hitting the Kremlin or something) get tossed out as the useless relics they are. Once the fears of "escalation" are again proven wrong, every subsequent step becomes easier. I don't think Ukraine is going to be fighting with its hands tied for long.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Finally:

""The Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia — solely near the area of Kharkiv — using U.S.-provided weapons"

“'The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,' a U.S. official confirmed," @ErinBanco
 
https://politico.com/news/2024/05/30/biden-ukraine-weapons-strike-russia-00160731"

And ... Germany just followed, Scholz Government just issued permission to strike military targets inside Russia with German weapons:

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1796467331327017387

Sometimes it's unclear what Scholz' Ukraine strategy, if any, would be if he hadn't Biden as President.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der