Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[maomao]

I said 'slava ukraini' to my friend Tetiana's parents when I was leaving their house after meeting them the first time and they smiled. She later told me that they don't speak Ukrainian and although I wasn't to know it wasn't a popular slogan where they came from. There's a Ukrainian bloke who works at the bakery who has a bit of a drink problem and when I said it to him he gave me a military salute of some sort. Mind you he was also the one who greeted me with 'Thank you, Boris Johnson'.

The kids are always impressed; I don't know a lot of Ukrainian grown ups. There's a boy from Kherson in that class has barely said a word in two weeks.

 

[kabbes]

Sure there's come much better and cleverer way of talking about this to do with the Enlightenment and philosophy etc. but that's beyond my brain. kabbes?

It’s an issue of having an independent versus interdependent self-schema. The latter arose in western countries as surplus started to allow for individuals to survive without relying on mutual aid. Interdependent selves have fuzzy boundaries between themself and their ingroup when it comes to how the self is defined, with hard boundaries between the ingroup and wider world. The aims and beliefs of the ingroup are not readily distinguished from those of the self. An independent self, by contrast, has clear boundaries that atomise them as an individual and have porous ingroup/outgroup boundaries and multiple ingroup memberships. Of course, this is so all an idealised model — reality is not so readily categorised. I’ve also heavily simplified the independent vs interdependent split.

 

[DaveCinzano]

It’s an issues of having an independent versus interdependent self-schema. The latter arose in western countries as surplus started to allow for individuals to survive without relying on mutual aid. Interdependent selves have fuzzy boundaries between themself and their ingroup when it comes to how they self is defined, with hard boundaries between the ingroup and wider world. The aims and beliefs of the ingroup are not readily distinguished from those of the self. An independent self, by contrast, has clear boundaries that atomise them as an individual and have porous ingroup/outgroup boundaries and multiple ingroup memberships. Of course, this is so all an idealised model — reality is not so readily categorised. I’ve also heavily simplified the independent vs interdependent split.

Of course you can't say that these days because philosophical enlightenment gone mad

 

[tim]

Speaking for myself it's not revenge, I think thinking of their deaths purely pragmatically; the strike weakens the Russian military and it means less soldiers to fight for the Russian State, which hopefully makes it more likely to lose, which ultimately I think is the better of all the shit outcomes. So I'm pleased that strike happened and was so destructive for the Russian military.

It's a game of Risk to you.

 

[Pickman's model]

Speaking for myself it's not revenge, I think thinking of their deaths purely pragmatically; the strike weakens the Russian military and it means less soldiers to fight for the Russian State, which hopefully makes it more likely to lose, which ultimately I think is the better of all the shit outcomes. So I'm pleased that strike happened and was so destructive for the Russian military.

what is more likely to make the russians lose isn't the number of men and machines they can mobilise but the unimaginative way in which they are waging war, whereby they have suffered so many catastrophes. let's say that, for the sake of argument, the men who died had not been killed but made it to their assigned billets. do you honestly believe that they would have made the russian forces more resilient, more able to defeat the ukrainians? as long as the americans and other western countries continue supplying ukraine with information and munitions - as long as those missiles, tanks and so on are not required by the donor countries - there is scant chance of russia winning. the number of troops they can field is immaterial when they have largely shown themselves second-best in terms of battlefield nous. so by all means cheer the loss of life but don't hide behind a claim that the dead men would have strengthened the russian war effort had things been different.

 

[Riklet]

No-one has suggested that they are. Just that a load of them getting killed isn't hilarious.

Agreed I never laughed or found it in any way amusing.

 

[existentialist]

Agreed I never laughed or found it in any way amusing.

FTR, I wasn't sitting there chortling when I read the news, but there was definitely an undercurrent of "well, who'd a thought it?" and a side-order of schadenfreude at Russia - again - managing to screw things up for itself.

 

[Elpenor]

that really is utter bollocks. the 1917 revolutions (february and october) were preceded by both the 1905 revolt and a century of attempts at reform and revolution. and it's often forgotten that lenin was sent back to russia by the germans doubtless with a fuckton of berlin gold. i'm sure those who had the opportunity to experience both conflicts would have felt that the russian civil war gave the first world war a close run for its money.

your final paragraph is so ghastly that i am surprised you had the front to post such vacuous nonsense. there is no need to equate zelensky with saddam hussein - the comparison is that the russians as the americans did in 2003 are waging aggressive war for regime change. i don't know which nether regions of your bowels produced the necessity for the zelensky / saddam hussein equation, but it's so obviously both a fallacy and a phallacy - in that it makes you look a massive dick - that i can only hope your great cesspit of a post is provoking remorse now.

Yes - the post you responded to was probably in the top 50 worst posts in history on this thread

 

[teuchter]

FTR, I wasn't sitting there chortling when I read the news, but there was definitely an undercurrent of "well, who'd a thought it?" and a side-order of schadenfreude at Russia - again - managing to screw things up for itself.

Kind of what started this thread of discussion was you saying:

The loss of life is tragic. The fact that Russia STILL persists in making mistakes like this is funny.

 

[Pickman's model]

Kind of what started this thread of discussion was you saying:

What started this discussion was your desire for a new episode of the teuchter show

 

[existentialist]

Kind of what started this thread of discussion was you saying:

Yep, and I stand by that statement.

I'm also not surprised at some of the responses it got.

 

[teuchter]

What started this discussion was your desire for a new episode of the teuchter show

And which show is your post here an episode of?

 

[existentialist]

And which show is your post here an episode of?

He's just supporting cast. It is you who is the star of the eponymous show...

 

[teuchter]

He's just supporting cast. It is you who is the star of the eponymous show...

Perhaps he is after an employee of the month badge.

 

[The39thStep]

Perhaps he is after an employee of the month badge.

I've delegated selection of this coverted award to _Russ_ There's unfortunately been some slippage in the announcements schedule due to the impact of the war in Ukraine on this thread.

 

[jeff_leigh]

Does anyone have a link to any Maps that shows the Territory Ukraine has got back in this Counter Offensive ?

 

[Chz]

You'd need to zoom in pretty far to notice anything.
They're still probing for the weakest spot right now. Most of the troops/equipment set aside for the offensive have yet to see any action. It's usual for these things to be very slow for a long time, then quite sudden and brutal. It remains to be seen if it will be more irresistible force/immovable object or hot knife/butter.

 

[kabbes]

Does anyone have a link to any Maps that shows the Territory Ukraine has got back in this Counter Offensive ?

Here you go:

 

[two sheds]

Joking about people dying

 

[Pickman's model]

You'd need to zoom in pretty far to notice anything.
They're still probing for the weakest spot right now. Most of the troops/equipment set aside for the offensive have yet to see any action. It's usual for these things to be very slow for a long time, then quite sudden and brutal. It remains to be seen if it will be more irresistible force/immovable object or hot knife/butter.

You seem to be throwing your name in the ring for Walt of the Month

 

[Pickman's model]

Joking about people dying

We've all done that

 

[Pickman's model]

LDC joking about something and finding something hilarious are two subtly different things, eg you'll have heard the jokes about challenger exploding in 1986 or 1987, but I don't know if you found the explosion of the space shuttle itself funny

 

[LDC]

Except there's not really been any jokes about it anyway. And I've not said I found it hilarious either so dunno what two sheds is going on about tbh.

 

[The39thStep]

Just Russians making mistakes

 

[BassJunkie]

Laughing at people dying.

Back in the late 1990s my brother's girlfriend (25 years old at the time) died. From an allergic reaction to pea flour in an Onion Bhaji.

The Sun ran a headline "Girl killed by Onion Bhaji". Neither my brother or I laughed at that. We were in the depths of grief at the time. However we could both understand there's humour in that headline. A week later Mrs Charles Windsor died. Struggled to GAF. This isn't to justify anything the Sun does. It's an attempt to point out that it's possible to have two perspectives at the same time.

 

[ska invita]

Does anyone have a link to any Maps that shows the Territory Ukraine has got back in this Counter Offensive ?

FT does regular maps

https://archive.ph/Yy9GY

i take from this they have yet to really run into the fortified areas proper, though edging it in the west on this map

 

[LDC]

Good map for giving a sense of the scale of the ground taken and that still under Russian control, does make it look a bit of an impossible task.

 

[ska invita]

yes...

then there's the scenario what if the Ukraine army actually DOES successfully makes a breakthrough at any one point, throw all the weaponry being held back and break Russian supplies lines, lets say at the areas they are 'testing'....lets say they make it half way to Mariupol....they will then be pincered from left and right and below by now-desperate russian forces. Biden's comment today about the Russian nuclear threat being "real" adds mood music to all this.

I'm absolutely no military historian but seems to me the scale of what would need to happen to reconquer all this territory is one thing in a WW2 style total war situation with every ally throwing everything they have to make it happen and fuck the consequences, but that's not what is happening here. Head US general Mark Milley has said as much that it is not a realistic possibility. From what i can see this is all infinitely more guarded and drip drip.

My reading is the US knows this, and is calculating on a relatively limited counteroffensive, carefully managed not to create a reactionary escalation from Russia, and going by earlier reports from the FT leading to a more official resignation to this new territorial reality by the end of the year. Or, they intend to continue with the slow blood letting for years to come < which would be deeply cynical IMO and achieve nothing but more death and suffering

 

[Pickman's model]

yes...

then there's the scenario what if the Ukraine army actually DOES successfully makes a breakthrough at any one point, throw all the weaponry being held back and break Russian supplies lines, lets say at the areas they are 'testing'....lets say they make it half way to Mariupol....they will then be pincered from left and right and below by now-desperate russian forces. Biden's comment today about the Russian nuclear threat being "real" adds mood music to all this.

i think what you're driving at is that if the ukrainian forces break through then the salient thus created might be attacked with ukrainian forces potentially kettled.

 

[Chz]

You seem to be throwing your name in the ring for Walt of the Month

Who's Walt?
Are you Eric then?