Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1895056/donald-trump-effigy-burned-ukraine-twitter

 "Ukrainian soldiers burn Donald Trump effigy and call him a 'traitor' in shocking video"

Sounds like another chapter in Ukraine genius foreign policy hedging strategy. 

Good for them. Pity so many "Republicans" (and other Americans) are deplorable cowards who prefer to kiss the feet of a vile, would-be tyrant.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1895056/donald-trump-effigy-burned-ukraine-twitter

 "Ukrainian soldiers burn Donald Trump effigy and call him a 'traitor' in shocking video"

Sounds like another chapter in Ukraine genius foreign policy hedging strategy. 

Good for them. Pity so many "Republicans" (and other Americans) are deplorable cowards who prefer to kiss the feet of a vile, would-be tyrant.

I would disagree with the "traitor" label though. He never bothered to even pretend to be on their side to the point that he could betray them.

[jaichind]

https://www.ft.com/content/0d77f54b-af74-4186-9cae-237528ad7d69

"The clash over whether to commandeer Russia’s frozen assets"

Although Ukraine continues to push for an all-out seizure of Russia’s assets, G7 officials say privately that is no longer on the table. Instead, they are exploring alternative ways of extracting funding from the frozen assets.

To get around this, the White House is pushing a new idea that it hopes will win the support of G7 leaders in June. This would involve releasing about $50bn of funding for Ukraine via a loan or bond secured against future profits from the frozen assets, explains Singh.

The main problem with the USA idea of loans against the profits of the frozen Russian asset is that there are "only" 5 billion EUR of such profits so far.

[Red Velvet]

The way Russians make fun of USA is exactly like the way US Conservatives mock US Progressives:

https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1786551313079378346
Hopefully more US Conservatives realize they are only devaluing their own country in front of the world when they position themselves against important causes that are what Western Civilization is known for. Opens door for others to ridicule you as well, with domestic validation.

Conservatives who are Pro-American should be getting behind Progressive policies if they really support their own country, despite some localized Progressive excesses.

Obviously, a small minority can weaponize such causes to make them look as satirical and exaggerated like in the video, but it doesn’t change how serious conversations about such topics is necessary and how the instinct to satirize and define the US by those standards shows how insecure Russia actually is about itself.

[jaichind]

The way Russians make fun of USA is exactly like the way US Conservatives mock US Progressives:

https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1786551313079378346
Hopefully more US Conservatives realize they are only devaluing their own country in front of the world when they position themselves against important causes that are what Western Civilization is known for. Opens door for others to ridicule you as well, with domestic validation.

Conservatives who are Pro-American should be getting behind Progressive policies if they really support their own country, despite some localized Progressive excesses.

Obviously, a small minority can weaponize such causes to make them look as satirical and exaggerated like in the video, but it doesn’t change how serious conversations about such topics is necessary and how the instinct to satirize and define the US by those standards shows how insecure Russia actually is about itself.

But how is that different from "progressives" in Japan, India, PRC, and Russia also parroting what Biden says about those states?


Also these "causes" only became "Western" only in the last few decades. 

Back in 1790, the USA which was clearly a Western civilization offshoot said that immigration was for "free white person(s) ... of good character" which does not align with the current woke agenda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790

I think "Western Civilization is known for" is more about the current, and hopefully, temporary incarnation of what the West has become last few decades.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/tatarigami_ua/status/1786492797173805427?s=12
🫡💪

[jaichind]

Pro-Russian sources say that Russians captured Arkhanhelske

[Red Velvet]

But how is that different from "progressives" in Japan, India, PRC, and Russia also parroting what Biden says about those states?

These don’t have nearly the same global reach and influence to do something similar.  Everyone in the world knows about and talks about US politics these days, especially on TV networks.

US conservatives manage to externally weaken their country much much more than these Russian/Japanese/Chinese progressives. If they really loved their country they would embrace its culture for whatever the hell it is today instead of trying to move the clock back. Culture can change with time, but never by force or artificially stimulated.

I have stuff about Brazil culture that I hate (like say, Carnaval) but I keep that to myself instead if trashing it publicly and I absolutely DESPISE the niche of Brazilian people who complain about Carnaval culture whenever we reach February even I also tend to not be a fan because I recognize it makes a lot of other people happy.

There are some things you embrace for the social cohesion of the nation, which is always the greater good over individual preferences.

[Hollywood]

Pro-Russian sources say that Russians captured Arkhanhelske

There's drone footage of the Russian Flag on the NW portion of the town.  

https://twitter.com/Suriyakmaps/status/1786749840619147267

[jaichind]

https://www.wsj.com/finance/ukraine-debt-payments-russia-war-1c0c301e

"Bondholders to Push Ukraine to Resume Debt Payments After Hiatus"

Ukraine's lenders said Kyiv could wait to pay them back after Russian troops stormed into the country two years ago. Now, their patience is starting to run out.
A group of foreign bondholders including BlackRock and Pimco plans to press Ukraine to start paying interest on its debt again as soon as next year, according to people familiar with the matter.

In the end it will always be about "show me the money"

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1786915509788610761

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1786915509788610761

At this rate Putin's Russia will have conquered all of Ukraine in only another couple decades, at the cost of only 10 or 20 million Russian casualties.

[CumbrianLefty]

At this rate Putin's Russia will have conquered all of Ukraine in only another couple decades, at the cost of only 10 or 20 million Russian casualties.

At the current speed, more like centuries.

[Beet]

But how is that different from "progressives" in Japan, India, PRC, and Russia also parroting what Biden says about those states?

These don’t have nearly the same global reach and influence to do something similar.  Everyone in the world knows about and talks about US politics these days, especially on TV networks.

US conservatives manage to externally weaken their country much much more than these Russian/Japanese/Chinese progressives. If they really loved their country they would embrace its culture for whatever the hell it is today instead of trying to move the clock back. Culture can change with time, but never by force or artificially stimulated.

I have stuff about Brazil culture that I hate (like say, Carnaval) but I keep that to myself instead if trashing it publicly and I absolutely DESPISE the niche of Brazilian people who complain about Carnaval culture whenever we reach February even I also tend to not be a fan because I recognize it makes a lot of other people happy.

There are some things you embrace for the social cohesion of the nation, which is always the greater good over individual preferences.

Your mistake is thinking that US conservatives are loyal to the US. That they are not is both obvious and always forgotten. Their "nation" is White America, and as such, US culture as it exists today is a dead end for them. They are a country within a country. There is nothing for them in places like California, New York, or Maryland, except as sources of tax revenue and global influence for a potential Republican administration whose real constituency will always be the heartland and the South.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

At this rate Putin's Russia will have conquered all of Ukraine in only another couple decades, at the cost of only 10 or 20 million Russian casualties.

At the current speed, more like centuries.

This is an old meme from early in the full-scale war:



Well, we are about to the start of summer 2024 now. So the snail is on pace to soon reach the Polish border.

Meanwhile, the Russian army... well... it's on pace to soon reach 16,000 visually confirmed equipment (armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, radars, etc) losses:

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html

That Soviet legacy stockpile is getting run down hard.

The more those equipment losses mount, the equipment situation should tend to become exponentially worse, because they will pull the most useable equipment from the Soviet stockpiles first, meaning subsequent stuff requires more work refurbishing it. In addition, the more the stockpile is run down, the more they will start lacking spare parts for repairs, because they will cannibalize equipment most useful for spare parts first. So as a result, not only is less stuff available over time, but it also takes longer and is more difficult to make the stuff that is left useable.

This is why the Russian army is increasingly using things like motorcycles for assaults (and soldiers even making improvised sidecars using things like pallets):

https://www.twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1786695144756101325

https://www.twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1786695144756101325

While Russia remains a serious battlefield threat, their ability to replace lost armored vehicles is limited. A vivid example is the motorcycle abandoned during the assault in the Bilohorivka area, where a pallet was used as a sidecar to transport assault infantry

This is because they are starting to simply not have anything better left. And as a result, the tendency will be (at least if we give Ukraine the ammo we should be giving them) mounting Russian manpower (infantry) losses, because they will be lacking more and more the protective equipment, specialized equipment, and support that can help lower their casualties.

Russian production, even with mobilization, is not sufficient to keep pace with those sorts of extreme losses. The only thing that hypothetically could turn that around would be large scale direct Chinese equipment aid. But it is not really in China's interest to do that because they would be sanctioned to hell, and because Russia uses equipment so wastefully that it would start to pretty quickly run down the Chinese equipment stockpile as well.

As a result, if Russia does not get some sort of new equipment source, by 2025 things may start to turn against Russia, now that the US and European MIC is starting to actually be ramped up, and now that more and more previously "off limits" things are starting to be allowed by the west (i.e. David Cameron saying a few days ago that Ukraine can use British weapons to attack targets on Russian soil now).

Russian manpower losses reported by the Ukrainians have reached well over 1000 per day by this point (of course you have to keep in mind the specific numbers may not be perfectly accurate, but the trendline has been well upwards even despite the Ukrainian ammo shortage).

From what I can tell, probably the biggest difficulty is that Russian electronic warfare is relatively effective - the western MIC will hopefully work to come up with better ways for Ukraine to counter it.

[jaichind]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1895760/ukraine-soldiers-russia-war-zelensky

"Ukraine soldiers furious as men 'refusing to fight' Russia: 'We can't defend our country'"

Ukraine is in a "dire" situation on the frontline as many men are refusing to fight as aid from the US makes its way to Kyiv slowly.

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1786915509788610761

At this rate Putin's Russia will have conquered all of Ukraine in only another couple decades, at the cost of only 10 or 20 million Russian casualties.

Wars usually don't go at consistent pace. Russians were fighting for individual streets in Stalingrad. Two years later they were at the gates of Berlin and Vienna.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1787213395713826905
Interesting read
https://archive.is/UGoIp

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Russians were fighting for individual streets in Stalingrad.

Over on planet reality, the Soviet Union was 50% ethnically non-Russian. And especially during Stalingrad, when much of European Russia was overrun by the Axis, many of the Red Army soldiers were non-Russian minorities recruited in territories that the Soviet Union still controlled in Central Asia, Siberia, and the Caucasus etc. A lot of the ethnic Russians in the Red Army had previously been captured or killed in the opening earlier stages of the war.

So no, it wasn't "Russians" who were fighting for individual streets in Stalingrad. Some were Russian, many many were not. Soviets (including Ukrainians) did that, not Russians.

Two years later they were at the gates of Berlin and Vienna.

Literally the guy who took the iconic photo waving the flag over the Reichstag was Ukrainian (Yevgeny Khaldei), and the Red Army soldiers he photographed raising the flag were a Kazakh, a Dagestani, and a Belarussian. Not a single actual Russian among them lol:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_a_Flag_over_the_Reichstag

On 2 May 1945, Khaldei scaled the now pacified Reichstag to take his picture. He was carrying with him a large flag, sewn from three tablecloths for this very purpose, by his uncle.[6] The official story would later be that two hand-picked soldiers, Meliton Kantaria[A 2] (Georgian) and Mikhail Yegorov[A 3] (Russian), raised the Soviet flag over the Reichstag,[1][7][8][9] and the photograph would often be used as depicting the event. Some authors state that for political reasons the subjects of the photograph were changed and the actual man to hoist the flag was Aleksei Kovalev.[10][11] However, according to Khaldei himself, when he arrived at the Reichstag, he simply asked the soldiers who happened to be passing by to help with the staging of the photoshoot;[12][13] the one who was attaching the flag was 18-year-old Private Kovalev from Burlin, Kazakhstan[14] and the two others were Abdulkhakim Ismailov from Dagestan and Leonid Gorychev (also mentioned as Aleksei Goryachev) from Minsk.[13] The photograph was taken with a Leica III rangefinder camera with a 35mm f3.5 lens.[15]

[Hindsight was 2020]

Russians were fighting for individual streets in Stalingrad.

Over on planet reality, the Soviet Union was 50% ethnically non-Russian. And especially during Stalingrad, when much of European Russia was overrun by the Axis, many of the Red Army soldiers were non-Russian minorities recruited in territories that the Soviet Union still controlled in Siberia and the Caucasus etc. A lot of the ethnic Russians in the Red Army had previously been captured or killed in the opening earlier stages of the war.

So no, it wasn't "Russians" who were fighting for individual streets in Stalingrad. Some were Russian, many many were not. Soviets (including Ukrainians) did that, not Russians.

Two years later they were at the gates of Berlin and Vienna.

Literally the guy who took the iconic photo waving the flag over the Reichstag was Ukrainian (Yevgeny Khaldei), and the Red Army soldiers he photographed raising the flag were a Kazakh, a Dagestani, and a Belarussian. Not a single actual Russian among them lol:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_a_Flag_over_the_Reichstag

On 2 May 1945, Khaldei scaled the now pacified Reichstag to take his picture. He was carrying with him a large flag, sewn from three tablecloths for this very purpose, by his uncle.[6] The official story would later be that two hand-picked soldiers, Meliton Kantaria[A 2] (Georgian) and Mikhail Yegorov[A 3] (Russian), raised the Soviet flag over the Reichstag,[1][7][8][9] and the photograph would often be used as depicting the event. Some authors state that for political reasons the subjects of the photograph were changed and the actual man to hoist the flag was Aleksei Kovalev.[10][11] However, according to Khaldei himself, when he arrived at the Reichstag, he simply asked the soldiers who happened to be passing by to help with the staging of the photoshoot;[12][13] the one who was attaching the flag was 18-year-old Private Kovalev from Burlin, Kazakhstan[14] and the two others were Abdulkhakim Ismailov from Dagestan and Leonid Gorychev (also mentioned as Aleksei Goryachev) from Minsk.[13] The photograph was taken with a Leica III rangefinder camera with a 35mm f3.5 lens.[15]

Not to mention Russia are the Nazis in this scenario lol. They’re the invading army. That’s not even touching the obvious other issues (lend lease, two fronts, etc.)

[jaichind]

Pro-Russian sources say Russians captured Kislovka

[jaichind]

Anti-Putin Russian media Mediazona estimate by month of Russia KIA mostly by scrapping obituaries.   This effort seems to have BBC funding.   The KIA rate has clearly been going down these last few months and the breakdown of the type of KIA gives good trends on the makeup of the Russian military at the front.

[jaichind]

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-trophy-weapons-exhibition-moscow-military-78ec9388ab7ea0b02722e2e70f67ffd9

"Kremlin parades Western equipment captured from Ukrainian army at Moscow exhibition"



It seems to me Kiev should be doing something similar to show off the Russian equipment they captured.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anti-Putin Russian media Mediazona estimate by month of Russia KIA mostly by scrapping obituaries.   This effort seems to have BBC funding.   The KIA rate has clearly been going down these last few months and the breakdown of the type of KIA gives good trends on the makeup of the Russian military at the front.

What observations do you think there are to glean from this data specifically?

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/aborealis940/status/1787502965395427357?s=46
😬