Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Well in that particular position, the ratio so far is even much worse for the Russians. Part 1: 10 Russians liquidated, part 2: 7 hits. In part 3, one Ukranian soldier dies. Even if those 7 hits in part 2 resulted in 3-4 deaths, you have a 14:1 ratio so far and we haven't seen part 4 yet.
I know long-range weapons are effective in killing them, and I hope the UA has many of them. But Russians have plenty of those as well, and we don't see many clips from Russia showing similar killings of UA troops in trenches. There must be a large number as well.

I mention that in close combat, I wish and hope that UA has a lot of advantages because they will have those soon. Even with braindead soldiers, eventually the manpower would run out with that kind of ratio. Losing ground gradually in those cities would kind of indicate that the RA troops are not unfazed, and I think it is because their casualties are not high enough or one-sided enough to demoralize them, which would be key to defeating them, as the RA will still have plenty of supplies for quite a while yet. You can't hope like we did a year ago that the RA will run out of whatever.
 


Looks like the final push for Bakhmut is happening.

Pretty irrelevant actually, from a tactical point of view. Except that the Wagners pretty much are obliterated and the Russian forces in general are much weakened. Whatever happens, the fight for Bakhmut has been a great victory for Ukraine.
 
Pretty irrelevant actually, from a tactical point of view. Except that the Wagners pretty much are obliterated and the Russian forces in general are much weakened. Whatever happens, the fight for Bakhmut has been a great victory for Ukraine.
Can a loss be a win?
 
Can a loss be a win?
Yes, in the long run. If we lost first match of the season to Liverpool but at the same time injured 10 of their players for the rest of the season, we'd be pretty sure to end up above them on the table at the end.
 
Yes, in the long run. If we lost first match of the season to Liverpool but at the same time injured 10 of their players for the rest of the season, we'd be pretty sure to end up above on the table in the end.
As long as we don't hurt ourselves doing that.
 
Thoughts? For what it's worth, this is Varoufakis' party 5-point peace proposal:

  • An immediate ceasefire to be followed by a rapid withdrawal of Russian troops behind the 24-2-2022 border line
  • The creation of a fully demilitarised zone, 200km on each side of the 24-2-2022 border line, to be monitored by means jointly agreed
  • A mutual non-aggression protocol based on the recognition that Ukraine is a sovereign, militarily neutral country that allows no nuclear weapons on its territory
  • A governance structure for the Eastern and Southern areas of Ukraine based on the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement to ensure political equality between the Russian and Ukrainian speaking communities
  • All parties agree to refer outstanding disputes pre-existing the 24-02-2022 invasion to UN facilitated negotiations.

 
Thoughts? For what it's worth, this is Varoufakis' party 5-point peace proposal:





Wouldn't work because both parties wouldn't go for it. Putin has to show gains in this war for domestic consumption and Zelenskyy is under a strong mandate from his population to win back all lost territory. The guy criticizing Varoufakis is spot on.
 
Thoughts? For what it's worth, this is Varoufakis' party 5-point peace proposal:





Dunno who Varoufakis is, but ceding Crimea and signing military 'neutrality' tells me he doesn't understand the situation at all, or he likes the ruble.
 
Dunno who Varoufakis is, but ceding Crimea and signing military 'neutrality' tells me he doesn't understand the situation at all, or he likes the ruble.
Leftist Greek politician, was their finance minister during their big financial crisis - originally a mathematics professor
 
BBC confirms identities of 21,700 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine in 14 months of the war.

Using open sources, BBC Russia, together with Mediazona, a Russian independent media outlet, established the names of 21,700 Russian soldiers who had been killed in the war in Ukraine. The media carry out a name-by-name count of the dead.

Of those, at least 3,401 are members of Russia's elite forces, include intelligence officers, Russian National Guard, paratroopers, marines and pilots.
https://kyivindependent.com/bbc-con...-killed-in-ukraine-in-13-months-of-the-war-2/
 
Looks like Russia has actually been able to hit something of military value for once. Rumours about the train station has been hit with a numbre of KH-101 missiles. Looks like a Ukrainian ammo dump from the pictures.
 
Can we openly say it? I will: Noah Chomsky is a cnut.



The guy is 90 something, so lets cut him a break. The likes of Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, Glenn Greenwald et al., do however know what they're doing.
 
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Noam Chomsky: Russia is fighting more humanely than the US did in Iraq

https://archive.ph/2MTQN (in case it's behind a paywall)

Important point: This is someone else relating an interview he had with Chomsky interspersed with his own commentary. It's not a Chomsky authored work.
Cheers. Plenty to disagree with Chomsky there, especially regarding Ukraine's own agency and the future of occupied territories.

He has a point about the US in Iraq though, it was much more brutal than what we've seen in Ukraine so far. This is not a compliment to the russians, they don't do the same because they probably don't have the capacity to do so.
 
I finally went through all of that rambling just to make sure I did not miss anything.

First of all, this pretty rich for him to lay a ton at the feet of the US when he never said anything after he sided with genocide deniers regarding the Cambodian, Bosnian and Rwandan genocides.

Second, the article goes by raw numbers of civilian casualties in Iraq without considering a major factor: insurgents and guerillas fighting back US forces with little to no disregard for collateral casualties. If the Ukrainian forces showed disregard for their own civilians in the same way that Al Qaeda or ISIS did, the raw casualty numbers would be a hell lot higher. Thank God that Ukrainian forces have made and still make colossal efforts in taking as many civilians to safety as possible. Here is the part from the article that tells the tale about civilian casualties in Iraq:

An estimate by the Iraq Body Count project (IBC), considered one of the most comprehensive databases of deaths during the Iraq War, puts the total civilian death toll at between 186,000 and 210,000 in the 20 years since the 2003 invasion, which it says is likely an under-count. Almost 25,000 of those deaths are directly attributable to the US-led coalition and its Iraqi allies. Tens of thousands more are attributable to anti-government insurgents, including Islamic State, according to the IBC. Responsibility for more than 100,000 civilian deaths cannot be conclusively attributed.

Third, his claim about the US and the UK " smashing Baghdad to pieces"... we can blame the Coalition forces for not doing better to maintain a form of order after Baghdad fell, but civil disorder (including the looting of public and government buildings) and drastically increased crime came from between Iraqis themselves. I don't remember US nor British forces turning a blatantly blind eye to murder and rape of civilians on the ground although plenty of blame can be dished about some of the weapons used. Some of the later battles against insurgents in urban areas like Fallujah were a total mess; it goes straight to the aforementioned quote.

Fourth, dissing Ukraine the way Chomsky did goes well in line with what Chomsly already said about the other genocides that he denied. :nono::nono::nono:

Fifth and not the least, the way Chomsky tackled the question regarding China vs. Taiwan is farcical. It's the same as turning a totally blind eye to Xi Jinping and his Wolf Warriors' behavior from the last decade or so. If China was that good at diplomacy and at reassuring their neighbors, why would Japan, South Korea, the Phillipines and Australia strenghten their geopolitical ties with the US? What happened in Hong Kong in 2019-2020 should be plenty for democracy lovers to be worried about China's actions.
 
I finally went through all of that rambling just to make sure I did not miss anything.

First of all, this pretty rich for him to lay a ton at the feet of the US when he never said anything after he sided with genocide deniers regarding the Cambodian, Bosnian and Rwandan genocides.

Second, the article goes by raw numbers of civilian casualties in Iraq without considering a major factor: insurgents and guerillas fighting back US forces with little to no disregard for collateral casualties. If the Ukrainian forces showed disregard for their own civilians in the same way that Al Qaeda or ISIS did, the raw casualty numbers would be a hell lot higher. Thank God that Ukrainian forces have made and still make colossal efforts in taking as many civilians to safety as possible. Here is the part from the article that tells the tale about civilian casualties in Iraq:



Third, his claim about the US and the UK " smashing Baghdad to pieces"... we can blame the Coalition forces for not doing better to maintain a form of order after Baghdad fell, but civil disorder (including the looting of public and government buildings) and drastically increased crime came from between Iraqis themselves. I don't remember US nor British forces turning a blatantly blind eye to murder and rape of civilians on the ground although plenty of blame can be dished about some of the weapons used. Some of the later battles against insurgents in urban areas like Fallujah were a total mess; it goes straight to the aforementioned quote.

Fourth, dissing Ukraine the way Chomsky did goes well in line with what Chomsly already said about the other genocides that he denied. :nono::nono::nono:

Fifth and not the least, the way Chomsky tackled the question regarding China vs. Taiwan is farcical. It's the same as turning a totally blind eye to Xi Jinping and his Wolf Warriors' behavior from the last decade or so. If China was that good at diplomacy and at reassuring their neighbors, why would Japan, South Korea, the Phillipines and Australia strenghten their geopolitical ties with the US? What happened in Hong Kong in 2019-2020 should be plenty for democracy lovers to be worried about China's actions.

The invasion of ukraine is russias fault. The invasion of iraq is US fault. Whatever happens/ed is entirely their fault, even if the side they are fighting/fought in a way or another, if they didnt started would never caused all these civilian death and i assure you that US had the same legitimate reasons than russia to invade iraq so comparisons are completely justified and destruction numbers are justified to be compared, abu grahib and guantamo still are there too and what we dont know also
 
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The guy is 90 something, so lets cut him a break. The likes of Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, Glenn Greenwald et al., do however know what they're doing.

Hasnt his thing always been about saying the US is hypocritical because x,y and z and siding with whoever is anti-american?
 
The invasion of ukraine is russias fault. The invasion of iraq is US fault. Whatever happens/ed is entirely their fault, even if the side they are fighting/fought in a way or another, if they didnt started would never caused all these civilian death and i assure you that US had the same legitimate reasons than russia to invade iraq so comparisons are completely justified and destruction numbers are justified to be compared, abu grahib and guantamo still are there too and what we dont know also

So the insurgents and terrorists had like no agency and therefore no responsibility for their own actions? Its a bit like saying the syrian civil war casualties lie on the feet of the people protesting for democracy and not Assad and Isis. Because if they didnt demand democracy there would be no civil war.
 


Russians will celebrate this as a win, while attacking this city without any strategic value for more than a year and losing 10 times more men. Ukraine has the most favorable k/d ratio of all fronts in the city and its surroundings. They had huge losses there too of course, but in no relation to Russian losses. Wagner had at some point around 50k men, I'm pretty sure they are running on fumes now. Just look at Progozhin, who cries daily about all kinds of problems:



I'm pretty sure that Wagner used most of its strength to take Soledar and Bakhmut and they could easily lose it again during the counter offensive. I doubt they will be able to set up big defensive lines in a destroyed city.
 
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Looks like Russia has actually been able to hit something of military value for once. Rumours about the train station has been hit with a numbre of KH-101 missiles. Looks like a Ukrainian ammo dump from the pictures.

No secondary explosions, it’s just fuel burning. Nothing of military value has been hit, but Russians needed something to show on their Zombie TV: