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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

TopCat said:
There are 8000 legionnaires in total. Even Napoleon took loads more than that to attack Russia. His little jaunt cost over 250,000 French troops dead plus about the same wounded or taken prisoner.
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It wasn't the fighting that did for them it was Russias scorched earth retreat...lead to invention of tinned food
 
The39thStep said:

US urged Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries​


“Nothing terrifies a sitting American president more than a surge in pump prices during an election year,” said Bob McNally, president of consultancy Rapidan Energy and a former White House energy adviser.

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Ridiculous on the surface, but if it helps Biden defeat Trump then it's the smartest move Ukraine can make in their own interests. I rather suspect it won't make much difference, but Ukraine needs to do anything short of electoral fraud to keep Trump out.
 
The39thStep said:

US urged Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries​


“Nothing terrifies a sitting American president more than a surge in pump prices during an election year,” said Bob McNally, president of consultancy Rapidan Energy and a former White House energy adviser.

Click to expand...
That’s complete bollocks though, as Russia exports very little refined product, it won’t affect global supplies of crude as that will still be available. What it likely will do is push up prices or cause shortages domestically, although attacks so far have affected less than ten percent of Russia’s refining capacity, and they do have the ability to repair stuff.

I guess they’ll probably be using a lot of fuel in the war, tanks are quite thirsty although thankfully they have a lot less of them than they started out with.

Anyhow, oil producing countries have already agreed to a cut in output later this year, presumably to push up prices in the US ahead of the November election. I guess they want an end to this ‘green crap’ and Trump is their man for that.
 
Dogsauce said:
That’s complete bollocks though, as Russia exports very little refined product, it won’t affect global supplies of crude as that will still be available. What it likely will do is push up prices or cause shortages domestically, although attacks so far have affected less than ten percent of Russia’s refining capacity, and they do have the ability to repair stuff.

I guess they’ll probably be using a lot of fuel in the war, tanks are quite thirsty although thankfully they have a lot less of them than they started out with.

Anyhow, oil producing countries have already agreed to a cut in output later this year, presumably to push up prices in the US ahead of the November election. I guess they want an end to this ‘green crap’ and Trump is their man for that.
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By very little perhaps you mean none as they banned petrol exports for six months from 1 march
 
discokermit said:
released rather than dropped? what does that mean? its the same thing.
beyond the range of "some" air defences. not the ones at the front. which were deployed due to the threat of the fab bombs. like the patriot that got blown up the other day.
the increased bombing led to ukraine moving some of its air defence to the front which is now getting destroyed.
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This one? Or one of the many others?
 
The39thStep said:
Go on , you'll have to explain what happened etc as I'm not a war boy
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Large French military outpost in Indochina, completely surrounded and besieged by the Viet Minh. The nature of the defeat of the colonial power there can be seen in some ways as having fuelled US escalation efforts a decade later, e.g. with a determination that (similarly besieged firebase) Khe Sanh would not become ‘an American Điện Biên Phủ’.
 
DaveCinzano said:
Large French military outpost in Indochina, completely surrounded and besieged by the Viet Minh. The nature of the defeat of the colonial power there can be seen in some ways as having fuelled US escalation efforts a decade later, e.g. with a determination that (similarly besieged firebase) Khe Sanh would not become ‘an American Điện Biên Phủ’.
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I take it The French Foreign Legion haven't got a good away record?
 
Pickman's model said:
If you're looking to the 1930s you're already looking to the wrong place, with Italian fascism for example taking shape rather earlier than that, with national socialism too building on trends developing even before the first world war and so on.

Any term which seeks to describe the very disparate rejections of modernity under one umbrella, which lumps aq and putin's Russia together, is for me useless. Rejecting the enlightenment? It's eurocentric bollocks. It's clear to any student of American history that the United States emerged from colonies which were largely formed on Christianity, and protestant Christianity at that. It's no surprise to me at least that Christian identity movements, American Christian nationalism, festers there - it is simply a continuation of the pre-enlightenment way in which political views were expressed in religious terms.

History is not and never has been a progression toward a better future. Gains are made but need to be defended if they're not to be washed away as sand castles are by the sea. The enlightenment, now near three hundred years ago, is not something which can really be defended, it's dead and buried in the grave. Would you defend it? Can you defend it? For me there's a political agenda behind the use of the nm term, that 'we' are superior to 'they'. It's used by Dina Khapaeva as you say, as a shorthand for anti-western, anti-democratic, far-right views. We all know the pejorative meaning of medieval in current discourse. So it's 'they' are bad, 'we' are good. It privileges a notion of Europe of the last several centuries against the barbarians in eurasia and the Middle East. I think it says rather more about proponents of the term than it dies those it seeks to describe.

There is perhaps a cyclical fashion in which reason is privileged over irrationality. But humans are made of two halves, the rational and the irrational. 'We' are always rational - 'they' are not. No attempt is made to marry the two. Take magic for example. If rationality were superior then it would have disappeared decades if not centuries ago. Yet magical texts, be they grimoires, books on the golden dawn, on crowley, gurdjieff, osho, can not only be found in general bookshops across the UK but are often issued by university presses like Oxford's or the state University of new York. Many posters here rail against 'woo' yet London alone supports at least three bookshops dedicated to the sale of magical and occult texts. Belief in formerly outre notions is commonplace Just to continue this a little further, ideas which would have been niche in the nineteenth century are increasingly mainstream now. Any victory rationality and the enlightenment enjoyed was fleeting.

But in conclusion to return to the classification of people 'we' don't like as nm offers perhaps a glimmer of hope that perhaps in the future there might be a neo-enlightenment which might finally offer a place for both rationality and irrationality
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Sorry for the delayed response, I've had a busy few days.

The vast majority of systems of government in this world are based on systems inspired by modernist enlightenment ideals such as democracy. There are very few absolute monarchies or theocracies in this world and even Iran has democratic window dressing. Yes some of them may have been set up by colonial powers, but enlightenment language and ideals were also used as weapons and tools by the colonised in independence movements and other revolutions. So it is not eurocentric to refer to the rejection of enlightenment ideals. They originated in Europe but they have influence around the world to some degree.

The term "neo-medieval" may not be perfect but what I mean by it is the trend towards a global repudiation of modernist democratic ideals (including, and in fact especially, socialism). The various forms this takes more not be uniform but it doesn't mean that it isn't a real trend worthy of attention and explanation just as the rise of various forms of fascism was in the interwar period.

Throughout the 20th Century we had (more or less) a spread of democratic systems away from military dictatorships (much of Latin America, Greece, Spain, Portugal, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines...), a general increase in voting franchise (Europe and US) and in the mid century the emergence of Social democracies. You also had the collapse of pre-modern dynastic systems (Qing Dynasty, Tsarist Russia) in favour of modernist socialist projects which at least had stated democratic goals rather than the old aristocratic ones and the end of Empires with new, often imperfect but aspirationally and nominally democratic states independent states.

Whereas in the 21st Century "Democratic waves" like the Arab Spring amounted to little; China's much anticipated democratisation has gone into reverse, reversing not just the "reform and opening" era but in many ways looking back to imperial China and repudiating much of the revolutionary content of the early CCP; Russia has followed a similar trajectory and now repudiates not only Gorbachev but Lenin, looking back to imperial Russia; and then you have the rise of political Islam. Nowhere is this contrast more obvious than in Afghanistan which in the 70s had a modernist reforming government and now you have the Taliban refusing to allow girls to attend school.

This isn't about "us" or "them" because the same process is happening in the west as well. Faith in electoral governments is at rock bottom and far-right populist movements are on the rise, with a real possibility of the US being taken control of by openly anti-democratic "Christian nationalists" allied with a narcissistic wannabe tyrant.

Within the EU, you also have Orban working with Putin and the US right to have a victory for "illiberal Christian democracy" or whatever he calls it across Europe, with potential allies in AfD, Reform UK, Le Pen et al.

I would explain the decay of democracy as a product of globalisation and neoliberalism. Market Reforms in Russia led it to become a resource based economy and decimated their manufacturing base, and you have the formation of an elitist clique of oligarchs ruling over a disenfranchised and socially atomised population as a consequence. The same process has led to a decline in quality of western democracy in which elected governments have limited power to raise taxes on corporations or increase labour's share of national income due to the threat of offshoring and capital flight. Such a set of circumstances favours authoritarian states so it's no surprise we see a rise of authoritarianism and a kind of rejection of democracy. I'd also suggest that Israeli behaviour in Gaza is part of a similar process of the rise of authoritarian nationalist movements which repudiate the enlightenment.

On top of that, there's a certain cultural reaction to the rapid changes caused by a globalising world and a retreat into cultural "sovereignty" as a response to the decline of democratic sovereignty over global market forces.

So I think it is in fact you who are seeing things in terms of "us" and "them"; what concerns me about Russia is not that it is a "them" as opposed to an "us" but rather that Russia under Putin IS us - that is, it is an image of our future. Democratic structures and norms are under pressure from the strains of market globalisation and the decline of state sovereignty. The crumbling of European democracy is coming and Putin's invasion of Ukraine is part of the form that this takes.

A victorious Russia in Ukraine (annexing Ukraine and perhaps de-facto annexing Belarus as part of the revived "Union State" idea), combined with a Russia-friendly Christian nationalist victory in the US under Trump, combining to boost and support far-right "traditionalist" movements across Europe is the future we have in store. To avoid this, it is absolutely essential that Russia does not succeed in Ukraine.

E2A: in fact I'd say that those on the left who defend Russia are trapped in an outdated Cold War era "us vs them" paradigm. Those on the left who recognise Putin as a serious threat and a mortal enemy of their ideals are those who are not thinking in those terms and treat Putin's fascism or whatever you want to call it the same way they would a revanchist far-right government in the UK invading Ireland and sponsoring far-right movements around the continent.
 
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Rimbaud said:
Sorry for the delayed response, I've had a busy few days.

The vast majority of systems of government in this world are based on systems inspired by modernist enlightenment ideals such as democracy. There are very few absolute monarchies or theocracies in this world and even Iran has democratic window dressing. Yes some of them may have been set up by colonial powers, but enlightenment language and ideals were also used as weapons and tools by the colonised in independence movements and other revolutions. So it is not eurocentric to refer to the rejection of enlightenment ideals. They originated in Europe but they have influence around the world to some degree.

The term "neo-medieval" may not be perfect but what I mean by it is the trend towards a global repudiation of modernist democratic ideals (including, and in fact especially, socialism). The various forms this takes more not be uniform but it doesn't mean that it isn't a real trend worthy of attention and explanation just as the rise of various forms of fascism was in the interwar period.

Throughout the 20th Century we had (more or less) a spread of democratic systems away from military dictatorships (much of Latin America, Greece, Spain, Portugal, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines...), a general increase in voting franchise (Europe and US) and in the mid century the emergence of Social democracies. You also had the collapse of pre-modern dynastic systems (Qing Dynasty, Tsarist Russia) in favour of modernist socialist projects which at least had stated democratic goals rather than the old aristocratic ones and the end of Empires with new, often imperfect but aspirationally and nominally democratic states independent states.

Whereas in the 21st Century "Democratic waves" like the Arab Spring amounted to little; China's much anticipated democratisation has gone into reverse, reversing not just the "reform and opening" era but in many ways looking back to imperial China and repudiating much of the revolutionary content of the early CCP; Russia has followed a similar trajectory and now repudiates not only Gorbachev but Lenin, looking back to imperial Russia; and then you have the rise of political Islam. Nowhere is this contrast more obvious than in Afghanistan which in the 70s had a modernist reforming government and now you have the Taliban refusing to allow girls to attend school.

This isn't about "us" or "them" because the same process is happening in the west as well. Faith in electoral governments is at rock bottom and far-right populist movements are on the rise, with a real possibility of the US being taken control of by openly anti-democratic "Christian nationalists" allied with a narcissistic wannabe tyrant.

Within the EU, you also have Orban working with Putin and the US right to have a victory for "illiberal Christian democracy" or whatever he calls it across Europe, with potential allies in AfD, Reform UK, Le Pen et al.

I would explain the decay of democracy as a product of globalisation and neoliberalism. Market Reforms in Russia led it to become a resource based economy and decimated their manufacturing base, and you have the formation of an elitist clique of oligarchs ruling over a disenfranchised and socially atomised population as a consequence. The same process has led to a decline in quality of western democracy in which elected governments have limited power to raise taxes on corporations or increase labour's share of national income due to the threat of offshoring and capital flight. Such a set of circumstances favours authoritarian states so it's no surprise we see a rise of authoritarianism and a kind of rejection of democracy. I'd also suggest that Israeli behaviour in Gaza is part of a similar process of the rise of authoritarian nationalist movements which repudiate the enlightenment.

On top of that, there's a certain cultural reaction to the rapid changes caused by a globalising world and a retreat into cultural "sovereignty" as a response to the decline of democratic sovereignty over global market forces.

So I think it is in fact you who are seeing things in terms of "us" and "them"; what concerns me about Russia is not that it is a "them" as opposed to an "us" but rather that Russia under Putin IS us - that is, it is an image of our future. Democratic structures and norms are under pressure from the strains of market globalisation and the decline of state sovereignty. The crumbling of European democracy is coming and Putin's invasion of Ukraine is part of the form that this takes.

A victorious Russia in Ukraine (annexing Ukraine and perhaps de-facto annexing Belarus as part of the revived "Union State" idea), combined with a Russia-friendly Christian nationalist victory in the US under Trump, combining to boost and support far-right "traditionalist" movements across Europe is the future we have in store. To avoid this, it is absolutely essential that Russia does not succeed in Ukraine.

E2A: in fact I'd say that those on the left who defend Russia are trapped in an outdated Cold War era "us vs them" paradigm. Those on the left who recognise Putin as a serious threat and a mortal enemy of their ideals are those who are not thinking in those terms and treat Putin's fascism or whatever you want to call it the same way they would a revanchist far-right government in the UK invading Ireland and sponsoring far-right movements around the continent.
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there's a lot in that post, a great deal of which i disagree with, but you deserve a thoughtful and considered response rather than something cobbled together. so i'm going to leave this as a placemarker and i'll reply to you tomorrow or tuesday depending on what fuckwittery my manager gets up to in the morning.
 
The39thStep said:
There have recently been more videos of Ukrainian civilians trying to stop forced recruitment into the AFU

View attachment 417209

www.politico.eu

Draft-dodging plagues Ukraine as Kyiv faces acute soldier shortage

An early burst of patriotic fervor saw draft centers swamped with volunteers, but that has waned with Vladimir Putin’s war in its third year.
www.politico.eu www.politico.eu
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average age of a frontline soldier's 43 - astonishing. don't know if there's ever been a war previously fought where half of one army's composed of men in their mid-40s up
 
TopCat said:
Zelensky says in that they need 450,000 more troops this year. Can’t see that happening.
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I've read reports that Russia need to mobilise a further 300,000 to achieve further land gains. Both sides seem to acknowledge that all out forced conscription is potentially unpopular or at least sensitive so both have plans to try and find these extra bodies by stealth, using reserves, coercion, cajoling, and salary increases. One of the points of disagreement between Zelensky and Zaluzhnyi was conscription.
 
The39thStep said:
I've read reports that Russia need to mobilise a further 300,000 to achieve further land gains. Both sides seem to acknowledge that all out forced conscription is potentially unpopular or at least sensitive so both have plans to try and find these extra bodies by stealth, using reserves, coercion, cajoling, and salary increases. One of the points of disagreement between Zelensky and Zaluzhnyi was conscription.
Click to expand...
Now Putin has won his election mobilisation is happing...more new troops than whole of Europe combined
 
TopCat said:
Zelensky says in that they need 450,000 more troops this year. Can’t see that happening.
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No chance, call it a day and cut your losses. Donbass and Crimea aren't coming back but at least you get to keep Odessa and access to the sea. Continue and you lose that too.
 
ID47 said:
Putin would like Odessa and the whole coast but I seriously doubt he wants western Ukraine the ex Polish part. Kharkov perhaps, Kiev unlikely, Lviv no way.
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Of course he does, he made it clear at the start that he didn't consider Ukraine a real country, just part of Russia, that's why they invaded from Belarus in an attempt to take Kiev, topple the government, and replace it with a Putin backed puppet, like Aleksandr Lukashenko.
 
ID47 said:
Putin would like Odessa and the whole coast but I seriously doubt he wants western Ukraine the ex Polish part. Kharkov perhaps, Kiev unlikely, Lviv no way.
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Based on what?


To be clear, I think there is an argument for 'freezing' the conflict - not one I subscribe to, because I think the terms that Russia would impose would be 'get Ukraine, and keep their army intact' - but I accept that it's there, but I don't see any evidence or likelihood that Russian domination (military, political, economic) would stop at the areas you've suggested, and lots of evidence to the contrary.
 
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