Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[The39thStep]

What are their names?

 

[Idris2002]

Why? If this business has demonstrated anything it's that the armed forces of the Russian Federation pose zero conventional threat to NATO. It took them a year to take the 36km2 of Bakhmut so the notion that the 3rd Guards Motorised Rapist Division is going to waltz into downtown Vilnius in the face of an Article 5 declaration is ludicrous.

Wasn't there talk that Bakhmut was deliberately drawn out so as to cut down the flower of Ukraine's youth (and the nettles of its middle-aged) in a futile battle, while also ridding Russia of some turbulent Wagnerites?

(I agree about your assessment of the likelihood of the Doom that Came to Vilnius ever being a reality, mind).

 

[Idris2002]

Zelensky increasingly resembles Hitler in his bunker in March '45. The tyrant grows desperate as his domestic support crumbles and takes solace in imaginary victories by imaginary troops. In despair he dreams of rescue by foreign allies whose attention long ago turned elsewhere. Only difference is Zelensky has his mansion in Miami to fall back on


.

This is the sort of bullshit we used to rely on Ern for!

 

[WouldBe]

That's not going to work. You can't recruit mercenaries on the same scale you conscript, and by the time Ukraine is "down to its last man" there isn't going to be the money or C&C to operate a mercenary army of the size required.

Wagner group aren't doing much at the moment.

 

[The39thStep]

This is a fascinating article on how university admissions have shot up driven by the fact that fee paying students are exempt from conscription while studying. One case given as an example is the Ukrainian State University of Railway Transport in Kharkiv enrolling 20 times more fee-paying first year male students compared to the pre-war 2021 ( 2021 – 102 persons; 2022 – 957 persons; 2023 – 2033 persons).

Цього року ще 110 тис. чоловіків сховались в університетах від мобілізації – дослідження NGL.media

Публікація на тему «Цього року ще 110 тис. чоловіків сховались в університетах від мобілілізації» від NGL.media

ngl.media

*There is a language tab on the top right page

 

[teqniq]

Things may be a tad desperate on the hardware front:

Russia asks other countries to return weapons sold to them – WSJ

Russia is trying to get back some of the weapons it exported to countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Belarus and Brazil. Source: The Wall Street Journal with reference to sources Details: Three sources told The WSJ that last April, a delegation of Russian officials who visited Cairo asked Egyptian...

news.yahoo.com

 

[jeff_leigh]

For me it means sitting in class with students saying they want to kill Russians.

Does this mean they’re going to create an X Account and stick a Ukraine flag in their profile ?

 

[existentialist]

Does this mean they’re going to create an X Account and stick a Ukraine flag in their profile ?

Perhaps a little excessively cynical...?

 

[Raheem]

Perhaps a little excessively cynical...?

It probably doesn't mean that they want to enough to ever consider taking any concrete steps towards doing it, though.

 

[tim]

It probably doesn't mean that they want to enough to ever consider taking any concrete steps towards doing it, though.

They're adult students from Ukraine here on short term courses, for obvious reasons mostly female.

 

[rubbershoes]

Why are they not fighting, are they too young? Who are these students - are they school students? Are they in the UK or Ukraine or somewhere else?

We had a Ukrainian family living with us last year. One of their friends came over with their 17 year old son.

He'll be 18 now. I wonder if he's gone back to fight. He's from Kherson which is getting hit by Russian missiles regularly. His home, his school, his friends. What's happened to them?

What would any of us do in that situation?

 

[TopCat]

We had a Ukrainian family living with us last year. One of their friends came over with their 17 year old son.

He'll be 18 now. I wonder if he's gone back to fight. He's from Kherson which is getting hit by Russian missiles regularly. His home, his school, his friends. What's happened to them?

What would any of us do in that situation?

A range of things. Some would join up. Some would bribe recruiters to be listed as infirm and thus exempt, some would suddenly take up university studies, some would hide in Ukraine, some would escape across the borders, some would totally focus on graft.

 

[teuchter]

If I believed these things to be true:

• Without external i.e. foreign support, my home country had no hope of holding back an occupation
• That external support was being provided at a level that appeared simply to be enabling a kind of stalemate
• That external support would probably be ramped up if the occupiers started to gain substantial territory

Then I'd feel even less enthusiastic about volunteering myself as cannon fodder than I would otherwise.

 

[existentialist]

If I believed these things to be true:

• Without external i.e. foreign support, my home country had no hope of holding back an occupation
• That external support was being provided at a level that appeared simply to be enabling a kind of stalemate
• That external support would probably be ramped up if the occupiers started to gain substantial territory

Then I'd feel even less enthusiastic about volunteering myself as cannon fodder than I would otherwise.

To be fair, you do tend more to the curmudgeonly than the idealistic, so it is possible that you may not represent the youth of Ukraine quite as closely as you think.

 

[teuchter]

To be fair, you do tend more to the curmudgeonly than the idealistic, so it is possible that you may not represent the youth of Ukraine quite as closely as you think.

Not sure where you have got the impression that I think I represent the youth of Ukraine.

 

[tim]

To be fair, you do tend more to the curmudgeonly than the idealistic, so it is possible that you may not represent the youth of Ukraine quite as closely as you think.

Not too sure where you got the impression that he thinks.

 

[ska invita]

Ex-Nato chief proposes Ukraine joins without Russian-occupied territories

Former secretary general says partial membership would warn Russia it cannot stop Ukraine joining the alliance

www.theguardian.com

this points to exactly what ive been imagining to happen - a new defacto border is created, with Russia taking the occupied territories for now, remaining UKRAINE join EU and NATO, NATO polices the border to stop any future advance from Russia, perhaps one day the border will change again

people arguing "You Cant Trust Russia not to advance further in a peace deal", i say again its not about trust, its about the border being heavily militarised and in this proposal officially by NATO. Joining EU seems to be being pushed through the procedural steps also

 

[DownwardDog]

Ex-Nato chief proposes Ukraine joins without Russian-occupied territories

Former secretary general says partial membership would warn Russia it cannot stop Ukraine joining the alliance

www.theguardian.com

this points to exactly what ive been imagining to happen - a new defacto border is created, with Russia taking the occupied territories for now, remaining UKRAINE join EU and NATO, NATO polices the border to stop any future advance from Russia, perhaps one day the border will change again

people arguing "You Cant Trust Russia not to advance further in a peace deal", i say again its not about trust, its about the border being heavily militarised and in this proposal officially by NATO. Joining EU seems to be being pushed through the procedural steps also

It would be great for what's left of Ukraine but I don't see how NATO benefit from taking on a bombed out, corrupt wreck of a shit hole country that has a bitter and unresolved border dispute with its belligerent neighbour.

It would also require a change in NATO'S constitution and some staggering bribery and persuasion so the usual suspects won't veto it. Turkey, Hungary, Slovakia, etc.

 

[ska invita]

It would be great for what's left of Ukraine but I don't see how NATO benefit from taking on a bombed out, corrupt wreck of a shit hole country that has a bitter and unresolved border dispute with its belligerent neighbour.

It would also require a change in NATO'S constitution and some staggering bribery and persuasion so the usual suspects won't veto it. Turkey, Hungary, Slovakia, etc.

NATO is the military arm of the "West" so its not about what NATO wants as much as what the West wants.
And the west can't handle a vacuum of power within the fromer eastern block, and it certanily doesn't want Russia to have that influence - it wants control and intergration of those states. Many of the privatisation and buy up deals are done, and they need defending. A hard militarised border against Putin's Russia is now inevitable, so the south eastern corner needs militarsing and this is the mechanism to achieve that

RE second line...fair...but were there is a will...

 

[jeff_leigh]

Ex-Nato chief proposes Ukraine joins without Russian-occupied territories

Former secretary general says partial membership would warn Russia it cannot stop Ukraine joining the alliance

www.theguardian.com

this points to exactly what ive been imagining to happen - a new defacto border is created, with Russia taking the occupied territories for now, remaining UKRAINE join EU and NATO, NATO polices the border to stop any future advance from Russia, perhaps one day the border will change again

people arguing "You Cant Trust Russia not to advance further in a peace deal", i say again its not about trust, its about the border being heavily militarised and in this proposal officially by NATO. Joining EU seems to be being pushed through the procedural steps also

Russia isn’t going to agree to that, This War started because Russia didn’t want a NATO Country on its border and there’s no way they’d trust the West not to try and get back the occupied back

 

[spitfire]

Didn't want a NATO country on it's border so much it invaded a non NATO country which if they were successful they would have ended up with several NATO countries on the New Russian border?

It's not even logical you dense mother fucker.

 

[Protag]

I couldn't find a reference to this, apologies if this exists:-

U.S., European officials broach topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine

But in terms of the US, the proxy war has failed, so it is not surprising. And it will be worried about stretched resources with other regions kicking off.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Proxy war really puts the emphasis on the last couple of years of Putin blowing up kids as the fault of the US that is really quite insulting even just in terms of stripping Russia of agency and motive of its own

 

[SpookyFrank]

If I believed these things to be true:

• Without external i.e. foreign support, my home country had no hope of holding back an occupation
• That external support was being provided at a level that appeared simply to be enabling a kind of stalemate
• That external support would probably be ramped up if the occupiers started to gain substantial territory

Then I'd feel even less enthusiastic about volunteering myself as cannon fodder than I would otherwise.

Stalemate sounds shit but what it means in practice is lots of people being able to stay in their homes and carry on with their lives, rather than being killed/forced to flee/trapped under Russian occupation/kidnapped to Bumfuckigrad Russia with little prospect of ever coming back. The fighting the Ukrainians are doing is not for nothing.

 

[teuchter]

Stalemate sounds shit but what it means in practice is lots of people being able to stay in their homes and carry on with their lives, rather than being killed/forced to flee/trapped under Russian occupation/kidnapped to Bumfuckigrad Russia with little prospect of ever coming back. The fighting the Ukrainians are doing is not for nothing.

The point is that the same could be achieved by a settlement that simply agreed a border where the static frontline is. All those people could carry on with their lives, but in addition the current de facto border could stop being a mass killing machine.

If, despite the encouraging sales of "Crimea Beach Party" T-shirts, "the west" is not actually ever going to provide Ukraine with sufficient resources to push Russia back to the former borders, then that front line is just going to stay there, with people dying every day.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The point is that the same could be achieved by a settlement that simply agreed a border where the static frontline is. All those people could carry on with their lives, but in addition the current de facto border could stop being a mass killing machine.

If, despite the encouraging sales of "Crimea Beach Party" T-shirts, "the west" is not actually ever going to provide Ukraine with sufficient resources to push Russia back to the former borders, then that front line is just going to stay there, with people dying every day.

And the Russians would stick to that settlement would they? And not simply regroup, rearm and have another go in a year's time, only this time starting off a couple of hundred kilometres closer to Kyiv?

 

[Pickman's model]

And the Russians would stick to that settlement would they? And not simply regroup, rearm and have another go in a year's time, only this time starting off a couple of hundred kilometres closer to Kyiv?

How do you think Russia will rearm over the next couple of years? It's now or never for Vladimir Vladimirovich

 

[Protag]

Proxy war really puts the emphasis on the last couple of years of Putin blowing up kids as the fault of the US that is really quite insulting even just in terms of stripping Russia of agency and motive of its own

Your feelings is not a criteria of what is true or false.

 

[Pickman's model]

Your feelings is not a criteria of what is true or false.

Are not

 

[StoneRoad]

Sadly, a ceasefire would only benefit Putin by allowing him to reconstitute & train & build up supplies for his forces - and then, after a few years, they'll have another go, but with a closer to Kyiv starting point.
At the moment they are throwing untrained convicts at the frontlines as well as more highly trained specialists in infantry roles, neither of which are sustainable long term, and whilst they are winning some territory it is at a terrible cost to both sides.
It's not yet devolved to the stalemate of "fixed" trench warfare that characterised WW1.