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

[andy6025]

Post 1 of 2

...mainstream media is split into left wing outfits who have no understanding of warfare whatsoever, and right wing ones who mysteriously parrot Putin propaganda like you do.

Other than the dingbat Tucker Carlson and the other odd contributor from the cesspool Fox News, I don’t see any challenges to the western narrative, let alone ‘Putin propaganda’. Besides, Tucker and Co. aren’t mounting any real in-depth or meaningful challenges to the Western narrative, they just don’t like Biden and want to make him look like an idiot.. Do you have any good examples of western mainstream media challenging the western narrative?

If you look at a source like, for example, https://www.understandingwar.org/ who have been very even handed and accurate from day one right up to the present, you will see this.

Admittedly I have yet to read any articles from this Washington based think tank, but their mission statement reads “We are committed to improving the nation’s ability to execute military operations and respond to emerging threats in order to achieve U.S. strategic objectives.” I don’t see that it states explicitly how it interprets ‘U.S. strategic objectives’, but if it’s anything akin to ‘the project for a new American century’ then I highly doubt it gives Russia’s national security interests an ‘even handed’ shake. If you have noticed any particular article(s) that you believe actually does this then by all means point them out and I’ll gladly read.

There's sites like this also: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/0...equipment.html these guys count losses on both sides but only where they have photographic evidence they can geolocate. So you can look at this list as a bare minimum of vehicles lost... you don't have to look over that very long to realise the war is going very, very, poorly for Russia and has been from very early on.

Ok, so you take an understanding of the conflict to mean ‘counting tanks.’ That’s far from my definition of developing a real understanding of the conflict, but I’ll play ball.

The site you reference so far calculated that the Russians have lost 6.8k AFVs while the Ukrainians have lost 1.7k... a ratio of almost 4:1. By these numbers Russia is indeed doing “very, very, very poorly.” We can probably expect Zalensky to give a grisly voiced victory speech from the steps of the Kremlin any day now.

But seriously, let’s evaluate the possible modalities of this websites claims:

1. They’re true! They’ve assembled photo and video evidence, so it certainly looks plausible.
2. They’re unintentionally dubious claims. How can this be so? Well, for an infinite number of reasons, but to name a few: (i) the website might have much better access to photos/videos of AFVs destroyed on one side than the other. (ii) One side might be a lot more proactive in acquiring and releasing photos/videos of destroyed/captured AFVs than the other. It stands to reason that if you’re shelling AFVs from 25km away then you might not be getting photos of many of those you destroy. (iii) destroyed AFVs could unintentionally but erroneously be counted for one side rather than to that which it truly belongs. (iv) Multiple pictures of the same AFV might lead to it being counted more than once, unbeknownst to the curators of the website (also see a further point on this below). (v) Photos/videos could be misrepresented or even staged at the source, unbeknownst to the curators of the website. After all, there’s also an ‘information war’ going on as western sources readily admit. (vi) the website curators could be unintentionally subjective and thus biased in favouring one side in evaluating their evidence when considering some ‘kills’ confirmed or not. A lot of photos and videos from the conflict are of very poor resolution quality, and once you put a human into the evaluation process, unintentionally biased mistakes can abound. After all, it’s hard to believe that people would go to the length of curating such a website, but not have ‘picked a side’ on at least some level.
3. The website could be intentionally telling outright lies. Take all the points in number 2 above but consider that the website curators intentionally mislead their audience. The website states, “All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned... When the origin of a piece of equipment can't be established, it is not included in the list.” Just because they state that on the internet, does that mean it must be true?

This ‘website’ study is very similar to a study put out by the BBC in early July. It claimed to search for all verifiable evidence to count Russian casualties in the conflict up to the time shortly before publication (July 1, I believe). They combed social media sites, death certificates and announcements, etc. to arrive at their total, and came up with 4,010 Russians KIA. I’m sure the number disappointed even themselves. Meanwhile the British government were claiming 15k Russians were killed, and the Ukrainians boasted having done in a whopping 35k Russians!!!

So... given that you like confirmed kills though... should we go with a figure of 4K Russians have been killed but 7k of their vehicles destroyed? Will that satisfy you?

As you can see, not only do I not put any stock in these numbers, where claims are wildly all over the map, but I don’t see it as a reasonable way of ‘understanding’ the conflict. Nor can we rely on the western media in any meaningful capacity. They tend to just regurgitates without question (let alone investigation) the porkies told by the intelligence agencies and politicians. Here are some of my favourite whoppers that they’ve told so far. By no means is the list exhaustive but rather limited to my favourites:

1. Russia is committing genocide against the people of Ukraine! Not only do UN civilian casualty counts not even come with a thousand ballparks of this ridiculous claim, but when Amnesty International releases a report about the Ukrainian military taking up positions in hospitals, schools, shopping malls and residential areas (without duly evacuating civilians), the west goes bananas and forces Amnesty International to apologize! I have yet to know a modern conflict where war crimes have never occurred, but I have seen no evidence that Russia is ‘systematically’ committing war crimes.
2. Putin is dying! So far the guy’s allegedly had every terminal ailment under the sun... (as has Kim Jung Un).
3. Russia is running out of... everything! Tanks, rockets, missiles, shells, troops, artillery barrels, computer chips, railway cars, french fries, washing machines, people... you name it! The sanctions have totally crippled Russia and they’re going to overthrow Putin any day now!
4. The Ukrainian high command completed their mission in Mariupol and ordered the ‘evacuation’ of the Azov troops at the Avostol Steel Plant... to Siberia! No, the troops didn’t unilaterally surrender piece-meal, it was a coordinated evacuation by Zalensky!
5. The Russians blew up the prison where they kept POWs in order to hide the fact they were torturing their prisoners, taking out a few expendable prison guards in the process... u know, because Russia doesn’t care about their own troops.
6. Russia is shelling the nuclear plant that they control, and in which their own artillery is based. Yeah, they must be firing straight up. Uh huh.
7. Russia blew up their own pipelines. Never mind that it was by far and away their best leverage to not only profit from Germany, but get them among other European powers to drop sanctions and end their support for Ukraine. Nope, rather than just keep the taps shut until Germany capitulates, they blew up their own pipelines instead.
8. That Russia attacked Ukraine “unprovoked”. More on this in a moment, as it segues into my next point.

[andy6025]

Post 2 of 2

To me, ‘understanding’ the conflict isn’t about counting tanks or even troops. While that can have a place, the real questions for me are: how did we get here, and where does it go from here. Perhaps most importantly, how does it end?

In attempting to ‘understand’ it’s important to know why it’s happened. Western politicians, intelligence services, and our main stream media would have us believe that Vladimir Putin is an evil mastermind dictator with an iron grip on the helpless and hapless people of Russia, who thinks himself as Peter the Great and he’s bent on reforging the Soviet Union. After all, he’s well known for having said, “whoever doesn’t lament the disintegration of the Soviet Union doesn’t have a heart...”. But they leave out the rest of the quote: “whoever thinks it will come back doesn’t have a brain.”

So why did Russia invade Ukraine? Other than listening to Russia’s clearly stated objectives (which are rarely discussed in the media - but don’t bother looking for them because ‘everyone knows Putin’s a liar’), I refer you to the links I provided several posts ago. Among many other points are the fact that since the end of the Cold War the United States has acted as if it ‘winner take all’ in a unipolar world. America acts as if it has interests and Russia (or anybody else) supposedly has none. America has its ‘red lines’, but it does not respect those of other countries. Expanding NATO to Russia’s doorstep through various bipartisan administrations is one of Russia’s red lines America has ignored, and that includes both making Ukraine a de facto Dismantling nuclear, anti-missile defense, and verification arrangements is seen by Russians as a threat, no matter who sits in the captain’s chair in Moscow. Claiming to support democracy, while supporting the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Kiev by a street mob, not only contradicts what America self-professes to support, but is seen to be a threat to Russia’s national security. This coup, spearheaded in part by hard right wing nationalist now-nazis (and we know how much Russia feels threatened by Nazis) then went on to terrorize Ukraine’s vast ethnically Russian population in an 8-year civil war in the east. Despite signing agreements towards resolving the conflict, Kiev ignored it. Further, as the Swiss intelligence officer who worked for NATO in Ukraine, and who’s article I referenced above, observed - in the several months directly prior to Russia’s invasion, Ukraine were going heavily on the offensive in the Donbas. Some might even argue convincingly, as some have, that America together with their ‘partners’ in Ukraine, intended to goad Russia into invading in order to draw them into a quagmire that would not only weaken Russia, but draw the European economy away from cheap Russian energy and closer to the American economy and sphere of influence.

Given the context of these events in a struggle between a unipolar vs multipolar world, it’s disingenuous to talk about concepts like ‘sovereignty’, ‘democracy,’ ‘human rights’, etc., when America and its partners violate or support the violation of them (in both Ukraine and abroad) when it suits their strategic interests, but cry fowl when others appear to do the same. All of these countries (America, Russia and Ukraine included) each have their ‘interests’, and they either figure out how to accommodate one another’s, or they risk killing all of us in order to achieve them by force.

So, where’s it going to go from here? The Russians have taken large swaths of territory in Ukraine, almost all of which is predominantly ethnically Russian, and by any reasonable tally, would prefer to be part of the Russian Federation. In the last month, Ukraine backed by the West, has done a commendable job in retaking some of that territory. Recently, Russia moved to mobilize an additional 300k reservists, and has threatened to use any weapons at their disposal to protect their newly acquired territories. I’m no armchair general, but I suspect that Russia fully intends to make good on its word to do so, as well as accomplish its other objectives (Ukrainian neutrality, denazification, demilitarization, protection of the Donbas and other Russian areas of Ukraine, etc). I also suspect that, aside from Poland and the Baltic states, Europe’s will to continue supporting Ukraine is significantly less than that of the United States. How far is the US willing to go to weaken its geopolitical rivals? That I don’t know. Someone’s going to have to blink, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’ll be Russia.

The other sources I use are much harder to read and/or need a lot more filtering. What are your sources?

I already provided you with some sources. I dare guess that you didn’t bother to examine them. If you’re genuinely interested then start with them and we’ll build from there.

Yes they're called Dictatorships. Power is more centralised. And you will notice none of those regimes survived the death of the dictator. That's the nature of dictatorships.

As I’ve discussed, if America and its allies think they can ignore the interests of other powers, no matter their alleged forms of government, then they’re in for shocking results.

When Putin dies, the actual governmental model in Russia will undergo some changes. They may be for the better, or for the worse. However, whoever takes over will be in a position to back out of the war in a way Putin absolutely can't. He's cooked his own goose. s.

As I’ve suggested before, I think our media has done you an incredible disservice in informing you as to the political nature of Russia, both in its institutions and people. That means that even if Putin does die of cancer tomorrow, you’re not going to like what comes next.

[Jampie]

So... given that you like confirmed kills though... should we go with a figure of 4K Russians have been killed but 7k of their vehicles destroyed? Will that satisfy you?

And for the record, this is where you showed yourself to be wholly a Kremlin agent. There is one source on the entire planet that puts Russian losses that low: Official Kremlin press releases. Every other source, including every single other Russian source puts it much higher.

And the fact that you just assume it's correct... If they've only lost 4,000 people why did they abandon the entire north of the country and any hope of total victory in April?

If they've only lost 4k, for what are they trying to recruit "300k" now?

[andy6025]

And for the record, this is where you showed yourself to be wholly a Kremlin agent. There is one source on the entire planet that puts Russian losses that low: Official Kremlin press releases. Every other source, including every single other Russian source puts it much higher.

And the fact that you just assume it's correct... If they've only lost 4,000 people why did they abandon the entire north of the country and any hope of total victory in April?

If they've only lost 4k, for what are they trying to recruit "300k" now?

That source was the BBC investigation and it followed a similar methodology as your tank counting source.

Are you agreed now that these numbers are all extremely flawed and not a basis for ‘understanding’ the war?