Russia-Ukraine War 2022 - Page 906 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By Skynet
#15328556
It is sad, the two strongest Slavic nations are killing each other...


Russia banned YouTube, a big mistake. YouTube is a great source of information but also for stupid conspiracy theories depends what you search.
#15328560
Skynet wrote:It is sad, the two strongest Slavic nations are killing each other...


Russia banned YouTube, a big mistake. YouTube is a great source of information but also for stupid conspiracy theories depends what you search.


This is a “holy war” to reunite Ukraine and mother Russia — I am told.
By Rich
#15328571
The Russian advances have definitively accelerated since the start of the Kursk offensive. It is now clear that the Kursk offensive has been a military disaster for Ukraine, pulling away resources from the eastern front, that Ukraine could not afford to divert. Compared to the advances we saw in WW2 on the eastern front or in France in the summer of 44, the Russian advances remain painfully slow. The Russians have not made a proper operational breakthrough since the opening weeks of the SMO.

However, lets be under no illusions, Ukraine's negotiating position has deteriorated significantly since November 2022, when I advised that they seek to negotiate from a position of relative strength. Biden, Harris and Zelensky's leadership in this conflict has been terribly weakening for the west, its been a catastrophic disaster for Ukraine
#15328573
Again, this is a war of attrition. It cannot be understood by looking at maps.

Kursk for example optically looks bad. In reality Kursk a gift that keeps on giving for the russians, because the leadership of Ukraine cares more about holding the line in Kursk than they do the actual frontline. Thus despite high losses they keep reinforcing Kursk.

Really Zelensky himself is a gift that keeps on giving for Russia. Because Zelensky only cares about optics. Which do not actually matter. Thats why again and again the ukrainians try to keep to hold a position thats lost, maximizing their own losses.

But this is a war of attrition. Land conquest doesnt matter to Russia. Loss of land also doesnt matter. Their goals are:

1. They want to keep their own losses minimal
2. They want to keep loss of civilian life minimal
3. And they want to grind down the enemy.

Land conquest doesnt help with #3 and is contradictional to #2 and #1.

Russia will grind the ukrainian military down until there is no military anymore.

Again, this is a war of attrition. Like for example WW1. That means frontlines hardly move, until there is suddenly the collapse.

That frontlines move as much as they currently do means the ukrainians really dont have much left.

Any point in time would have been better than any earlier point in time for negotiations with Russia. But yes, November 2022 would still have allowed to get relatively positive peace conditions. However theres even a law against negotiations in Ukraine and even now they dont want to negotiate, except with absurd maximalist demands.

Ideally Ukraine should have simply implemented Minsk II and avoided this conflict altogether.
User avatar
By litwin
#15328591
Skynet wrote:It is sad, the two strongest Slavic nations are killing each other...


Russia banned YouTube, a big mistake. YouTube is a great source of information but also for stupid conspiracy theories depends what you search.


wrong, Muscovites are not Slavs
Turco / Finnish tribes + OLD Bulgarian LANGUAGE = Muscovite imperialists

By Rich
#15328604
Not much of worth in terms of analysis here, but I thought it important to post this as this analyst who lives part time in Ukraine, confesses more than once, that she would not be surprised if she heard that part of the Ukrainian front had collapsed. The reason this is important is because if Trump wins on Tuesday the Liberals may try and falsely blame that collapse on Trump. Even if that collapse were to happen before he takes office.



Compared to Biden and Harris, Trump is a brilliant leader, but he's not a miracle worker, the deal he will be able to get for Ukraine in 2025, will be no where near as good as the deal he could have got Ukraine if he had been president in 2022. And even to get a deal in 2925, will require cooperation from Zelensky, who sadly is appearing more and more like a sociapathic narcissist, determined to lead his people into the abyss and the world into some kind of Gotterdammerung. Rather than give up his demented hopes of all out victory and the destruction of Russia and admit to his disastrously incompetent leadership Zelensky would prefer to take the world down with him, a world in flames.
By Rugoz
#15328610
Rich wrote:Not much of worth in terms of analysis here, but I thought it important to post this as this analyst who lives part time in Ukraine, confesses more than once, that she would not be surprised if she heard that part of the Ukrainian front had collapsed. The reason this is important is because if Trump wins on Tuesday the Liberals may try and falsely blame that collapse on Trump. Even if that collapse were to happen before he takes office.


The Ukrainian front will not collapse, but blaming it on Trump wouldn't be off the mark. Trump blocked Ukraine aid for half a year for no other discernable reason than to keep Ukraine on the backfoot for the time before the election. After all, the aid package was not modified in a meaningful way, hence the goal must have been to block it long enough.

Rich wrote:Compared to Biden and Harris, Trump is a brilliant leader, but he's not a miracle worker, the deal he will be able to get for Ukraine in 2025, will be no where near as good as the deal he could have got Ukraine if he had been president in 2022. And even to get a deal in 2925, will require cooperation from Zelensky, who sadly is appearing more and more like a sociapathic narcissist, determined to lead his people into the abyss and the world into some kind of Gotterdammerung. Rather than give up his demented hopes of all out victory and the destruction of Russia and admit to his disastrously incompetent leadership Zelensky would prefer to take the world down with him, a world in flames.


Flaming bullshit.

Russia has consistently demanded that Ukraine cedes unoccupied territory as a prerequisite for negotiations. Unlike you, Zelensky is not a total moron. :lol:

Even Trump said Putin's conditions for peace talks are "not acceptable". If Trump is elected and negotiates a lasting peace (i.e. with security guarantees for Ukraine), it will be because he threatened Putin with serious consequences, such as a massive increase of military aid or the involvement of US air power. I can totally see Trump doing that, because he's not a pussy like Biden.
User avatar
By litwin
#15328623
Rich wrote:Not much of worth in terms of analysis here, but I thought it important to post this as this analyst who lives part time in Ukraine, confesses more than once, that she would not be surprised if she heard that part of the Ukrainian front had collapsed. The reason this is important is because if Trump wins on Tuesday the Liberals may try and falsely blame that collapse on Trump. Even if that collapse were to happen before he takes office.



Compared to Biden and Harris, Trump is a brilliant leader, but he's not a miracle worker, the deal he will be able to get for Ukraine in 2025, will be no where near as good as the deal he could have got Ukraine if he had been president in 2022. And even to get a deal in 2925, will require cooperation from Zelensky, who sadly is appearing more and more like a sociapathic narcissist, determined to lead his people into the abyss and the world into some kind of Gotterdammerung. Rather than give up his demented hopes of all out victory and the destruction of Russia and admit to his disastrously incompetent leadership Zelensky would prefer to take the world down with him, a world in flames.


Alexander Borodai, State Duma deputy from Putin’s party “United Moscow empire ” described contract soldiers currently serving in the Moscow " Army" in a private phone conversation that was made public:

“ It’s just a living force that could be wasted.”
“They get bought like meat.”
“To people in suits, these people have to real value to society.”


https://x.com/i/status/1852447590224154643

watch this :
https://x.com/i/status/1852300290260603149

https://x.com/i/status/1852681539294814288
#15328642
Rugoz wrote:Russia has consistently demanded that Ukraine cedes unoccupied territory as a prerequisite for negotiations. Unlike you, Zelensky is not a total moron. :lol:

Even Trump said Putin's conditions for peace talks are "not acceptable". If Trump is elected and negotiates a lasting peace (i.e. with security guarantees for Ukraine), it will be because he threatened Putin with serious consequences, such as a massive increase of military aid or the involvement of US air power. I can totally see Trump doing that, because he's not a pussy like Biden.

You're the moron in this argument. I have consistently said that to get a cease fire may require a lot of carrot and a lot of stick. The trouble is that we've fritterd away our sticks piecemeal and half halfheartedly for unachievable peace objectives. The result is that its no where near enough to bring Putin grovelling to the peace table, but its more than enough to push Putin to double and triple down on a war economy and to push Russians to unite behind the war effort.

Now you may have been moronic enough (or bold enough, or Churchillian enough, if you prefer) to support these total victory aims, but most American and European leaders did not. Nor did many other leaders outside of the western or Russian-China block. I thought right from the beginning that these victory goals were insane. But I'm a nobody, what really matters is that a lot of western leaders share my view, but are just not going to come out and say it. I doubt that even Boris Johnson who led the West's response at the start of the SMO really believed Ukraine was going to get all its territory back.
By Rugoz
#15328666
Rich wrote:You're the moron in this argument. I have consistently said that to get a cease fire may require a lot of carrot and a lot of stick. The trouble is that we've fritterd away our sticks piecemeal and half halfheartedly for unachievable peace objectives. The result is that its no where near enough to bring Putin grovelling to the peace table, but its more than enough to push Putin to double and triple down on a war economy and to push Russians to unite behind the war effort.


We didn't fritter away our sticks but Ukrainian manpower. NATO countries can keep this up forever but Ukraine and Russia cannot. As for the "unachievable peace objectives". Russia has not made a single peace or even negotiation offer that wasn't patently absurd, at least not from what is publicly known.

Rich wrote:Now you may have been moronic enough (or bold enough, or Churchillian enough, if you prefer) to support these total victory aims, but most American and European leaders did not. Nor did many other leaders outside of the western or Russian-China block. I thought right from the beginning that these victory goals were insane. But I'm a nobody, what really matters is that a lot of western leaders share my view, but are just not going to come out and say it. I doubt that even Boris Johnson who led the West's response at the start of the SMO really believed Ukraine was going to get all its territory back.


You are contradicting yourself. The perspective of a decisive Ukrainian victory is the only "stick" that would bring Putin to the peace table. Western leaders thought Russia would eventually see the cost of war as to high, but here we are, 115k dead and 500k injured Russians later. What Western leaders did was to constantly dangle the carrot of victory in front of Putin's nose.
User avatar
By litwin
#15328687
Rugoz wrote:We didn't fritter away our sticks but Ukrainian manpower. NATO countries can keep this up forever but Ukraine and Russia cannot. As for the "unachievable peace objectives". Russia has not made a single peace or even negotiation offer that wasn't patently absurd, at least not from what is publicly known.



You are contradicting yourself. The perspective of a decisive Ukrainian victory is the only "stick" that would bring Putin to the peace table. Western leaders thought Russia would eventually see the cost of war as to high, but here we are, 115k dead and 500k injured Russians later. What Western leaders did was to constantly dangle the carrot of victory in front of Putin's nose.

I actually love to know about the crash of the Ruble. I am literally watching the collapse of the SSSR the second time. :lol:
#15328692
Rugoz wrote: The perspective of a decisive Ukrainian victory is the only "stick" that would bring Putin to the peace table.


As Obama told us 2016 already in various articles and interviews (he said it multiple times), Russia has in Ukraine what he called "escalatory dominance". That means they are next door to Ukraine, have a lot of frontier with the country itself, and thus, no matter how much the west tries to escalate in Ukraine, Russia can escalate even more than the west. Last not least because Russia is a nuclear superpower.

Furthermore he pointed out Ukraine is part of the national security interest of Russia, again because they are next door and because Russia has a long history with Ukraine, including that Kiev was once the capital of the Rus, the predecessor of Russia. Again, Russia is a nuclear superpower. Threatening a nuclear superpower too much and do I have to explain what the end result will be ?

So Russia has the better cards in Ukraine and Russia has every motivation to maximize their investment in Ukraine because they view this as an existential thread. Including the nuclear option in the end.

Therefore even if conditions would have been much worse for Russia in Ukraine than they actually turned out to be, Russia would STILL win.

MAYBE the west would have had a small chance in Ukraine IF:

- They would have changed into a war economy, with something like 50% of GDP of the west going into arms production.

- Thus sufficiently supplied with military goods, they would have sent NATO soldiers into Ukraine to help with the fighting big time, and would have subjected all ukrainian troups rigourous training.

- They would have done what Russia did, and fought to win the war, not fought to get nice headlines for western propaganda. Namely they should have assumed a *defensive* stance, not an *offensive* one. Because the defender in a fortified position is always in the advantage.

But what would have been the consequence of that ? The best case scenario would be that Russia would have asked their friends, namely China and India, for help. They never did that, because they've never even remotely been in the situation that they needed any help.

And thats the best case because again, nuclear superpower.

Instead of course the west made a lot of empty promises to Ukraine, used the local nazis to force Zelensky onto the course they wanted, and drowned Ukriane in crippling debt by "selling" them military goods, and those goods have just been whatever the west no longer needed, including outright museum pieces like the Leopard I tanks, and even later whatever the west could afford in peace time without completely draining their reserves.

The only other instrument of the west have been sanctions.

Sanctions against Russia. Literally the largest country of the world. Literally a country that has the most crude materials on the planet, and the industrial base to exploit such crudes.

So even if Russia actually WAS isolated, as it is constantly depicted in western propaganda, this trickery, too, was still far from sure to succeed.

The whole idea that you can Russia to negotiate by actually threatening them is a pipe dream. Russia is a nuclear superpower. According to the world bank, Russia is now #4 of the world in regards to GDP (PPP). Its closest allies are China and India, who are #1 and #3 of the world in regards to GDP (PPP). And neither China nor Russia have much chances to actually get a full fair rating by the world bank, which after all is highly west aligned.

On top of that of course, Russia keeps making peace offers all the time. They are just ignored by the west, and Ukraine. Because the west wants to destroy Russia and those peace offers will completely disarm Ukraine as an instrument for doing so. And because Ukraine is in the grip of ukrainian nazis who serve as useful idiots of the west and will only accept total victory, or else.
By Rich
#15328716
Rugoz wrote:We didn't fritter away our sticks but Ukrainian manpower. NATO countries can keep this up forever but Ukraine and Russia cannot. As for the "unachievable peace objectives". Russia has not made a single peace or even negotiation offer that wasn't patently absurd, at least not from what is publicly known.

You are contradicting yourself. The perspective of a decisive Ukrainian victory is the only "stick" that would bring Putin to the peace table. Western leaders thought Russia would eventually see the cost of war as to high, but here we are, 115k dead and 500k injured Russians later. What Western leaders did was to constantly dangle the carrot of victory in front of Putin's nose.

The ceasefire line will be the peace line, with the exception of mutually agreed land swaps. We should seek the earliest peace treaty possible. The carrot to get Russia to make peace is recognition of all the territory they currently control and removal of most of the sanctions. The stick should have been all the things we gave Ukraine, but where possible more and faster. If we're supporting a peace now, rather than your fantastic peace somewhere over the rainbow, then I have no problem with arming the Ukrainians with tactical and intermediate range nuclear weapons.

As it currently stands I don't want see a single bullet, gun or dollar given to Ukraine until they agree to support peace now. There is absolutely zero contradiction in what I'm saying.
User avatar
By litwin
#15328742
Negotiator wrote:As Obama told us 2016 already in various articles and interviews (he said it multiple times), Russia has in Ukraine what he called "escalatory dominance". That means they are next door to Ukraine, have a lot of frontier with the country itself, and thus, no matter how much the west tries to escalate in Ukraine, Russia can escalate even more than the west. Last not least because Russia is a nuclear superpower.

Furthermore he pointed out Ukraine is part of the national security interest of Russia, again because they are next door and because Russia has a long history with Ukraine, including that Kiev was once the capital of the Rus, the predecessor of Russia. Again, Russia is a nuclear superpower. Threatening a nuclear superpower too much and do I have to explain what the end result will be ?

So Russia has the better cards in Ukraine and Russia has every motivation to maximize their investment in Ukraine because they view this as an existential thread. Including the nuclear option in the end.

Therefore even if conditions would have been much worse for Russia in Ukraine than they actually turned out to be, Russia would STILL win.

MAYBE the west would have had a small chance in Ukraine IF:

- They would have changed into a war economy, with something like 50% of GDP of the west going into arms production.

- Thus sufficiently supplied with military goods, they would have sent NATO soldiers into Ukraine to help with the fighting big time, and would have subjected all ukrainian troups rigourous training.

- They would have done what Russia did, and fought to win the war, not fought to get nice headlines for western propaganda. Namely they should have assumed a *defensive* stance, not an *offensive* one. Because the defender in a fortified position is always in the advantage.

But what would have been the consequence of that ? The best case scenario would be that Russia would have asked their friends, namely China and India, for help. They never did that, because they've never even remotely been in the situation that they needed any help.

And thats the best case because again, nuclear superpower.

Instead of course the west made a lot of empty promises to Ukraine, used the local nazis to force Zelensky onto the course they wanted, and drowned Ukriane in crippling debt by "selling" them military goods, and those goods have just been whatever the west no longer needed, including outright museum pieces like the Leopard I tanks, and even later whatever the west could afford in peace time without completely draining their reserves.

The only other instrument of the west have been sanctions.

Sanctions against Russia. Literally the largest country of the world. Literally a country that has the most crude materials on the planet, and the industrial base to exploit such crudes.

So even if Russia actually WAS isolated, as it is constantly depicted in western propaganda, this trickery, too, was still far from sure to succeed.

The whole idea that you can Russia to negotiate by actually threatening them is a pipe dream. Russia is a nuclear superpower. According to the world bank, Russia is now #4 of the world in regards to GDP (PPP). Its closest allies are China and India, who are #1 and #3 of the world in regards to GDP (PPP). And neither China nor Russia have much chances to actually get a full fair rating by the world bank, which after all is highly west aligned.

On top of that of course, Russia keeps making peace offers all the time. They are just ignored by the west, and Ukraine. Because the west wants to destroy Russia and those peace offers will completely disarm Ukraine as an instrument for doing so. And because Ukraine is in the grip of ukrainian nazis who serve as useful idiots of the west and will only accept total victory, or else.

fascist enforcers raided an Ozon warehouse to collect more cannon fodder for the invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow region on Yaroslavsky highway.
https://x.com/i/status/1853133274526433698

Moscow empire has started importing butter from... the United Arab Emirates. what is behind of Moscow´s dairy industry collapse ? 8) :lol:


By Rich
#15328765
So I believe in October Russia captured its largest net area of land since March 2022. The area taken was also high in settlement population numbers as measured by their 2021 figures. However I do not think that one month's figures should be used as a guide to the likely future course of the war. Its too short. Too vulnerable to short term incidents or what we should call statistical noise. i think we should focus on the first 4 of the following 5 periods:

The last month
The last 3 months
The last 6 months
The last 12 months
The conflict since the beginning of 2023.

Looking at the two metrics of raw area and settlement captured for each of the five periods gives us 10 metrics. For every one of them the Russians have advanced and the Ukrainians gone backwards. For every one of the five periods Ukraine far regaining lost ground. Ukraine has lost ground literally, but also non literally in terms of settlements. However the rate of Russian gains has been painfully slow in at least of those metrics. Really the only one where Russia has maintained reasonable rate of advance is settlement capture over the last 3 months.

This is why I have argued that there has been an objective basis for peace, despite the hopes, dreams and fantasies of Zelensky and Putin and their respective cheer leaders.
User avatar
By litwin
#15328782
Rich wrote:So I believe in October Russia captured its largest net area of land since March 2022. The area taken was also high in settlement population numbers as measured by their 2021 figures. However I do not think that one month's figures should be used as a guide to the likely future course of the war. Its too short. Too vulnerable to short term incidents or what we should call statistical noise. i think we should focus on the first 4 of the following 5 periods:

The last month
The last 3 months
The last 6 months
The last 12 months
The conflict since the beginning of 2023.

Looking at the two metrics of raw area and settlement captured for each of the five periods gives us 10 metrics. For every one of them the Russians have advanced and the Ukrainians gone backwards. For every one of the five periods Ukraine far regaining lost ground. Ukraine has lost ground literally, but also non literally in terms of settlements. However the rate of Russian gains has been painfully slow in at least of those metrics. Really the only one where Russia has maintained reasonable rate of advance is settlement capture over the last 3 months.

This is why I have argued that there has been an objective basis for peace, despite the hopes, dreams and fantasies of Zelensky and Putin and their respective cheer leaders.



"Finland has always lived at our expense." - Governor of St.Petersburg.

https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/18 ... 4073950518

Make Muscovy small again, nothing good comes out from this damn shithole...

Image
#15328800
Skynet wrote:It is sad, the two strongest Slavic nations are killing each other...


Russia banned YouTube, a big mistake. YouTube is a great source of information but also for stupid conspiracy theories depends what you search.


Ukraine and Russia are not the two strongest Slavic nations. Poland has been stronger than Ukraine for sure and stronger than Russia for a while now with Russia trying to self-destruct itself with the Putins Ukranian adventure.
#15328813
JohnRawls wrote:Poland has been stronger than Ukraine for sure

Poland owes its strength to Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

This is of course one of the many ironies of history, because for a time Hitler and the international Communist movement came together in a great love in. Hitler and Stalin conspired to create the fourth partition, which they full intended to be the final solution to the Polish question. However it was Hitler's determination to exterminate the Jews and Stalin's backing for the ethnic cleansing of what is now Eastern Poland, that made Poland the cohesive nation state it is today.

:lol: I mean the way the Liberals talk, you'd think it was all the fault of Hitler and the Russians. Most of the Liberals being such morons that they don't even seem to realise that Stalin was Georgian not Russian. That the Poles, Jews, Lithuanians, Slovakians, Belarussians, Ruthenians and Ukrainians were all just going to sit down and sing kumbaya together, if it hadn't been for that evil Hitler and those evil Russians, Stalin, Trotsky, Dzerzhinsky etc.
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