The Invasion of Ukraine

[TimW]

Some idiot gave this oaf a copy of the invasion map. It includes an arrow going into Moldova (Transnistria) from the Odessa area.


Secret Map.jpg

There have been Russian troops peacekeeping in Transnistria, years after the Moldovans expected them to f.ck off, though I think the breakaway Transnistrians are happier about it.

Quite. It looks like they are about to be reintegrated into mother Russia.

[Stranger Mouse]

There is no way Ukraine is going to prevail in this war without help from NATO. Which would lead to World War III, nukes, etc. So it won't happen.
So you have to look at the next step at providing security in Europe short of war. First step is stopping the carnage. Better to be a live Ukranian than a dead martyr.
From a western perspective it might be better for Ukraine to fight to the last man. That is making the Ukranians a proxy for westerners who are (rightly) afraid to fight.

This is correct. There isn't a long queue of forum members at the Ukrainian Embassy, going by responses on the International Brigade thread. All of us are demanding bravery and sacrifice from others.

We've had stuff on this forum like "make the invaders bleed so badly they give up" and "confront the lout in the pub". We've even had one forum member calling another forum member a coward. Which is a bit rich. When safe, relatively prosperous westerners call for a minority to suffer for the greater good it's pretty dodgy territory.

From the point of view of an individual domino, best to fall gently than be shattered. From the point of view of other dominos in the chain of dominos, best that the first one fights to the last man. This conflict is good news for the Baltic nations in particular.

In Britain, all we need to do is pay more for gas (which will accelerate renewables and insulation), plus take in four refugees. Five maybe, if we get a good strawberry crop and need an extra worker. OK, so it's a bit of an economic hit to all of us. But it's a long way from emerging from a basement into the rubble to chuck a Molotov Cocktail at Russian conscripts.

Typical strawmen. I’m not demanding anything of the Ukrainian people and I don’t think anyone else has either. What we are doing is respecting their own decision to put up a fight.

And the specific arguments given about confronting louts in pubs were

1) As a response to that analogy being used to say the Ukrainians should immediately surrender.

2) To make clear that surrendering to threats isn’t always possible and/or advisable. Sometimes surrender is the only option but in others it just makes the situation worse - it’s a difficult choice. I have put myself in potentially life threatening physical danger to help a stranger and I was sh.tting myself while I did it. I totally understand people who, in a given set of circumstances, may decide that discretion is the better part of valour. However, it is obviously not true that surrender automatically makes all the problems go away any more than attack will automatically vanquish the enemy. These are difficult and frightening choices and they are cheapened by anyone using simplistic strawmen to score points.

[Pishwish]

There is no way Ukraine is going to prevail in this war without help from NATO. Which would lead to World War III, nukes, etc. So it won't happen.
So you have to look at the next step at providing security in Europe short of war. First step is stopping the carnage. Better to be a live Ukranian than a dead martyr.
From a western perspective it might be better for Ukraine to fight to the last man. That is making the Ukranians a proxy for westerners who are (rightly) afraid to fight.

This is correct. There isn't a long queue of forum members at the Ukrainian Embassy, going by responses on the International Brigade thread. All of us are demanding bravery and sacrifice from others.

Look, I know it's a bit disconcerting for a contrarian when the vast majority of a forum seems to be of the same mind, but there's no need to start siding with the forum's most historically illiterate troll, pretend that everyone here is "demanding" that the Ukrainians sacrifice themselves, and think you're delivering some arch insight about privilege.

[lpm]

Don't be ridiculous.

Herainestold isn't demanding Ukraine surrenders either.

He's arguing they should, to save lives of their citizens. Remember the concept of "arguing" for and against things? Before the descent into group think?

Appeasement might be a minority view but it's a valid view. Pacifism has a long and noble history. Calling pacifists "cowards" has a long and ignoble history.

[Stranger Mouse]

Don't be ridiculous.

Herainestold isn't demanding Ukraine surrenders either.

He's arguing they should, to save lives of their citizens. Remember the concept of "arguing" for and against things? Before the descent into group think?

Appeasement might be a minority view but it's a valid view. Pacifism has a long and noble history. Calling pacifists "cowards" has a long and ignoble history.

I noticed your reference to people calling others cowards so I did a search. It seems to be a “go to” insult for EAC who was in the majority of the results but the vast majority of people on this site have not been calling pacifists cowards and it is misleading to imply they have been.

[Trinucleus]

Supposing Putin said that he'd take the troops home if he was allowed to keep the two eastern provinces?

It would stop most bloodshed, but give in to what were unthinkable demands a month ago

[Stranger Mouse]

Supposing Putin said that he'd take the troops home if he was allowed to keep the two eastern provinces?

It would stop most bloodshed, but give in to what were unthinkable demands a month ago

Would it stop the bloodshed or would he suddenly use exigent circumstances to renege on the agreement?

[Bird on a Fire]

Supposing Putin said that he'd take the troops home if he was allowed to keep the two eastern provinces?

It would stop most bloodshed, but give in to what were unthinkable demands a month ago

That was my best guess at a sensible long-term strategy, but I'm less convinced there is one.

[bjn]

There is no way Ukraine is going to prevail in this war without help from NATO. Which would lead to World War III, nukes, etc. So it won't happen.
So you have to look at the next step at providing security in Europe short of war. First step is stopping the carnage. Better to be a live Ukranian than a dead martyr.
From a western perspective it might be better for Ukraine to fight to the last man. That is making the Ukranians a proxy for westerners who are (rightly) afraid to fight.

This is correct. There isn't a long queue of forum members at the Ukrainian Embassy, going by responses on the International Brigade thread. All of us are demanding bravery and sacrifice from others.

We've had stuff on this forum like "make the invaders bleed so badly they give up" and "confront the lout in the pub". We've even had one forum member calling another forum member a coward. Which is a bit rich. When safe, relatively prosperous westerners call for a minority to suffer for the greater good it's pretty dodgy territory.

From the point of view of an individual domino, best to fall gently than be shattered. From the point of view of other dominos in the chain of dominos, best that the first one fights to the last man. This conflict is good news for the Baltic nations in particular.

In Britain, all we need to do is pay more for gas (which will accelerate renewables and insulation), plus take in four refugees. Five maybe, if we get a good strawberry crop and need an extra worker. OK, so it's a bit of an economic hit to all of us. But it's a long way from emerging from a basement into the rubble to chuck a Molotov Cocktail at Russian conscripts.

Typical strawmen. I’m not demanding anything of the Ukrainian people and I don’t think anyone else has either. What we are doing is respecting their own decision to put up a fight.

And the specific arguments given about confronting louts in pubs were

1) As a response to that analogy being used to say the Ukrainians should immediately surrender.

2) To make clear that surrendering to threats isn’t always possible and/or advisable. Sometimes surrender is the only option but in others it just makes the situation worse - it’s a difficult choice. I have put myself in potentially life threatening physical danger to help a stranger and I was sh.tting myself while I did it. I totally understand people who, in a given set of circumstances, may decide that discretion is the better part of valour. However, it is obviously not true that surrender automatically makes all the problems go away any more than attack will automatically vanquish the enemy. These are difficult and frightening choices and they are cheapened by anyone using simplistic strawmen to score points.

^^^ this. I was going to type pretty much the same reply.

The Ukrainians want to keep fighting, so they will. It is a choice I would hope I would make in the same situation. Let them fight the aggressor and help them as best we can. Which we are doing by arming them and waging a devastating economic war upon Putin’s Russia. He’s holding the world to ransom, and it can’t continue. Moldova after this, then maybe the Baltics. How about we just invite him to take over from the Queen?

Regardless, Putin’s regime has been waging a war of disinformation against “The West” for many years now. Using money to corrupt our societies and lies to further divide us.

[lpm]

Sure. But "the Ukrainians" are not a single unit. It's 44 million people. There's compulsory conscription to fight. There are 7 million children.

As the days turn to weeks and weeks turn to months, the strange fervour for war will cool in the west. There will be growing calls for peace and urging to accept unfavourable negotiations. We're going to need better responses than you're a troll, you're a coward.

[lpm]

Plus EACL consistently argued on another forum for military intervention in Syria to fight back against Putin and his war crimes.

As I remember he got almost no support.

I certainly did not support it.

And when I said we should boycott Putin's football tournament nobody was interested. Entertainment trumped principles. There was that thing when people said, oh but we're not sending dignatories like Prince William, that'll show him. Which is laughable in retrospect.

I think the current fervour in the West is built on shaky foundations.

[Pishwish]

You seem to think that people with "war fervour" expect that there will be minimal casualties, an easily chastised Putin*, and no unintended consequences. Public opinion regarding war will always cool as its realities roll in. People will realize that they didn't fully understand the history and politics of the beligerants. War crimes will be committed by both sides. Cities may be flattened and economies destroyed. A Ukraine victory could cause separatist uprisings throughout Russia.
And there is of course the increased threat of nuclear war.

In most instances, war is about degrees of losing. But it is foolish to ignore how much can be lost by "avoiding" war. As with climate change, delaying action today makes the problem much worse tomorrow. Ukraine will be repressed, then it will be the turn of former soviet and even Warsaw pact territories. China might be tempted to dust-off its Taiwan invasion plans. Non-nuclear powers will begin clandestine nuclear weapons programmes because what else is going to protect them?

Western powers can't do much to help people being repressed by their own government (like the Uyghurs), particularly when that government has nuclear weapons. Intervene in a civil war? forget it, you'll be seen as invaders by one side and be complicit in atrocities of the other. But this invasion, this is a song we've heard before, we know the tune and know how it is supposed to be sung.

*An optimistic outcome is unlikely, but not impossible. Maybe mutiny will spread in the Russian army, maybe the unprecedented international opposition will cause economic and financial collapse before alternative arrangements with less scrupulous nations can be arranged.

[EACLucifer]

Don't be ridiculous.

Herainestold isn't demanding Ukraine surrenders either.

He's arguing they should, to save lives of their citizens. Remember the concept of "arguing" for and against things? Before the descent into group think?

Appeasement might be a minority view but it's a valid view. Pacifism has a long and noble history. Calling pacifists "cowards" has a long and ignoble history.

I noticed your reference to people calling others cowards so I did a search. It seems to be a “go to” insult for EAC who was in the majority of the results but the vast majority of people on this site have not been calling pacifists cowards and it is misleading to imply they have been.

The reason I call that poster a coward is because of their posting behaviour - specifically advocating for a fascist regime (China) but running from any discussion of their appalling human rights abuses against the Uighurs, though I do believe that for a westerner to demand Ukrainians give up because they, in the west, are scared of Putin's posturing is extremely selfish and, yes, cowardly.

What people do when they are the ones in the line of fire is very different, and that isn't something people will know about themselves until it actually happens.

[EACLucifer]

It's been at least 48 hours since we first heard of the 20/40/60km long convoy of doom trundlìng down the road towards Kyiv with the leading units only 30km away. What's happened to it? Did it split up, divert, get stuck, melt, turn back, or did it never exist?

An alternative explanation voiced on the news was that Russian forces are regrouping. Seems unlikely to me. They're already in a pretty big group.

I think as others have said they've gone beyond their logistics and are stuck.

Or maybe they've got all the food, fuel and ammo they need, and are thinking perhaps that advancing into Kyiv (with snipers and Javelins and a million people who hate you) is the worst idea since some Trojans decided to adopt a big wooden horse.

Maybe just a load of road blocks, dismantled bridges, blocked tunnels - that's what I'd do.

That's exactly what Ukraine is doing, including one bridge blown by combat engineer Vitaliy Skakun and posthumous Hero of Ukraine. He wasn't able to get off the bridge in time, but blew it anyway.

They are also targetting fuel supplies, including even attacking fuel trains within Russia with drones. The thing is, the weather is warmer than expected. The mud is really quite staggering. There's tanks abandoned up to the tops of their tracks in it, and at least one case where more than one vehicle was abandoned after a second vehicle got stuck trying to free another stuck vehicle.

This is a very good thread on the subject of tyres, maintenance and corruption.

The short version is the vehicles have been left parked so long that their tyres have detioriated. In order to cope with the mud, they have to really lower the tyre pressure, but then that puts strain on the knackered sidewalls, causing tyre failures, which might be why so many of the captured vehicles have flat tyres, though shooting out tyres is also a possibility. Between corruption and logistical difficulties of getting through the traffic jams, chances are they won't be able to replace tyres. Effectively, if this warmer weather holds, they'll be road-bound for a month or two, and of course roads are easily blocked by blowing up a vehicle or two. That is in fact exactly what we've seen with some of the attacks on convoys - the first few vehicles disabled one way or another and the rest abandoned.

[Millennie Al]

Supposing Putin said that he'd take the troops home if he was allowed to keep the two eastern provinces?

It would stop most bloodshed, but give in to what were unthinkable demands a month ago

It would be a matter for Ukraine to decide what to do. It seems unlikely that they would find it acceptable on the grounds that they would fear it was merely a pause in hostilities to allow Russia time to prepare for a more successful attack.

[Millennie Al]

Nations joined NATO because they chose to. They have the right to do that, Russia doesn't get a vote on it. It's not even something that will affect Russia if they don't try and invade their neighbours or use the threat of doing so as a means of coercion. Russia's objections are those of a burglar who wishes to prevent their neighbours from installing locks and burglar alarms.

It is easy to see why Russia would think it does affect them. Larger alliances are more powerful, and with more power comes the temptation to use that power to further interests. A better analogy would be a burglar who lives on a street of burglars objecting to neighbours installing locks - it does confer an advantage.

However, international relations necessitates a high level of maturity - realising that you can't always get what you want and frequently you have to accept the risk posed by others. Russia has to be realistic - other countries prefer to align with NATO and it has to accept that and any direct confrontational attempts to change it are extremely unlikely to fail.

[Brightonian]

I was vaguely aware that the aircraft leasing industry was a thing in Ireland but hadn't realised how much. Seems that most leasing companies are Irish (to some extent because of tax), and they are having problems (e.g. stranded aircraft) as a result of sanctions.

Interesting Twitter thread, suggesting Russian civil aviation will collapse in a few weeks: https://twitter.com/janedvidek/status/1 ... 8183382020

[jaap]

However, international relations necessitates a high level of maturity - realising that you can't always get what you want and frequently you have to accept the risk posed by others. Russia has to be realistic - other countries prefer to align with NATO and it has to accept that and any direct confrontational attempts to change it are extremely unlikely to fail.

I think you misnegated your last sentence there.

[Woodchopper]

Some linked threads on the state of Russian equipment:
https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status ... 5250002944
https://twitter.com/delfoo/status/1499286144294572033
https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/statu ... 1977032704
https://twitter.com/KarlMuth/status/1499185800172474371 and https://twitter.com/KarlMuth/status/1499186789424283652

tl;dr the Russian vehicles appear to have been poorly maintained, and are using poor quality components. Which helps to explain all the abandoned vehicles and traffic jams.

The information isn't verified but has been shared by normally sensible people who know what they are talking about.

[lpm]

Top agricultural land for growing wheat like Ukraine tends to be muddy in winter. You want a lot of soil that absorbs the winter rain then enjoys a hot summer.

The Russians should have invaded Salisbury Plain. Chalk uplands with thin soil for light grazing. Tanks can charge about all year long.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Nah, too many hippies clogging them up.

[Woodchopper]

It's been at least 48 hours since we first heard of the 20/40/60km long convoy of doom trundlìng down the road towards Kyiv with the leading units only 30km away. What's happened to it? Did it split up, divert, get stuck, melt, turn back, or did it never exist?

Apparently it’s turned into an enormous traffic jam: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/10837337 ... icial-says

We know that Russian vehicles are running out of fuel. With freezing temperatures even stationary vehicles will run their engines at least part of the time and keep using more fuel. So it seems plausible that if Russia can’t improve its logistics the column is going to move slowly.

Looks like the traffic jam hasn't moved very much for a few days now. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-int ... 022-03-03/

Seems to be there due to a combination of Ukrainian attacks, poor organization, poor morale, lack of fuel, poor maintenance and the weather.

[TimW]

I was vaguely aware that the aircraft leasing industry was a thing in Ireland but hadn't realised how much. Seems that most leasing companies are Irish (to some extent because of tax), and they are having problems (e.g. stranded aircraft) as a result of sanctions.

Interesting Twitter thread, suggesting Russian civil aviation will collapse in a few weeks: https://twitter.com/janedvidek/status/1 ... 8183382020

Thanks.

I see also that Finnair are in the sh.t. They've been focussing a bit on Asian destinations (e.g. it looks like they are the nearest EU nation to Japan) but now they need to make the biggest diversions.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/finna ... 1646298994

[Bird on a Fire]

Interesting blog post on the reach of Russian propaganda within Russia. Not exactly verified, but the author appears to be a genuine academic at least, and it seems plausible:

Along with several other Russian-speaking academics outside of Russia, I have been emailing thousands (yes, thousands!) academics in Russia urging them to take action to oppose the war. My letter to them can be found here (scroll down for an English translation). Most of the emails get no replies, but the replies I have gotten have made me truly appreciate how polarized the Russian population is. It’s one thing to imagine a Russian store clerk believing in the story of genocide, it’s another to hear an academic who has published in English-language journals profess such views. Propaganda does not necessarily discriminate.

Today, I received a reply that, based on other replies, captures the situation among Russian academics quite well, both the good and the ugly. With the academic’s permission, I am publishing the reply almost word-for-word (by request, I removed some small details so the academic cannot be identified). The English translation comes first (original Russian below). I also added a few links and notes for clarity.

http://deryugina.com/a-view-from-russian-academia/

It seems like plenty of educated, internationalist Russians more-or-less believe the regime propaganda, and we shouldn't necessarily expect a toppling of Putin in the near term whatever happens with the invasion.

[Stranger Mouse]

Interesting blog post on the reach of Russian propaganda within Russia. Not exactly verified, but the author appears to be a genuine academic at least, and it seems plausible:

Along with several other Russian-speaking academics outside of Russia, I have been emailing thousands (yes, thousands!) academics in Russia urging them to take action to oppose the war. My letter to them can be found here (scroll down for an English translation). Most of the emails get no replies, but the replies I have gotten have made me truly appreciate how polarized the Russian population is. It’s one thing to imagine a Russian store clerk believing in the story of genocide, it’s another to hear an academic who has published in English-language journals profess such views. Propaganda does not necessarily discriminate.

Today, I received a reply that, based on other replies, captures the situation among Russian academics quite well, both the good and the ugly. With the academic’s permission, I am publishing the reply almost word-for-word (by request, I removed some small details so the academic cannot be identified). The English translation comes first (original Russian below). I also added a few links and notes for clarity.

http://deryugina.com/a-view-from-russian-academia/

It seems like plenty of educated, internationalist Russians more-or-less believe the regime propaganda, and we shouldn't necessarily expect a toppling of Putin in the near term whatever happens with the invasion.

I’ll have a look at that later but currently link doesn’t work for me

Is it possible that some of those replies supporting the party line are just worried that disagreeing could come back to haunt them? Especially leaving an email trail.