David Firth, the man, the legend. Hopefully soon Putin will find himself in the Salad Fingers limbo with no way to escape.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
David Firth, the man, the legend. Hopefully soon Putin will find himself in the Salad Fingers limbo with no way to escape.
https://ukrainevolunteer297689472.wordpress.com/2022/09/30/its-a-slaughter/
Report from the front. Sounds like it's a total disaster for the Russians who just get massacred. Ukrainian units having to retreat unharmed just because they are out of ammo and comparing the fight there to hunting squirrels
Report from the front. Sounds like it's a total disaster for the Russians who just get massacred. Ukrainian units having to retreat unharmed just because they are out of ammo and comparing the fight there to hunting squirrels
Hitler steamrolled Europe. Putin has lost 25% of his fighting force to occupy 20% of Ukraine.
While threatening everyone thinking about getting involved with nukes
Exactly... against Hitler's Reich the whole civilised world needed to mobilize all possible industrial and military capabilities. Against Putin it seems so far mostly to be enough to just dump old garbage that's already replaced or going to be replaced soon.
the Russian military are in complete chaos and have shown themselves to be incapable.
nato are sitting in the background preparing for worst case scenario I imagine.
russia aren’t in a position to launch an offensive against any nato country, but if they tried, it wouldn’t last long.
Imagine the PTSD levels of these brave soldiers after this is all over, huge resources will need to be put in place to work with their mental health.
Good point, war is a disaster for everyone involved. It's often overlooked sadly.
Are they not feeding their soldiers horse doses of meth? Crucial element of Nazi tactics.
That is right.
Nevertheless, when you think about it, while completely reprehensible, the annexation of those Ukrainian territories is actually a sound strategy by Putin.
By doing that, he has created a situation where Ukraine is forced to end up attacking what he would say is an attack on Russian territory.
And it puts NATO in a more difficult position.
Please don't think I am defending Putin. I am just pointing out the latest position.
Why would it put NATO in a more difficult position? No one relevant to NATO’s decision-makers would care about this artificial switch from defending to “attacking”.
By the way, why is Russia actually mobilizing? Don't they have a 1M army at all times anyway?
Russia didn't commit all of it to the Ukraine invasion as far as I know so one would assume they still have a sizeable part of their professional military available.
Russia didn't commit all of it to the Ukraine invasion as far as I know so one would assume they still have a sizeable part of their professional military available.
I think he is right that the formal annexation is a try to prevent NATO from supporting attacks on these areas. It simply hasn't paid off as it was already confirmed that no one accepts these annexations as legal. Basically what is happening at the moment is that NATO doesn't believe that Russia is going to defend these oblasts like they would do their true own territory. But that is a gamble on both sides. Putin is bluffing (is he really?) and NATO/Ukraine is calling his bluff.
De jure it has bit in reality there aren’t any significant reserves left. One of the theories was that the newly mobilized recruits would replace regular army on secure military objects, borders etc. which would free those up to be used in Ukraine but in reality it looks more likely that the mobilized are going to be sent directly into battle.
Not really, as not everyone of them is a fighter. They need backroom staff for organizing things etc, also they can't use the Pacific and Arctic naval fleets, neither the nuclear missile bases and their troops (or they can only transfer a limited amount of them as we have already seen dead soldiers who usually serve at Plesetsk Cosmodrome). They can't use a huge part of their aviation (strategic bombers can't be used safely in Ukraine, they can't retreat all troops from "interesting" borders (be sure that Georgia is just waiting to take their territory back from Russia...).
But the thing is - significant parts of what he is claiming to be russian territory now are not only Ukrainian under international law but also controlled by Ukraine and a part of that territory was even not under Russian control at any point in time. He did it in a way that is too ludicrous to accept even if NATO were super eager to freeze the conflict for the fear of nukes - since otherwise you are basically accepting that any nuclear state can indiscriminately just declare a part of any other "non-nuclear" state to be its territory and threaten with nukes if this state and does not comply and/or NATO etc intervenes.
In Russia everything is on paper, their active armed forces amounted to around 250k pre-invasion or at least in that ballpark according to many sources, the rest probably have never held a gun in their lives, this is what they’re actually mobilizing right now.
Again, NATO can't end the war. A deal can only be made between Ukraine and Russia and everyone else might assist in talks, but that's it.
Not all of them are soldiers in the ground forces that can be deployed on the front lines in Ukraine. A big chunk of that 1 million belongs to the navy, aerospace forces and the strategic rocket forces. All of those are more advanced braches that require specialized personel so I would expect that the majority of the active personal are employed within those.
That is true. But in the event that some form of weaponry or missile supplied by a NATO member to Ukraine is then found to have killed any Russian soldiers, Putin can claim that this was an attack by a NATO member against Russia.
If it meaningfully affected public opinion there then maybe someone would care, but that's obviously not going to happen.
That's already happened in Crimea, and Ukraine already launched at Belgorod, so it's too late to try to draw a red line there.
if they start reporting attacks within russia, even if no one beyond russia buys it, you don't think it alters things? putin has said "this land is russian". what happens when the land he's told russians is russian comes under sustained attack, which will be the effect now, from nato funded forces? it makes escalation seem more dangerous from where i'm sitting because it can happen much quicker. it is a red line, whether or not anyone decides to respect it is another thing. but to ignore it outright brings its own risks and that's what the effect of it is. it's not entirely a bluff imo. it's the confirmation of what some here said a long time ago. that if and when nato support began to tell, russia would move to leverage its nuclear and other small scale wmd arsenal.
Again, claim to whom? To the international community? No one would bat an eyelid. To Russians themselves? He and his propagandists literally have been saying that Russia is at war with NATO, not with Ukraine, for months.
He does not need any pretext. On Russian TV the war is described as a war with NATO for months since it became obvious that no quick victory can be achieved and it is too shameful to admit that "mighty Russian army" is struggling against Ukraine who is "not even a real state". Crimea and Belgirod were already shelled, possibly with western weaponry. He repeatedly threatened that the supply of western weapons to Ukraine is the act of aggression against Russia and so on. The whole "not giving Putin casus belli" needs to stop. If he wants to escalate and there is no immediate pretext, he will invent it. Otherwise you are ending up bowing to his demands. And that is exactly what he wants. Threaten, put some show of force - everyone is scared and he gets what he wants without much risk and outlay. That was his initial plan in February and that is why he put an amount of troops that were completely insufficient and ill-prepared to conquer Ukraine in a real war when a military actually resists (as opposed to most of it surrendering without fight).
It gives Putin the opportunity, as with Crimea
Ok. But they have deliberately rushed to annex these new regions because of the progress Ukraine has been making.
All I am saying is that it is a sound strategy.
No, because it hasn't made any difference so far when Ukraine attacked targets on Crimea and in/near Belgorod (especially the latter is undoubtedly Russian territory)
this is true. the one effect, then, is putin saying "we consider this to be the line". that might well be ignored. i don't know, in truth, but that's definitely why he did it when he did it. a statement of his intent basically.
He's already claiming it and the weaponry is already killing Russian soldiers. Ukraine have also attacked Crimea and Russian Black sea fleet so, this basically changes nothing. I think the biggest worry is Russia mobilizing Ukrainians from the annexed teritory.
Putin dosen't need any oppotunities and if he needs one he will just make one up anyway.
I do not agree that it is sound. You can see the logic, yes - but it is entirely a bet on the other side being scared and backing down and then you are "fixing the gains". But if Ukraine and the West call him bluff and he was not really prepared to escalate and was just bluffing - it leaves him in a precarious position.
Mobilization is unpopular, takes time and not particularly effective. Military setback and losing some occupied territories is one thing - but annexation means he us now demonstably unable to properly defend a "constitutionally Russian" territory (prorussian population in the likes of Donetsk was actually were hopeful that once they are "officially Russia" would mean they they are a lot safer and protected. And Nationalists won't be satisfied either). Plus sanctions and even China/India won't be too happy, so cannot imagine that it brings him the desired standing in the world.
And finally, before that Crimea was a special case and even in the negative Scenario for Russia they could argue "we wanted only it really all the other we were just worried about Russian speakers but not annexed them etc etc"- actually Putin said it himself in 2014 (of course he was lying but still), and Russia was likely to have some "consolation prize" e.g. by keeping Crimea (even Zelenskiy was open to leaving Crimea under de-facto Russian control for at least 15 years under peace settlement at the start of the war - not any more). But now Crimea lost this status, all land that Russia still controls in Ukraine is same and they might end up losing them all.
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So with Lyman surrounded what are the chances for that front to collapse?
They don't even control all of the land in those regions, kinda undermines the idea of drawing a line there, so I don't see how it's a sound strategy. What changes from this strategy, how will things go differently?
Putin has already claimed NATO is fighting with Ukraine on the ground, I don't see how that helps him. He might even drop tactical nukes on Ukraine soldiers now, trying to create a new red line, but that wouldn't make annexation a good strategy imho. He could draw any arbitrary line on the map then threaten nukes, I don't see how the annexation helps achieve anything that occupation didn't.
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Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Not Russian soldiers in (what he is claiming) as Russia.
Putin is itching for a fight with NATO, what he refers to as the West. It is behind this whole mess. And because he is doing so badly conventionally, upping the stakes will be his reaction.
There is also a possibility that he's not an Amazing Master Strategist, mobilisation decision is unpopular domestically and he's trying to use this for domestic propaganda purposes.
We already know that nobody outside of Russia changed their behavior because of those gunpoint referendums.
I really don't think he is itching for a fight with NATO, if he were he'd have invaded Estonia or somewhere rather than Ukraine. He attacked Ukraine because he thought they couldn't defend themselves and he's a bully.
All he's itching for is to blame any failures on NATO rather than the country he's been shit talking for years, and to somehow work out a way to claim a win. Which of course is very unlikely at this point. And if he were to use a nuke or something that might well end up even worse than just getting his people killed by the thousands and failing to "defend" their acquired territory. What reason would anyone have to not invade Russia proper if he were already using nukes? What reason would the world have not to assassinate him and his ministers?