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.

[Jampie]

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?

Once again, this is why nobody can take you seriously.

There is one source, and one source only, claiming that the "partial mobilisation" of 300k troops is only of reservists with prior training and that it's going well.

The Kremlin.

Every other source, including numerous Russian sources, including on state television, is highlighting severe problems with the entire escapade. Posts to social media from "troops" who have been conscripted contradict the Kremlin narrative on this.

Second, while yes indeed Zelensky mobilised Ukraine on day one of the war, he absolutely did not send untrained troops into battle. The least well equipped and trained troops Ukraine utilised during the early days of Russia's criminal invasion were pre-war territorial defence units.

In the six months after the war began, Ukraine spent that time training its hundreds of thousands of new recruits (from mobilisation) and equipping them with the vast quantity of NATO equipment supplied by the west.

As a result, we are only now seeing the impact of these forces on the battlefield, with Russia losing ground on two major fronts on opposite sides of the theatre. And even now, all of the publicly available (open source) evidence suggests that Ukraine is using their new troops mostly to relieve more experienced troops in defensive holding areas and using their best troops to advance. Textbook stuff.

Second, Wagner group is not remotely akin to Blackwater. Wagner is used as a front line / "elite" unit.

So that's one paragraph of your multi-paragraph rambling screed, and almost everything you've said in it is either an easily disproven lie or we might charitably assume you just got it wrong, or that you're somehow only giving credence to Kremlin sources despite these lying continually about almost everything throughout the entire war. And that, again, is according to Russian sources, including within the military and political establishment.

I'm not going to go through the rest of your garbage and pick it apart. I have a day job, for one reason, and for another I've done this on multiple of your posts in the past and you just ignore the facts and repeat the lies.

But I do wonder what your true agenda is here because you are acting exactly like an "Internet Research Agency" employee, using the same sources and tactics.

[andy6025]

There is one source, and one source only, claiming that the "partial mobilisation" of 300k troops is only of reservists with prior training and that it's going well.... The Kremlin. Every other source, including numerous Russian sources, including on state television, is highlighting severe problems with the entire escapade. Posts to social media from "troops" who have been conscripted contradict the Kremlin narrative on this.

Actually, even Russia state media indicates that it’s not going as smoothly as they hoped (as you’ve indicated) but that measures are being taken to rectify mistakes such that those who are ineligible (untrained as reservists, unfit, of disqualifying age, etc.) are not mobilized. Whether these mistakes get rectified or not, as claimed, remains to be seen. More importantly, whether these mistakes are of such a magnitude that the war is lost for the Russians and/or Putin is overthrown also remains to be seen. Of course yourself and a lot of western sources claim to believe that this means that the Russian war effort is necessarily doomed, but I prefer to wait and see.

Interestingly though, we can see similar problems in Ukrain’s conscription efforts. Do their problems likewise doom the Ukrainian armed forced to ultimate defeat, or are the ardently pro-Ukrainian New York Times suddenly lying to support Putin?

Here the NYT tells us:

‘A nationwide campaign is underway in Ukraine to recruit, register and draft men — a predictable response for a country at war. That campaign includes fanning out on the streets to find potential soldiers and issuing summonses ordering them to report to recruiting offices.
But the effort, especially the street recruiting, is drawing accusations that it is secretive and arbitrary, that it violates the government’s own rules and that it sometimes drafts the unwilling while spurning the willing. It has also led to a cat-and-mouse game between recruiters and men trying to avoid them...

A petition signed by more than 25,000 Ukrainians, the threshold for requiring President Volodymyr Zelensky to respond, requests a ban on issuing summonses at checkpoints, gas stations and other public places. It asks him to establish a transparent process for when people might be called up...

Critics say that conscription has not been as selective as officials make it out to be, and that with the military in charge of recruitment, registration and drafting, the process is shrouded in secrecy, with little transparency about the standards applied to each step...

There is also disillusionment with a system that turns away some who want to fight, while taking in others who are unwilling and unqualified...

Last month, the Kyiv police chief, Ivan Vyhivskyi, said that police and military commissars raided two nightclubs that were violating curfew and issued 219 summonses for military registration to men they found there...

[Sergeant Markus] wrote that soldiers and officers who put their lives on the line were demoralized by a chaotic recruitment process that drew draftees with poor qualifications or little inclination to serve. Sergeant Markus said he had personally faced situations where draftees’ alcoholism or other problems endangered other soldiers’ lives.

(New York Times archived link used to bypass paywall):

https://archive.ph/rwy4I

Second, while yes indeed Zelensky mobilised Ukraine on day one of the war, he absolutely did not send untrained troops into battle.

Oh dear. It seems that you’re in sharp disagreement with some pro-Ukrainian western journalists and even pro-Ukrainian western institutions such as West Point. Here’s a smattering of examples that claim, contrary to your avid beliefs, that Ukrainian troops have been sent to the front line with little or no training:

West Point:

‘The battalion commander shrugged helplessly when we advised him that five days was a completely inadequate amount of time in which to train his soldiers. “This is all we have—they are needed on the front,” he replied with grim finality. A few days later, on a separate course that we were running for his medics, half of our class disappeared on the second day... Even in units that fall within the Ukrainian special operations command, most soldiers are sent to the front line with very little training. In one such unit, we estimated that just 20 percent had even fired a weapon before heading to combat.’

[andy6025’s note: Yikes! That’s only 2-5 days of training!]

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

The Washington Post:

‘Stuck in their trenches, the Ukrainian volunteers lived off a potato per day as Russian forces pounded them with artillery and Grad rockets on a key eastern front line. Outnumbered, untrained and clutching only light weapons, the men prayed for the barrage to end — and for their own tanks to stop targeting the Russians [because it will give away their positions and the Russians will fire back]... Ukrainian leaders have projected and nurtured a public image of military invulnerability — of their volunteer and professional forces triumphantly standing up to the Russian onslaught.... But the experience of Lapko and his group of volunteers offers a rare and more realistic portrait of the conflict and Ukraine’s struggle to halt the Russian advance in parts of Donbas... They were handed AK-47 rifles and given training that lasted less than a half-hour.
“We shot 30 bullets and then they said, ‘You can’t get more; too expensive,’ ” Lapko said... “We had no proper training,”

[andy6025’s note: So now we have some training lasting from less than 30 minutes to 5 days.]

(Washington Post archived link to avoid paywall):
https://archive.ph/6UNwK

The Times (UK):

‘Ivan received five days of training that consisted of being given a uniform, learning how to use a tourniquet, firing ten rounds from a machinegun and a lot of moving boxes and sitting around. Then he was deployed to Donbas in southeast Ukraine. All the men we interviewed said they wanted to fight to defend their country, but they felt that by being sent to the front in a war dominated by artillery and airstrikes with virtually no training, and with barely any idea how to use a gun, they were of no use to the war effort, and simply cannon fodder.

(Archived link from The Times to avoid paywall):
https://archive.ph/simqs

NPR (National Public Radio - An American Public Broadcaster):

‘Young volunteers and recruits often enter the war with little training or preparation... “I enlisted on March 22, and by April 4, I was in Sievierodonetsk," says Oleksandr, a civil engineer by training who now works setting and clearing mines. "I had to learn everything."

[andy6025’s note: this is remarkably better, but still less than 2 weeks].

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/18/11121...njuries-morale

Second, Wagner group is not remotely akin to Blackwater. Wagner is used as a front line / "elite" unit.

I was referring to the fact that Blackwater and Wagner are both “Private Military Companies” (PMS) rather than part of the government operated military systems, but if you want to argue that Wagner soldiers are more “Elite” than the now disbanded Blackwater company then it’s neither here nor there to me. I guess you missed the fact that I commented that, like Zalensky, Wagner was recruiting prisoners which might actually impair their quality, but if it’s good with you then it’s good with me.

But I do wonder what your true agenda is here because you are acting exactly like an "Internet Research Agency" employee, using the same sources and tactics.

Oh dear. Out of curiosity, do you suspect that West Point, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR are paid Russian agents as well? All lies I tell you!

On a more optimistic note, it’s being reported that yesterday President Biden might be blinking first. He said that the US is looking for a way to give Putin an “off-ramp” while saving face and remaining in power in Russia. Bloomberg reports that ‘Biden said: “He [Putin] is not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological and chemical weapons, because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming,” Biden added. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily use tactical nuclear weapons and not end up with Armageddon.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ear-armageddon

Maybe this means they can all get to the negotiating table and strike a deal that satisfies all parties.

But then again, maybe Biden didn’t say that at all because, u know, Bloomberg news is full of paid Russian agents that are lying to us.

Don’t forget to check under your bed tonight. There might be one hiding under there.

[Jampie]

Lol!

You accuse _me_ of using western mass media as my source, but then you do it.

As I said, their narrative was wildly wrong about the war for the first several months. Now they're right: Russia is losing, Ukraine is winning.

I doubt there will be any negotiation until the Feb 24th lines are re-established, and at this stage the loss of even Crimea is possible.