Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Gusington]

Is Russia's plan to goad Poland into striking first?

[SirAndrewD]

Is Russia's plan to goad Poland into striking first?

That wouldn't be surprising and would nullify Article 5.

[Gusington]

I have read in mainstream media that the Poles have been considering striking Russia 'pre-emptively' on and off since the Ukraine War began. It sounds like each time the Poles get close to the edge that NATO and the US talk them back.

[SirAndrewD]

I have read in mainstream media that the Poles have been considering striking Russia 'pre-emptively' on and off since the Ukraine War began. It sounds like each time the Poles get close to the edge that NATO and the US talk them back.

Yeah, that is part of the issue with there being a strong Nationalist movement in Poland. 

[FarAway Sooner]

How does Poland plan to pre-emptively win a war versus a nuclear superpower?  Isn't that kind of hard to do when you have no independent nuclear deterrent of your own?

I guess ultra nationalists don't have to think rationally to take action.  Thus the "ultra" part of that label, similar to the Russian ultra-nationalists.

It's interesting to see how easily we Westerners mistook green shoots of liberalism in Russian civil society (through NGOs, academic circles, etc.) as a harbinger of increasing liberalism on the part of their government.  That never really spread to the national government, although we did see a few mayoral races gets exciting (e.g., Navalny got 27% of the vote in the Moscow mayoral race in 2013).

We should have been paying more attention to what Putin and the Russian hardliner faction started to do to media and to opposing governments in nearby countries over the last decade.  With the excuse of a war on his border, Putin has used civil law to expose and imprison most of the would-be liberal actors within Russia, who never really had any credible power in the first place.

Putin always had the reputation for being a cunning pragmatist.  At some point in the last 10 years, he clearly went off the rails there.  The consequences have already been dire.  I hope they get no worse.

[JudgeDredd]

I've watched a few of this guys videos.

He reckons the Ukrainians might strip the cluster bombs down to use for drone attacks...each shell giving 80? individual bomblets. He argues using them for clearing minefields isn't tenable due to leaving UXBs behinds when landing, creating additional "mines". He also mentioned using them against trenches not being particularly useful.

Anyway - worth a watch

[JasonPratt]

Business Insider reports on Turkey returning POWs to Ukraine -- all five of them being from the Azov battalion:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-said-it-was-blindsided-by-turkey-after-zelenskyy-left-the-country-with-formerly-imprisoned-azov-battalion-members/ar-AA1dCbRg?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=73e036a50f754c9f8339c30576191510&ei=46

At least another 22 are currently in Russian prison(s?) on trial (by Russian propaganda standards) as terrorists.

[JasonPratt]

Re why the Russians don't want to negotiate and see their only option as total control of Ukraine: I've reported on this a few times, but due to mismanagement of Russia by the kleptocracy, the government has completely screwed over Russia's ability to survive as a nation in several key ways; and one side effect of this has been a culturally fatal decline in the birthrate for too long, so now they have a demographic time-bomb going off.

(This is also a main reason why Russia is kidnapping Ukrainian kids under their control, except being 'Orks' they can't resist murdering off Ukrainian children in the worst ways possible, too.)

Their people are too old and untrained, and the government incompetently overmanages them (to siphon off cash from the people for themselves, thus a kleptocracy), to continue functioning as a nation. This is a major overarching reason why, despite Putin trying to institute a recovery of his military strength (under-against the crime syndicate's desire to keep the military weak and bullied, and so avoid coups against them), the military turned out to be cripplingly unable to function on core requirements of logistics (including original and ongoing supply at all levels) and training.

Ironically the invasion of Ukraine has only made all this worse in many ways, which was bound to happen UNLESS Russia scored an early win by shattering the Ukrainian government in the first day or two. Which is why they surprisingly went for the 'knock on all doors' Hail Mary assault all around the border at the beginning, which was even worse for their supply and C&C: they weren't going to be able to support even a focused assault (so to speak) so they might as well punch for a technical knockout in the first round, and hope for the best.

But before Russia had fired the first shot, they had something like 10 years left to survive as a nation. This really is an existential crisis, for survival as a nation-state -- but their government sure ain't gonna blame themselves and their Godforsaken policies for that!

Even taking control of Ukraine won't really solve their problem, only delay it -- or rather, it would have delayed their crumbling had Russia been able to take over the country more-or-less intact with a decapitation and replacement of the Ukrainian governmental functions. Now they've aggro'd the Cossacks personally, so it has to be war to the knife, which is going to ruin everything for which they needed Ukraine in order for Russia (as a nation-state under control of the kleptocracy) to survive 20 or 25 more years instead of 10.


The more-overly-short version, is that Putin and his cronies have ruined Russia so badly, that they need to take over Ukraine to be able to continue stealing things in the manner to which they have become accustomed -- because they have no intention (or even capability, really) to do anything better as a government. But they can't take over Ukraine intact anymore, so they're even-more shackled to a locomotive hurtling toward a cliff than they were before. Now it's down to taking Ukraine and making Ukraine a nightmare example, to show they aren't really as weak as they've made themselves look (through no faults but their own).


The even-more-metaphorical version ,is that Putin and his cronies have been chugging vodka for so long and hard, even by Russian standards, that they're developing fatal alcohol poisoning, and they feel like chugging more vodka will at least keep the hangover off while they die, angry-drunk telling themselves and everyone else it's everyone's faults but their own, lashing out drunkenly but destructively as they stumble around in the opening stages of terminal cirrhosis (...amusingly, the auto-fill predicted I'd type cirrhosis there...), dreaming of how they coulda been a contender and that this shows everyone they still could be.

Which is why everyone is at least a little worried that they'll take all the dynamite sticks they've got stored up in closets around the house, and start throwing those out across the neighborhood, including jealously at the mansion-complexes of apparently-equally corrupt bourgeois over there. The dynamite sticks are sweating nitroglycerin, by the way.

[ArizonaTank]

Looks like Turkey has dropped its veto on Sweden...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/turkish-president-erdo%C4%9Fan-agrees-to-back-sweden-s-nato-bid-stoltenberg-says/ar-AA1dGgH3?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=b79a4a21ae1c474ba1efc8bf5da096df&ei=9

[JasonPratt]

400 Wagner fighters flying back to Moscow from the CentAfiRepub, and Zelensky visits Snake Island, among other bits of news:

[ArizonaTank]

Re why the Russians don't want to negotiate and see their only option as total control of Ukraine: I've reported on this a few times, but due to mismanagement of Russia by the kleptocracy, the government has completely screwed over Russia's ability to survive as a nation in several key ways; and one side effect of this has been a culturally fatal decline in the birthrate for too long, so now they have a demographic time-bomb going off.
...

Putin has f**ked Russia pretty badly. When the whole thing comes crashing down, Putin is going to have a thousand new holes and will be hanging half-naked upside-down in Red Square.

[GDS_Starfury]

[Uberhaus]

Putin has f**ked Russia pretty badly. When the whole thing comes crashing down, Putin is going to have a thousand new holes and will be hanging half-naked upside-down in Red Square.

On his removal, he deserves to be moved into a basement apartment in Yekaterinaberg with his whole family as befits his position as Czar.  All this crap of the last twenty-four years could have been avoided if Yeltsin's protege, Nemtsov, had not been sidelined to protect the kleptocrats.  A few less apartments in Moscow would have blown up as well.

As for Russia's economic future, Russian ex-pats may return with money and new business ideas to invest as happened with Poland after the fall of communism.  Hopefully, the oligarchs will vanish, whether voluntarily or not. 

As for Turkeys Erdogan (did I forget an apostrophe, there?), Turkiye's inflation for June was 38%, the lowest in a year and a half.  Sadly, this was not enough to lose him the election in May.  But, it can't but help put him in a position to bargain renewed admittance to the EU for putting admittance of Sweden to NATO to a vote in Turkish parliament.

As for the S-400 system, https://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-russia-s400-too-politically-costly-to-get-rid-of-2023-7?op=1  they were a great act of defiance for Erdogan but a non-integrated air defence system with ""blind spots" that limit the S-400's effectiveness".

This counterhegemonic narrative was promoted by non-AKP figures, including members of the main opposition party, voices on the extreme left and extreme right, and former high-ranking military officials. This meant sticking with the S-400 gave Erdogan and his party political benefits, but it also made it politically costlier for Ankara to abandon what is now seen as a suboptimal air-defense system and to mend its relationship with NATO, according to Hintz and Banks.

[Crossroads]

Recorded in the State Hall of the Parliament, even.

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1678441004188291072

Original tweet

[GDS_Starfury]

personally I dont like Turkish politics but I have to say that Erdogan has played his cards masterfully.