Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[TopCat]

danilov has been sacked from his position of head of the national security and defence council. could it be because of his comments on the moscow terrorist attack?

What did he say?

 

[Pickman's model]

The problem Russia has is that, culturally and organisationally, they're essentially a "top down" operation. Innovation in the ranks isn't really something the system deals with. It reminds me a lot of when I moved from working in IT in the private sector to doing a very different job in the public sector - all of a sudden, individual motivation to make things better suddenly became a Bad Thing.

There's no doubt that the Russian military has adapted, and learned some lessons from the more agile Ukrainian approach to battle, but even now it's clearly reactive rather than proactive. Ultimately, there's a pretty good chance that sheer mass will prevail, but I don't think that even Putin's most ardent fans can argue that his system is inherently better, with its brute force approach to war that takes no account of individual lives and suffering, than the more Western approach being taken in Ukraine.

And, arguably, a lot of why Russia is where it is today is rooted in the generational trauma and pain that its previous wars have inflicted on its own population, from Stalin's Great Patriotic War through Afghanistan, to Russia's various military adventures in its own provinces. Europe, largely, was able to move on from WWII - Russia still seems to be repetitively and endlessly fighting the same battles it was fighting 80+ years ago.

Tbh this comes across as something written by someone who hasn't really been paying attention the last 20 years. To summarise, we are where we are now militarily because the coup that putin planned in 22 went awry. Its really weird to see chat of russia's brute force approach to warfare when they've shown themselves able to grab a fair chunk of Ukraine swiftly using novel tactics in 2014. I don't doubt that this isn't the war Russia expected, that it really was intended to be a special military operation. And they're hardly the first to aim at a war of movement but get a war of attrition, as recall of the schlieffen plan will show.

BTW you make it sound like the gpw was a war of choice - Stalin's Great Patriotic War. I'm not so sure that's the case, it's generally been presented as Hitler's war. How do you make out Stalin had much of a choice in the matter? I'd have thought that the great social upheaval of the peacetime great terror caused a great deal of generational trauma and pain. I'm struggling to think of a big war Russia was actively involved in between 1945 and 1979 in any comparable way - sure, sending advisors and weapons here and there but nothing like the american involvement in korea or Vietnam. I dont think things like the 1956 invasion of hungary or 1968 one of czechoslovakia would have caused Russian generational trauma, tho I'm certain they caused such in the invaded countries. Which wars did you have in mind when you said '[russia's] previous wars ... from stalin's Great Patriotic War through afghanistan'?

 

[discokermit]

What did he say?

‘Is it fun in Moscow today? I think it's a lot of fun. I would like to believe that we will arrange such fun for them more often.'

 

[The39thStep]

The problem Russia has is that, culturally and organisationally, they're essentially a "top down" operation. Innovation in the ranks isn't really something the system deals with. It reminds me a lot of when I moved from working in IT in the private sector to doing a very different job in the public sector - all of a sudden, individual motivation to make things better suddenly became a Bad Thing.

There's no doubt that the Russian military has adapted, and learned some lessons from the more agile Ukrainian approach to battle, but even now it's clearly reactive rather than proactive. Ultimately, there's a pretty good chance that sheer mass will prevail, but I don't think that even Putin's most ardent fans can argue that his system is inherently better, with its brute force approach to war that takes no account of individual lives and suffering, than the more Western approach being taken in Ukraine.

And, arguably, a lot of why Russia is where it is today is rooted in the generational trauma and pain that its previous wars have inflicted on its own population, from Stalin's Great Patriotic War through Afghanistan, to Russia's various military adventures in its own provinces. Europe, largely, was able to move on from WWII - Russia still seems to be repetitively and endlessly fighting the same battles it was fighting 80+ years ago.

I am not sure that generalisations about individual motivation in the private and public sector actually help in drawing any conclusions about either Russia or Ukraine's problems or how they are overcome tbh. In terms of widerscale issues about private and public ownership we had a post regarding the efficiency of Ukraine's railways which are of course state owned and in Russia it is their private sector that has more than adequately filled the gap left by the western multi international brands that disinvested.

I'd agree with the notion that the issue of WW2 and memory had/ has a particular meaning in both the Soviet Union and Russia however I'd also argue that whilst this has genuine resonance it has often been manipulated. However, the basic facts are that Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union , which led to around 20 million of its citizens either being killed or dying from starvation and disease and around 9 million of its armed services being killed. It is estimated that 3 million Russian POWs were killed by the Nazis , the second largest grouping killed by the Nazi's that were in captivity. Given the fact that it was the Nazis that inflicted this on the Soviet Union, there may be better ways to describe this than 'the generational trauma and pain that its ( Russia's) previous wars have inflicted on its own population'.'

The other issue which I'd want to explore further is your comment that 'Europe, largely, was able to move on from WWII'. Culturally to most people in the UK, not only post war but 80 years on, the idea that it moved on from WW2 might be met with some incredibility. The post war period saw not only conscription but a burgeoning industry of films, books, plays about the war and to most children's delight comics, toys , outfits, plastic kits, and miniature soldiers all dedicated to the issue. Add that to museums, the annual commemoration of the war dead, regular calls to evoke the spirit of the war, the poppy wars of the 2000s etc have all played a key role in defining post war UK culture. You only have to look on here in which any discussion of war normally brings out a WW2 analogy however misfitting. It's our point of reference.

On the other hand whilst of the rest of Europe was by and large trying to reconstruct its economies after the occupation by the Nazis , running some state denazification programmes and trials ( although anti fascist citizens enacted their own justice in many countries especially France) and dealing with the huge amount of displaced people, the UK and indeed the USA in some ways showed a remarkable ability able to move on very quickly. from WW2 to the Cold War . Welcoming with open arms thousand of soldiers who had fought with a section of the Waffen SS ( Canada and Australia also took them ) without any scrutiny, recruiting those that had fought with the Nazis to be parachuted into the Soviet Union to assist the 'resistance' who had also fought with the Nazis. Later the financing of Europe's Operation Gladio and the blocking of any request from the Soviet Union for extradition for those identified as having committed war crimes could all be examples of at least some part of moving on from WW2.

 

[Yossarian]

But some Russian lawmakers quickly pointed a finger at Ukraine, and Russia’s NTV television channel soon aired a deepfake video that fueled those suspicions. The fake video appeared to show Ukraine’s top security official, Oleksiy Danilov, speaking about the attack. “Is it fun in Moscow today?” he seemed to say, though he never actually did. “I think it’s a lot of fun. I would like to believe that we will arrange such fun for them more often.” The video mashed together AI-generated audio from recent interviews with two Ukrainian officials, including Danilov, according to BBC Verify reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh

A deepfake is already spreading confusion and disinformation about the Moscow terror attack

The Islamic State claimed responsibility. That won't stop the claims and counterclaims.

www.motherjones.com

 

[discokermit]

But some Russian lawmakers quickly pointed a finger at Ukraine, and Russia’s NTV television channel soon aired a deepfake video that fueled those suspicions. The fake video appeared to show Ukraine’s top security official, Oleksiy Danilov, speaking about the attack. “Is it fun in Moscow today?” he seemed to say, though he never actually did. “I think it’s a lot of fun. I would like to believe that we will arrange such fun for them more often.” The video mashed together AI-generated audio from recent interviews with two Ukrainian officials, including Danilov, according to BBC Verify reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh

A deepfake is already spreading confusion and disinformation about the Moscow terror attack

The Islamic State claimed responsibility. That won't stop the claims and counterclaims.

www.motherjones.com

fair do's, they didnt sack him for that then.

 

[Rob Ray]

The war clearly isn't a stalemate, there are many factors at play, and things still seem to be changing.

It's very possible the war will cease to be a stalemate (well, inevitable really), but for the last year it's not been far off that. The two maps below are from March 26 last year, and today. Continuing at this rate Russia would be in Kyiv sometime towards the end of the century. Or possibly next.

 

[The39thStep]

But some Russian lawmakers quickly pointed a finger at Ukraine, and Russia’s NTV television channel soon aired a deepfake video that fueled those suspicions. The fake video appeared to show Ukraine’s top security official, Oleksiy Danilov, speaking about the attack. “Is it fun in Moscow today?” he seemed to say, though he never actually did. “I think it’s a lot of fun. I would like to believe that we will arrange such fun for them more often.” The video mashed together AI-generated audio from recent interviews with two Ukrainian officials, including Danilov, according to BBC Verify reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh

A deepfake is already spreading confusion and disinformation about the Moscow terror attack

The Islamic State claimed responsibility. That won't stop the claims and counterclaims.

www.motherjones.com

Politico says "Danilov’s firing came after he expressively criticized Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui, as well as a Chinese peace initiative, on air during a Ukrainian national telethon"

That article you posted also mentions

"Ukraine’s foreign ministry seemed to imply that the Kremlin orchestrated the attack to “fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russia society, create conditions for increased mobilization of Russian citizens to participate in the criminal aggression against our country, and discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community.”

“There are no red lines for Putin’s dictatorship,” the ministry added. “It is ready to kill its own citizens for political purposes.”

 

[discokermit]

It's very possible the war will cease to be a stalemate, but for the last year it's not been far off that. The two maps below are from a year ago today, and today. At this rate Russia would be in Kyiv sometime towards the end of the century.

View attachment 417575
View attachment 417576

i dunno, i'm not a soldier, but judging this on land taken at the moment doesnt seem to me very useful. the russians seem happy to surround a place on three sides and then just bash the shit out of anyone inside the pocket, allowing reinforcements to come in so they can bash the shit out of those as well. they don't seem to be in a hurry to storm anywhere until the ukrainians stop sending troops and pull out. eventually, ukraine wont have enough troops to hold the line, i expect then the lines will change quickly and significantly.

 

[Rob Ray]

The Ukrainian argument is that the Russians have been wasting huge amounts of ordnance and manpower attacking heavily fortified pockets of land with little or no tactical value. Depends on whose propaganda you'd prefer to believe really. Personally I think anyone pontificating on what's likely to happen from the outside might as well be rolling dice for all they actually know, we're all reading the same half-arsed analyses based on varying selections of partial information.

That's not really anything to do with what I was saying though, which was simply a correction to the idea that it isn't currently a stalemate, when certainly in terms of captured land it clearly is, or very close to.

Hypothetical collapses of large armies haven't happened yet, and frankly I do get tired of people making confident noises about this or that. On this thread we've heard that Ukraine will fold within days (early 2022), Russia will be pushed out of the Crimea within weeks (late 2022), That Russian mobilisation would overwhelm Ukraine's defences (2023), that Putin was going to be overthrown by internal rebellion (2023), that the Ukraine counteroffensive would break Russian morale and that it'd wipe out Ukraine's ability to fight (2023) etc etc.

It's quite boring. You don't know, and pretending you do is silly.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's very possible the war will cease to be a stalemate (well, inevitable really), but for the last year it's not been far off that. The two maps below are from March 26 last year, and today. Continuing at this rate Russia would be in Kyiv sometime towards the end of the century. Or possibly next.

View attachment 417575
View attachment 417576

You're taking one aspect for the whole. There are other aspects, notably ukraine's sinking of many Russian ships removing Russian control of the black sea. Or the great increase in Russian war production. While the position on land is obvs important, it is not the only measurement of the way the war is going - events far away from the battlefield are at least as important as the reliance of Ukraine on its allies for money and munitions shows.

 

[andysays]

I didn't think Russia was planning to attack more Eastern European countries but Putin denying it plants a seed of doubt

"We have no aggressive intentions towards these states," Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript released on Thursday.
"The idea that we will attack some other country - Poland, the Baltic States, and the Czechs are also being scared - is complete nonsense. It's just drivel."

There is of course a big difference between invading Ukraine and attacking Poland, the Baltic states and/or Czechia, which is that those latter countries are all members of NATO.

 

[Rob Ray]

You're taking one aspect for the whole. There are other aspects, notably ukraine's sinking of many Russian ships removing Russian control of the black sea. Or the great increase in Russian war production. While the position on land is obvs important, it is not the only measurement of the way the war is going - events far away from the battlefield are at least as important as the reliance of Ukraine on its allies for money and munitions shows.

These are contributing factors to the actual win condition though, not the win condition itself. If Russia or Ukraine can't hold the land they claim they should or make decisive progress towards gaining it that is very specifically a stalemate. Once contributing factors such as sunken ships impact the situation enough for the win condition to be achieved or moved towards, that's when the stalemate has been ended. For the last year neither side has been able to do that, regardless of big headlines about downed planes or flattened villages.

 

[discokermit]

i've got to admit, as a chess player, the term "stalemate", as applied here, really rankles.
it's like if i played karpov. the game might be long and fairly closed, not much exciting happening as the boa constrictor slowly crushed the life out of me, but i would have been doomed from the beginning and at no point could it ever be described as a stalemate.

 

[Rob Ray]

It rankles me when people talk about war like it's chess. You want to talk about how a national economy is quite like a household budget too?

 

[discokermit]

It rankles me when people talk about war like it's chess. You want to talk about how a national economy is quite like a household budget too?

then dont use chess terms.

like saying "the nations credit card" then moaning about comparisons to household budgets.

 

[Rob Ray]

then dont use chess terms.

Lol sorry buddy changing a word's common useage across the English language is a bit above my pay grade.

 

[andysays]

It rankles me when people talk about war like it's chess. You want to talk about how a national economy is quite like a household budget too?

You yourself have just referred to the situation as a stalemate, which is explicitly talking about it like it's a game of chess.

If anything, discokermit's comment appears to me to be sending up this way of talking about it.

 

[discokermit]

Lol sorry buddy changing a word's common useage across the English language is a bit above my pay grade.

political correctness gone mad.

 

[Rob Ray]

You yourself have just referred to the situation as a stalemate, which is explicitly talking about it like it's a game of chess.

If anything, discokermit's comment appears to me to be sending up this way of talking about it.

"Stalemate" hasn't been simply a chess term for longer than any of us has been alive, everyone knows how it works in the sense it's meant here, which is just another way of saying an impasse. Saying the word no more implies it's about chess than saying somethings deadlocked is about actual locks.

 

[discokermit]

"Stalemate" hasn't been simply a chess term for longer than any of us has been alive, everyone knows how it works in the sense it's meant here, which is just another way of saying an impasse. Saying the word no more implies it's about chess than saying somethings deadlocked is about actual locks.

deadlocked can be unlocked. a stalemate is final.

 

[Rob Ray]

In chess, yes. But again, we're not talking about chess - which is why, for example, you can use the term "temporary stalemate" in context and still have it make sense.

 

[discokermit]

In chess, yes. But again, we're not talking about chess.

but thats what it means in general. otherwise there is no point to it. do you know how metaphors work? it is a specific reference to the chess game position.

 

[discokermit]

anyway, we might be getting a bit off topic.

 

[ska invita]

Standstill then.
Russia has said what area it considers annexed , some of which is not yet fully occupied. I expect that is the limit of the territorial movements we will see in the short term + maybe a little more around north east border to form a 'buffer zone' there.

*this is based on logic and reading the situation rather than any military intelligence which i obviously dont have access to

 

[Rob Ray]

Well, best of luck living your life without using loanwords from other contexts in your daily conversations I guess.

 

[discokermit]

Well, best of luck living your life without using loanwords from other contexts in your daily conversations I guess.

have fun with your misuse of metaphors.

 

[discokermit]

Standstill then.
Russia has said what area it considers annexed , some of which is not yet fully occupied. I expect that is the limit of the territorial movements we will see in the short term + maybe a little more around north east border to form a 'buffer zone' there.

*this is based on logic and reading the situation rather than any military intelligence which i obviously dont have access to

they are dropping glide bombs on kharkiv now, so that might be next.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Tbh this comes across as something written by someone who hasn't really been paying attention the last 20 years. To summarise, we are where we are now militarily because the coup that putin planned in 22 went awry. Its really weird to see chat of russia's brute force approach to warfare when they've shown themselves able to grab a fair chunk of Ukraine swiftly using novel tactics in 2014. I don't doubt that this isn't the war Russia expected, that it really was intended to be a special military operation. And they're hardly the first to aim at a war of movement but get a war of attrition, as recall of the schlieffen plan will show.

BTW you make it sound like the gpw was a war of choice - Stalin's Great Patriotic War. I'm not so sure that's the case, it's generally been presented as Hitler's war. How do you make out Stalin had much of a choice in the matter? I'd have thought that the great social upheaval of the peacetime great terror caused a great deal of generational trauma and pain. I'm struggling to think of a big war Russia was actively involved in between 1945 and 1979 in any comparable way - sure, sending advisors and weapons here and there but nothing like the american involvement in korea or Vietnam. I dont think things like the 1956 invasion of hungary or 1968 one of czechoslovakia would have caused Russian generational trauma, tho I'm certain they caused such in the invaded countries. Which wars did you have in mind when you said '[russia's] previous wars ... from stalin's Great Patriotic War through afghanistan'?

Stalin did not have much of a choice about being invaded by Germany, but he did have a choice about trusting Hitler not to attack Russia, about himself attacking his neighbours and alienating them, making them into his enemies. He had a choice about the purges, which did no good whatsoever for the internal cohesion and morale of the country or the army.
Russian trauma also continued much longer after the war than in the west. Another decade of fighting in Ukraine and the Baltic states. The deportation of minorities into Central Asia and Siberia, and conflict when some were allowed to return. Mass population movements, between Poland and Russia. Plus the huge effort at reconstruction.

 

[Pickman's model]

Stalin did not have much of a choice about being invaded by Germany, but he did have a choice about trusting Hitler not to attack Russia, about himself attacking his neighbours and alienating them, making them into his enemies. He had a choice about the purges, which did no good whatsoever for the internal cohesion and morale of the country or the army.
Russian trauma also continued much longer after the war than in the west. Another decade of fighting in Ukraine and the Baltic states. The deportation of minorities into Central Asia and Siberia, and conflict when some were allowed to return. Mass population movements, between Poland and Russia. Plus the huge effort at reconstruction.

yeh but the trusting hitler and so on are rather different points and don't really speak to the issue at hand. sure, if you read e.g. robert conquest's works on the great terror it seems like a vast self-inflicted wound. not being a stalinist i'm not going to argue thje necessity or desirability of the purges, a huge amount of bloodshed. you make it sound like the ukrainian guerrillas were acting on their own, plucky fighters against the soviets. only they had support from eg the united states and probably saved the career of nazi spymaster reinhard gehlen (see for example Nationalism and fascism in Ukraine: A historical overview). i don't know much about the fighting in the baltic states, but i don't suppose that they caused so much russian trauma in comparison to the latvian, lithuanian and estonian trauma that ensued.