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Unborking the [Ukraine] discussion
Posts
IMO their goals were, more or less in order:
None of those require Ukraine to hold a chunk of Kursk forever, and there's always the possibility of a further opportunity to take advantage of newly weakened spots along that 1000km front line as the Russian generals inevitably pull troops from Kherson or Crimea or Zaphorizia (sp?) to send them to Kursk
Because holding ground is harder than defending, since the transport links up to the front line cross the border, and thus usually are easily disrupted (countries usually like their border crossings to go through chokepoints for easier control of the flow of goods in peacetime, so, blow up that crossing and a few things on 'your side' of the border and now its harder for the enemy, and it gets tougher and tougher as they advance.
I guess Russia also seemed to be so utterly incompetent in the early days of this counterattack that perhaps they didn't even DO that...
Like honestly I wonder how far they'd get into Belarus, if so inclined, given how easy Russia proper folded here
1. "You can't hold your borders with 'Free' Conscript units. Because we will kick their asses. You need to commit veteran forces" reducing the amount of forces and material Russia can commit to an offensive. Ukrainian territorial units are vastly superior to their Russian conscript counterparts due to superior leadership and training.
2. Pull out valuable Russian assets. Russian Ka-52s have been doing some bad stuff to Ukrainian units in Kursk, but they've lost aircraft in return. As usual with pockets like these it's also the VDV and Naval infantry that gets pulled in to stem the tide. Already some Russian airborne and Naval infantry assets have been geolocated as being transferred to the region from elsewhere to slow down the Ukrainian advance. These are Russias most well-trained infantry and taking them on in favorable conditions (less russian artillery, less mines, fewer FAB glide bombs) is good for Ukraine.
3. Draw away attention from elsewhere, taking up the attention of OSINT and Russian high command. This maximizes the chances that Ukraine can pull off an encirclement in Vovchansk as priority is shifted to Kursk.
4. Valuable POWs. Russian conscripts are both easier to capture (Ukraine has already taken 4 figure numbers of Conscript POWs) and a lot more politically valuable than contract regulars. While Russians in Moscow&St.Petersburg might shrug at a captured contract regular from beyond the Urals the conscript units are a much more mixed bag (and viewed as valuable for the future of Russia).
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Apparently most of the border with Belarus is very unfavourable to invade across unless you stick to the roads; mostly heavily wooded and marshy. Apparently the last couple of years of humans mostly avoiding the border zones have also seen a population explosion amongst the beavers there - who have been doing what beavers do and now there are beaver dams everywhere.
(I am not making this up I swear)
Honestly I believe it, I used to work as a wildlife biologist in a former army range turned into a hunting reserve and it was absolutely caked in wetlands made from newly made beaver dams. So I can only imagine how gnarly that effect is at the scale of a national border
I look forward to the nature documentaries I hope will be made about the situation, because Lord knows it would be nice to think that something good has come out of all this.
I've read articles on the staggering number of beavers we've killed in north america in the past like 500+ years. Like somewhere between 75% to 90%+ are gone. They used to be fucking everywhere with their wetlands. And if left alone they will generally go back to ruling the world and turning it into their ponds.
[sarcasm/foolishness] A recent image from the Ukraine/Russia border
[/sarcasm/foolishness]
And then they had the poor bastards dig trenches in the radioactive forest, because of course they did.
Meanwhile, in slightly less environmentally good news, that oil depot in Rostov that Ukraine hit on the weekend is still burning. Phrases like "column of fire hundreds of feet high" are being used. That depot is kaput.
Don't forget they also need to actually organize their forces so that they stop murdering their own troops.
/sarcasm
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
That's covered under the 'form' clause
Although currently they seem to be going with the time-honoured "rush whoever over there as fast as possible and yeet them piecemeal at the Ukrainians as soon as they arrive" method of organisation
I believe we're all familiar with the Penny Arcade comic I'm alluding to here.
Very.
Holding ground means building defensive fortifications for the Russians to use when Ukranian pulls out.
time, man hours and equipment they could maybe get more out of.
Also means they'd need to hold corridors for supply and retreat indefinitely.
And with the fog of war + rushing people in piece meal it has cause a number of high casualty friendly fire incidents so far and some helicopter losses that seem to be due to them not really knowing where ukranian troops actually are. I think russians lost a HQ this way too where they thought the line was much further away from them until suddenly it wasn't.
Fortifying the Ukrainian side of that river that's like 20km into Kursk isn't really handing the Russians much of anything
-John Stuart Mill
A very mild one though, I don't think you're going to see much movement on the top as long as the war economy is still keeping Russia ticking along well enough and that's not really impacted by territorial gains and losses at the border. There also seems to been fairly successful efforts to normalise the state of low key war as being just how things are at the moment, so even amongst the people a slow ratchetting of additional restrictions and minor hardships isn't going to swing the needle towards an uprising significantly.
Am no expert obviously. I just watch perun and follow this thread and hope that every pinch Ukraine applies is felt from top to bottom.
-John Stuart Mill
But back on topic, the best part about one of the recent "friendly fire" incidents is the Russians initially posted the videos themselves because like the pilot, they also thought the column of trucks that got blown the fuck up was Ukrainian... um, nope. The "worst" part is that the pilot has allegedly been punished by being transferred to an infantry division; tantamount to a death sentence. Great job guys, I'm sure that won't make your other pilots terrified to shoot at literally anything from now on...
*edit*
Oof, I just watched the rest of the video... they also managed to march their own soldiers into one of their own minefields and got a bunch of their guys captured because they thought the approaching Ukrainian troops in the treeline were theirs... ah, no. Yes, please continue to blunder into traps of your own making, guys.
As requested:
War isn't a video game, destroying units is not the only objective. Forcing Russia to defend something that a month ago was safe is an objective in its own right, and even if Ukraine leaves Russia can't just *stop* defending that stuff now.
But to put it in video game terms, Russia just overcommitted to breaking a turtle and this is the two drop ships that just popped in from the corner and started wrecking their probes and pylons. They don't *have* to hold the position to do what they need to.
Ukraine launched a drone attack on Moscow with an indeterminate number of drones, and Moscow's mayor claims it's "one of the largest ever" attacks Ukraine has made, while also insisting there was no injuries or damage of course.
Very interesting deadline if true, October is start of Autumn conscription season. Maybe less of "do it or else" instead: this is how much you have before we start sending literally yesterday schoolkids with rifles and zero training.
Speaking about conscripts, despite legally taking back land in Kursk is actually legal reason to use conscripts, there is gtowing pushback to it in society. To which Russian goverment has already replied with proper nuance, all the while heating up patriotic fervor /s Chechen spetcznaz commander Alaudinov
Source: independent Russin media, has link to his video speech
https://meduza.io/news/2024/08/19/a-zachem-vy-i-vashi-deti-nuzhny-etoy-strane-komandir-ahmata-apti-alaudinov-obratilsya-k-roditelyam-srochnikov-i-zayavil-chto-oni-dolzhny-voevat
Speaking of Chechen troops in Kursk: they finally been found! dudes are busy looting with looting deserted Russian towns. Well that answers some questions
Source: Kursk telegram channels
https://t.me/kursk_tipich/16355
And Russian military blogger
https://t.me/Alekhin_Telega/11273
And we have new law: easing up regulations on receiving citizens for migrants "supporting Russian traditional values", escaping from "countries promoting destructive neoliberal values". Reminder, this is after last year law for easing up getting citizenship for descendants of people that lived on ex-Imperial Russia territories.
Also of interest is part about list of evil neoliberal countries. Following terror attack on Krokus, Russia has unprecedented rise of anti-muslim tensions: from some governors banning and kicking out Central Asian laborers, to endless police raids, to police publishing very racist "Rules of Conduct for foreigners". Cause yes, Putin wants some white European dudes for his "Traditional values utopia", hopefully replacing those that died in war or just GTFO
Anybody remembers still that Texas dude tortured to death in DPR?
Source: here is the law
https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_483573/
Oh, also for first time in ever Putin has met mothers of victims of Beslan terror attack, too late, also off from attack memorial day... And through whole meeting he did not let anyone speak, misremembered number of victims and ranted about traditional values, evil west and Ukrainian nazis. Yep, old geezer is fully nuts
Source: official Kremlin telegram
https://t.me/news_kremlin/4160
I'm glad you got the fuck out of that nut house CrazyP
OK, so, the country does not need parents or children, which would be... let's see... everyone. That does not seem like a position that would ensure the long-term health of any country.
That's a very interesting interpretation of the nuance that hadn't occurred to me: "Rid me of these troublesome Ukrainians or everyone will know that it'll be your fault that "iterally yesterday schoolkids with rifles and zero training" will be sent to die in their thousands". Absolutely typical narcissist mindset, but no more than we have come to expect from 'Tsar Elevator Heels I'
Ask not what your country can do for you, but if your pointless death will somehow benefit the man sitting at the top.
That is the prevalent pattern for capitalist and nationalist conflicts, yes?
While intranational conflicts can rise as a result of social injustices (and the resolution benefit the common man) I don't think we have a lot of cases where large scale international conflict ever improved conditions for the people in general, in particular for the people responsible for starting the war. In the cases where the common man did benefit from war it's usually the case of people living in a belligerent nations losing the war they started and their corrupt regime losing power in favor of a more egalitarian government.
Otherwise whatever resources are gained tend to benefit only a select elite at the top, at a significant cost to the people below.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Bangladesh is a case in point, literally if your family fought in the liberation war you get preferential treatment, and that has soured so many years after said liberation war. Other cases you might see a much smaller nomenklatura elite, or the criminalisation of the freedom fighters. Sometimes the post-colonial problems come from the nomenklatura joining forces with the ex-colonizers' exploitative multinationals
But the nature of colonialism is such that only in the rosiest of interpretations would the people have been better off left as colonials subjects and, again, if we had a fairer international system, the war and the corruption it brought wouldn't have been necessary.
Au contraire, the aftermath of the dreadful slaughter of both WW1 and WW2 directly led to huge improvements for women and working class people in a lot of western countries.
No it didn't. It led there indirectly, taking a side quest past left-wing revolts across most of Europe. That in turn led to industrialists begrudgingly accepting socdem coalitions fascism being aided as the counteragent to communism, leading to WW2, leading to the post-WW2 climate where socdems were finally accepted in the centre of politics.