O/T:- Ukraine [Incorporating 'Congrats to Russia' thread]

[andy6025]

Morning Andy. Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't want to get into this with you...

Fair enough... but then you proceed to get into it.

Conparing the most technologically advanced and highly trained military the world has ever seen, to depositing 300k untrained, ill-disciplined, unmotivated vodka sponges and violent criminals in the middle of a war zone, without even basic equipment, is just silly.

Is this intentionally disingenuous or are you really unaware? First, the 300k aren’t “untrained”. They are reservists with prior military training. They are also prioritizing the mobilization of those with prior combat experience and military specialization. Yes indeed, there are some prisoners recruited into the ranks of the private Wagner group (akin to America’s Blackwater private security forces), I think the number in their most recent recruitment drive yielded somewhere around 1-2k enlistees. But low and behold, Zalensky did the very same thing! Why does doing this spell disaster defeat for Russia... but not for Ukraine?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...o-fight-in-war

Despite the incorrect claims of the Russian reservists being ‘untrained’, here we see how Ukraine’s mobilized troops (Ukraine has undergone 7 waves of mobilization since the beginning of the special military operation) are sometimes trained for as little as 5 days. I’ve heard other reports that some are trained in as little as 2-3 days. And to be fair, there are also reports that some new Russian enlistees have been given as little as 5 days training as well (although the norm appears to be 5 weeks):

https://mwi.usma.edu/time-is-not-on-...on-in-ukraine/

Here we have the Ukrainian government giving out weapons to civilians and giving them only 3 days training:

https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/world/...692-2022-03-12

Of course the UK is running a more extensive training regiment for Ukrainian troops (3 months), but as of a month ago they’ve only trained 5k troops and intend to train a whopping 10k more within a year:

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-a...krainians/amp/

One might try to argue that by using conscripted reservists rather than professional soldiers, the Russian side is destined to lose. But the same argument applies to Ukraine who have thus far used 7 waves of conscription (4 waves at the time of writing of this article):

The Economist (archived version used to avoid paywall)
https://archive.ph/73jr0

As for “motivation”, there are reports that the Ukrainians are deploying ‘anti-retreat’ brigades that threaten to execute any of their friendly soldiers for retreating. But since it’s from a Russian news agency it will undoubtedly be denounced as fake:

https://tass.com/defense/1456129/amp

Or there’s a plethora of videos posted by Ukrainian platoons refusing to fight, claiming they are poorly equipped and given orders that are suicidal. This article sums up some of them.

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/0...ssia-conflict-

There’s also the situation of the “foreign volunteers”, many of whom have left Ukraine and complained of lack of equipment, and their use as cannon fodder by the Ukrainian army who, as nationalist, understandably prefer to expend foreigners over their own nationals.

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/...s-quit-ukraine

There’s also the situation reported by CBS (but pulled before airing because it didn’t fit the western narrative) that only 30% of weapons sent by the west are actually reaching the front lines:

https://m.economictimes.com/news/def...w/93433146.cms

Despite claims that the Ukrainian army is somehow better equipped, here we have Nato head Jens Stoltenberg admitting that Russian artillery outnumbers that of Ukraine 20:1

https://theglobalherald.com/news/ukr...in-some-areas/

I won’t pretend to be an armchair general, but I think you should take your own advice about passing judgement with a speck in your eye. I also won’t pretend to have a crystal ball that tells who’s going to win the war or how long it’s going to take, as there are so many factors that can come into it, and things can change very quickly. For example, The US or nato could get directly involved. Or they could supply Ukraine with much more lethal aid, including WMDs. On the other hand, Russia could more fully mobilize and/or use WMDs themselves.

In light of that, the stakes can be extremely high. As we both seem to acknowledge that this is a proxy war, it’s unclear whether the US or Russia will blink first. Aside from the possibility of either side achieving an outright military victory, the only way for it to end is through negotiations. But in order to do so, both sides have to be willing AND, given that it’s a proxy war, The US also has to support a negotiation and whatever agreement results. So far it appears that neither Zalensky or the US is willing to do so. The Russians claim that they’d nearly reached a deal with Zalensky back in April, but that the US torpedoed the process and ordered Zalensky to continue the war. There’s also the significant factor of the (plausible) claims that far right wing ultranationalist groups in Ukraine have threatened Zalensky’s life should he reach terms with Moscow. If the US doesn’t have Zalensky’s back against these groups, then there’s little to no hope of a peaceful settlement that isn’t brought about by an outright victory.