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Ukraine War


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16 hours ago, Pods said:

Dude in the photo has a swastika tattoo on his arm.

I believe GRUHorn's attempted point is that if a single Ukrainian man has a swastika tattoo, then the whole country is full of Nazi's and Putin is vindicated. The US should stop supporting Ukraine and let Russia purge them. 

This is obviously stupid, even for GRUHorn, but that has never stopped him in the past. 

I am not Caponata. 
 

I don’t really care about the nazi or not thing. It’s all a bs justification from Putin. 

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2 hours ago, Caponata said:

You think Reuters photoshopped that picture? And I don't think it's meaningless, did you think the Charlottesville rally was meaningless?

Reuters in 2018:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary/commentary-ukraines-neo-nazi-problem-idUSKBN1GV2TY

 

 

image.png

what's your end goal here? like, what is a favorable situation here? we're sending arms and money but no bodies to Ukraine. we haven't lost a single US soldier. do you really believe this conflict has any fucking thing to do with nazis? really?

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5 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

Edit to add: I don't find any of the responses to my post about voting to be rancorous or unintelligent. I appreciate that.

 

You're one of the few on here that does, or can even tolerate a view point slightly different then their own, but this appears to be the nature of most of the internet echo chambers.

I would point out that when you pull out the broad brush (all those evil white guys, all those evil black guys or whoever). You are no more accurate than some really bad players in history. Pol Pot had a thing for people with glasses. 

It would be nice if you could spot evil by looking at someone or even a group, but it's been tried. 

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4 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

what's your end goal here? like, what is a favorable situation here? we're sending arms and money but no bodies to Ukraine. we haven't lost a single US soldier. do you really believe this conflict has any fucking thing to do with nazis? really?

Diplomacy, although the war profiteers hate diplomacy. We may not have lost a soldier but (correct me if I'm wrong) I read Ukraine is losing 300 ppl per day. I don't want to see Ukraine turned into another Iraq/Afghanistan. 

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1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Putin gives no fucks about diplomacy.  This was a play for more territory, more people, and more natural resources.  The man is now openly admitting and not even hiding that it's about trying to get the USSR or Russian Empire back together in some way.

It was not about de-nazification, since Russia stopped marching on Kyiv, stopping trying to decapitate the government.  It's not about de-militarization unless Putin meant de-militarization of Russia, since Ukraine has more arms now than when it started (and Russia has provided the most hardware). It's not about NATO expansion since A) it got Sweden and Finland off the fence, and B) taking over Ukraine would mean even more of Russia's border would be next to NATO countries.

And it damn sure was not about protecting Russian culture or Russian-speaking peoples, because Russia deliberately devastated massive areas full of Russian-speaking Ukrainians (until Russia killed them/displaced them).

If Putin wins in Ukraine, then he tees up Moldova and Georgia, and starts looking at other areas.

When Putin tells the world that this war is about conquering territory and resources, listen to him.

You’re on top of this more than anyone. I subscribe to the idea that he’s trying to recreate some kind of Peter the Great version of Russia. But how do we stop him? We’ve already committed $50B and supposedly they’re going to take over Luhansk in a couple weeks.
 

How much money will it take? Where is the best place to stop him? I know you’ve said to just kill as many of his men as you can but it feels like they’re slowly grinding their way to where they want to be. 

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22 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Patience.  Death by a thousand cuts.  Sanctions.  

But if you want to bitch about cost, imagine having to station 150,000+ active duty American soldiers, along with hundreds of tanks, hundreds of helicopters, etc. along the Romanian, Polish, and Baltic borders, because that is what will happen if Russian wins - we will be paying a shitload more having to stage American forces to the eastern borders than we are sending to Ukraine.  We will be paying to maintain a 1980s-sized force deployed to forward bases, it's just that rather than guarding the Fulda Gap, we'll be in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, etc..

If we do nothing, Putin takes over Ukraine, puts Ukrainian natural resources (food, oil & gas, metals, etc.) under its control which allows it to fuck with the rest of the world more than it already does. And Putin will then move on Moldova and Georgia (as they've already stated they intend on doing).  And there's a risk that he'll fuck around with NATO militarily after trying to divide it.

Wiht that said, Russia can't fight a conventional war and an insurgency at the same time: imagine Afghanistan + a conventional war with actual large fronts they have to defend.

Ukraine hasn't even entered the insurgency phase that everybody predicted they'd be in 100 days ago, but Ukraine knows how to fight as an insurgency, and NATO damn sure knows how insurgencies work, and how to keep Ukraine going, and they've got an easy supply pipeline straight into Ukraine.  And Russians can't help committing war crimes, which is just going to fuel the insurgency even more.  You never brutalize a population that you intend to occupy, you just don't.  And Russia has already made it clear going forward that it intends on sending Ukrainians to re-education camps, taking kids to Russia, destroying all vestiges of anything that makes them Ukrainian, their language, etc.  Basically Russia is creating the conditions for a whole lot of people not to give a lot of fucks about anything other than killing Russians. 

In addition to making sure that Ukrainians know they have nothing to lose if Russia takes over, how Russia has handled insurgencies in the past won't work out in Ukraine - Russians can't go kicking barrels full of explosives out of helicopters over civilian areas, because A) Slaughtering civilians is a fantastic way to keep up the sanctions and B) Somebody with a MANPAD will take that helicopter down.  Russia also can't use chemical weapons.

Russia has also reached their maximum area of control.  Not occupation mind you - they don't even have the troops to truly occupy the areas they've captured, and that's a problem, because if they don't occupy those areas, they will eventually lose control of them.  You can control all of the roads, but if you don't occupy the areas in between the roads, that's where shit will get real.  And tying into the conventional aspect - Russia is blowing bridges because they can't go any farther and they are scared shitless of the Ukrainians.

Patience.  Russia is running out of troops (hence bringing in reserves and trying to entice people to join up or conscripts to switch to contract). They are having supply problems (hence the early 1960s-era T-62s tanks).  Putin also can't put the Russian population or economy on a war footing and start conscripting like crazy, because he would have to change the Russian constitution/whatever, get the Duma to sign off on it, and he'll turn the population against himself.  It's easy for 130+ million people to support a war that only 150,000 are actively fighting, harder when they start dipping into the civilian population for cannon fodder.  And the population of eligible men is very small to begin with, so Putin would be hurting his economy as well.

The only thing we could do to help speed things up is more heavier weapons and ammo, but it feels like that is happening.

If you want to be upset about the cost, this is keeping us from having to increase the size of our military or increase our costs by deploying a shitload of troops to Eastern Europe.  Besides, there's a shitload of government waste that is not doing anything for us (including supporting American values, which we are doing by supporting Ukraine).

 

Excellent post.

The play here is a long-term one, not one for benefit this year.  The payoff is for the next several decades, and we have to be patient to get to the tipping point.

There's a REASON that so many pro-Russia voices are doing all they can to undermine western support for Ukraine and sanctions: because it's working.

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18 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Patience.  Death by a thousand cuts.  Sanctions.  

...

 

Great post.  

Part of the math that I keep coming back to: Russia has around 130M people.  Ukraine had* around 43M.  So, about 3 to 1.  Every three Russians need to produce the extra resources to control one Ukrainian.  Or they need to divert those resources from other uses.  Initially, that gets obscured by cash and military reserves.  Later, heavy borrowing can delay the impacts.  But, sooner or later, they have to pay the bill. It's just not sustainable.

Compare that to Iraq, where the US:Iraq ratio was around 12:1. And Americans are richer than Russians.  And we had help.  And the only help Iraq had was Iran.  And it still wasn't sustainable. 

*"Had".  Certainly Ukraine's population has decreased since the invasion, mostly through people fleeing the country.  Russia focusing on the land bridge territory also can change the ratio.  Forced relocation may be part of the plan, but that may just be moving the problem; they still need to spend resources on controlling hostile people. 

 

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3 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

I’m actually surprised he’s still alive.

22 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I'm thinking that this new fact tells us the "he's still alive" bit may be moved into the "maybe....maybe not" category.

If Putin had him straight-up killed, I think that will actually get some shit really started.

Keep in mind that while Putin has been clamping down on opposition, Russia is still on a peacetime footing.  I don't think people understand the difference and how Putin has danced around not calling it a "war", and how his propagandists have been on TV night-after-night bragging about how well things are going and how they are standing up to the west.

Ultimately, he has been treading lightly - he hasn't done a full on mobilization and started conscripting like crazy, even though he desperately needs to put Russia and the Russian people on a wartime footing to try and hold what Russia currently has.

And after nearly 110 days of Putin's propagandists going on nightly TV and saying things are going well and that it's not a war, but just a special operation, it's going to be really fucking hard to walk that back and say that even though things are going well in this little special operation, they are going to have to call up the young and old involuntarily.

Putin really fucked himself by going to war on a peacetime footing, and having his people go on state TV and do their best Baghdad Bob impressions.

 

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2 hours ago, Tuco said:

Great post.  

Part of the math that I keep coming back to: Russia has around 130M people.  Ukraine had* around 43M.  So, about 3 to 1.  Every three Russians need to produce the extra resources to control one Ukrainian.  Or they need to divert those resources from other uses.  Initially, that gets obscured by cash and military reserves.  Later, heavy borrowing can delay the impacts.  But, sooner or later, they have to pay the bill. It's just not sustainable.

Compare that to Iraq, where the US:Iraq ratio was around 12:1. And Americans are richer than Russians.  And we had help.  And the only help Iraq had was Iran.  And it still wasn't sustainable. 

And Iran's "help" was to prop up the Shiites in their fight against the Sunnis in a proxy war being fought between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which left Iraq in a really bad position.

The numbers are not in Russia's favor - 130 million people sounds like a lot, but the actual number of men between 18-24 is very low for a population of 130 million, which means Putin will have to conscript men who are older and in established jobs (at least before sanctions) and who have families, and that's going to cause a shitshow of sorts as the Russians have been told that things are fine.  And they will be removing men who are in prime production jobs (factories, etc.).

For comparison, Afghanistan had 13 million people in 1980, the Soviet Union had 262 million, and the Soviets couldn't pull it off, and we were providing far less support then. Russia really bit off more than they can chew, and while Putin may have been fooling his own people into getting into an all-out war, the Ukrainians were preparing.

I will not be surprised if Russia tries to sue for peace within the next few weeks in an effort to reduce the West's support for Ukraine and hold on to what they have.  But Putin had to be a dumbass and tell everybody that this is about taking back Soviet territory.

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4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


Yet Ukraine’s tolerance of gay people is LITERALLY one of the reasons your Russian masters cited for launching a genocidal invasion.

You’re as good at propaganda as your bosses are at waging war. You just fired a javelin up your own ass. Genius.

Well that's dumb considering gay marriage as well as gay couples adopting is illegal there. They also banned a lot of left wing parties. 

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Well that's dumb considering gay marriage as well as gay couples adopting is illegal there. They also banned a lot of left wing parties. 

Yet, Ukraine’s tolerance for gay people was a stated reason your masters demonize Ukraine, comrade. You know it’s true, it was stated publicly repeatedly by Russia. You know this, da? Da.
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21 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


Yet, Ukraine’s tolerance for gay people was a stated reason your masters demonize Ukraine, comrade. You know it’s true, it was stated publicly repeatedly by Russia. You know this, da? Da.

It's his job to not know stuff when it disagrees with the worldview his puppet masters have him push. 

He'll drop it for now and then bring it up again a few weeks to a month from now, as if it's brand new information, not something you've already castrated him on. 

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On 6/17/2022 at 8:04 PM, Brisketexan said:


Yet, Ukraine’s tolerance for gay people was a stated reason your masters demonize Ukraine, comrade. You know it’s true, it was stated publicly repeatedly by Russia. You know this, da? Da.

I still don't follow. Ukraine isn't tolerant towards LGBT rights at all.. 69% of the population do not think homosexuality should be accepted & only 14% think it should be accepted in society according to Pew in 19'. That's the lowest in Europe. Putin is a fascist dictator, he can say he's invading Ukraine for whatever bullshit reason but according to the data Russia & Ukraine are neck & neck on anti-LGBT sentiment. 

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On 6/17/2022 at 9:52 PM, Caponata said:

Well that's dumb considering gay marriage as well as gay couples adopting is illegal there. 

Holy fuck dude. This is a profoundly stupid point you think makes American libs look hypocritical. Those rights haven't even been federally recognized in the US for a decade yet, and you're gonna try to hold that against a country that's lived under the thumb of Russia? Gay marriage survived the SCOTUS 5 to fucking 4 SEVEN years ago. 

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2 hours ago, Caponata said:

I still don't follow. Ukraine isn't tolerant towards LGBT rights at all.. 69% of the population do not think homosexuality should be accepted & only 14% think it should be accepted in society according to Pew in 19'. That's the lowest in Europe. Putin is a fascist dictator, he can say he's invading Ukraine for whatever bullshit reason but according to the data Russia & Ukraine are neck & neck on anti-LGBT sentiment. 

You're right.  They haven't figured it out yet so they shouldn't be free

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39 minutes ago, B00M said:

Holy fuck dude. This is a profoundly stupid point you think makes American libs look hypocritical. Those rights haven't even been federally recognized in the US for a decade yet, and you're gonna try to hold that against a country that's lived under the thumb of Russia? Gay marriage survived the SCOTUS 5 to fucking 4 SEVEN years ago. 

And folks are probably gearing up for another run to reverse that 

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18 hours ago, Caponata said:

I still don't follow. Ukraine isn't tolerant towards LGBT rights at all.. 69% of the population do not think homosexuality should be accepted & only 14% think it should be accepted in society according to Pew in 19'. That's the lowest in Europe. Putin is a fascist dictator, he can say he's invading Ukraine for whatever bullshit reason but according to the data Russia & Ukraine are neck & neck on anti-LGBT sentiment. 

 

image.jpeg

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30 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Texas Republican Party in June 2022:  Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice.

Texas Republican Party in June 2022: There should be no penalties for discriminating against homosexuals

Texas Republican Party in June 2022: We should be able to use reintegrative therapy to convert gays to straights

Come On Reaction GIF by MOODMAN

Oh, this line of narrative gets even fucking BETTER. I'm actually laughing in my office as I read this:

 

 

Do go on, comrade, and tell us how Putin is just fighting to liberate the oppressed gay citizens of Ukraine.  Please, do continue.  I love watching shitty propaganda in action.  It's like watching aggy talk about their century of "football dominance."

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7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh, this line of narrative gets even fucking BETTER. I'm actually laughing in my office as I read this:

 

 

Do go on, comrade, and tell us how Putin is just fighting to liberate the oppressed gay citizens of Ukraine.  Please, do continue.  I love watching shitty propaganda in action.  It's like watching aggy talk about their century of "football dominance."

Who thinks Putin is fighting to liberate gay citizens both countries are anti-LGBT according to polls & their laws. Like what in the fuck are you talking about. 

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8 minutes ago, Caponata said:

Who thinks Putin is fighting to liberate gay citizens both countries are anti-LGBT according to polls & their laws. Like what in the fuck are you talking about. 

He's not, comrade.  One of his stated reasons for attacking Ukraine is that it's pervertedly gay-friendly, which is an affront to Russian values.  You tapdance right past that, and try to paint Ukraine as unacceptably anti-gay, so the more enlightened and tolerant Americans will re-think their support of Ukraine, which upsets you and the zampolit watching you post over your shoulder.  You managed to pants yourself in at least two different ways with one post, a level of incompetence previously reserved for actual Russian military units.  Unless....wait....what is your rank, comrade?

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17 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

He's not, comrade.  One of his stated reasons for attacking Ukraine is that it's pervertedly gay-friendly, which is an affront to Russian values.  You tapdance right past that, and try to paint Ukraine as unacceptably anti-gay, so the more enlightened and tolerant Americans will re-think their support of Ukraine, which upsets you and the zampolit watching you post over your shoulder.  You managed to pants yourself in at least two different ways with one post, a level of incompetence previously reserved for actual Russian military units.  Unless....wait....what is your rank, comrade?

I am going with General judging from how well they are doing. 

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9 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

So, is this war gonna be wrapped up before January ‘25 and our support swings to Russia?

There’s a good chance of some kind of resolution by this fall. Russia cutting off gas, EU gas in storage already at lower levels means there will be increased push for Ukraine to reach some kind of negotiated settlement. 

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