interesting gambit by putya, after suffering multiple hits in Makiivka and Khersonschina that killed hundreds of mobiks and dozens of russians officers, they want a temporary ceasefire. likely to blame UA for something.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/05/world/europe/russia-ukraine-ceasefire.html
UA telegrams are warning civilians in occupied territories not to visit places that could be targets for a false flag bombing or provocation, e.g. cathedrals in Donetsk.
Zelensky:
âNow they want to use Christmas as a coverâ to pause Ukrainian advances âand bring equipment, ammunition and mobilized troops closer to our positions,â he said. âEveryone in the world knows how the Kremlin uses lulls in the war to continue the war with new force,â he added.
Biden:
In Washington, President Biden said it appeared that Mr. Putin was âtrying to find some oxygenâ with the cease-fire announcement. âI am reluctant to respond to anything Putin says,â Mr. Biden said. âI found it interesting he was ready to bomb hospitals and nurseries and churches on the 25th and New Yearâs.â
meanwhile, light armor is coming
The United States and Germany, meanwhile, announced on Thursday that they would supply Ukraine with armored fighting vehicles for the first time, a day after France did so, though they did not cite numbers. Ukrainian officials have pleaded for months for armored vehicles like those now promised, the American Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the French AMX-10 RC and the German Marder, as well as Western tanks, which Ukraineâs allies have so far refused to give.
i gotta say, i believe the UA numbers a lot more, even if they are too high and might reflect dead and injured. still thatâs potentially 0.4-1% percent of 300k mobiks. the thing is, as has been the case since late spring, majority of those dying are mobilized from LDNR (pre-sept), and Russia (since partial mobilization), and Wagner ârecruitsâ from prisons. regular contract troops that survived the original blitzkringe, are held behind the cannon fodder, because they are more valuable/capable at actual fighting.
it is stomach turning to realize that this is a microcosm of soviet strategy and tactics from post-1941 ww2. i just read some history about it, when USSR was mobilizing men all the way up to 55 yo, those suffering from ulcers, those who had been wounded at the front up to 3 times, and likely prisoners. soviet veterans would quietly admit that germans fought better, but Zhukov managed to drown them in soviet blood. almost a million soviet soldiers were executed at the front lines by their own commanders. think about that for a second.
Ukraine said the attack killed or wounded several hundred soldiers, while the Russians reported 89 dead. The casualty estimates could not be independently confirmed, and militaries often exaggerate the losses of their enemies and downplay their own. But in this instance, images of the pancaked vocational school, and the Russian militaryâs confirmation of serious losses, showed a well-planned strike.
In the ensuing days, the Ukrainian military claimed two more attacks directed at an array of towns in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of southern Ukraine, claiming a total of about 1,200 casualties in all three sets of strikes together. It was far from clear how reliable the claims were.
good feels
vince memes, ukrainian edition
had a brief discussion today with an old hippie, who is totally pro-UA, but very much anti US military. And i get it, $900b in defense spending year after year is over the top, and itâs ridiculous that it doesnât even fully provide VA healthcare.
but, otoh, post-cold war, MIC hasnât so much dropped the ball, as blew its load on the war on terror, and did not replenish the supposed stockpiles. we were always told that the reason we need the most powerful military IS to protect democracy, and they donât even have enough tanks to actually defend democracy unless it concerns NATO countries? gtfo, this is it, this is the fight. this all could have been over already if UA got the full kit for 4 or 5 brigades. not to mention that lockheeds/boeing/raytheon/palantir would be swimming in new orders. iâm glad they developed it, now let budding democracies use it against fucking aggressors.
Thank you for remaking this thread!
It is sort of amazing how almost nothing has changed in 100 years. Depressing when you think about it.
About that âcease-fire âoffer:
Seems like autonomous/drone type weapons are kinda a time warp as well in some way. Have these bands of soldiers with machine guns shooting stuff out of sky with bullets
Really sucks that all of the richest people in the world are also evil, but I guess it also makes sense.
My theory of why this is, is that the system offers people literally hundreds of off ramps on the road to wealth/power where they can do a good thing in exchange for the future growth of that wealth/power. Decent people, especially when they already have more than enough take these off ramps at an almost 100% rate loooooong before they have say a billion dollars or become POTUS.
Iâm already noticing myself doing things that are clearly suboptimal from a wealth building perspective because they let me sleep better at night⌠and I absolutely have to say âfor my age cohortâ to claim to be a member of the 1% (and lol at being in the top 1% of elder millennials). I canât even imagine how unwilling Iâd be to suffer a moral qualm with a 100MM net worth.
One thing Iâm absolutely sure of though is that to get rich and remain a decent person you pretty much have to fully control whatever entity is making you rich. Being ethical in a dirty business is actually a competitive advantage if you pair it with significant competence.
How to get rich enough to protect myself and the people I care about from wild fuckery of living in America without trading my soul for it is something I spend way too much time pondering.
So how quickly is this R House going to cause problems for Ukraine? I know they recently approved the aid for a year or whatever but can the Rs stop even that in some way now?
Iâm a little less worried about this than other fuckery tbh. Their majority is just so narrow and a decent subset of Râs are still pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin.
Seriously donât bet against the defense industry lobbyists lol. Theyâre undefeated since ww2 lol. Also itâs pretty clear the Russians are fucked at this point. Weâre basically just waiting for Putin to die somehow.
btw just wanted to say good to see you again, missed your takes