Ukraine Watch...

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Mark
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Mark »

Vortex2 wrote: 03 Jun 2022, 09:30
Putin has lost this war,
We have ALL lost this war .. even if peace is declared tomorrow.

All because everyone has insisted that Ukraine is a homogenous democracy whereas in reality it's two separate 'states' glued together by an undemocratic regime.

Czechoslovakia resolved its internal differences by forming two countries.
Ukraine could have done the same.

We have all been taken for mugs.
The world is complex and getting ever more so as populations move and demographic change either due to politics, or poverty, or increasingly due to climate change. I'm no expert in Ukrainian history, but I understand that the Russian leaning East, is in most part that way due to Stalin importing/exporting peoples. Putin is now trying to play the same 'social engineering' game, but has he got enough Russians to bring to the party ?

The Czechs and the Slovaks should be congratulated on resolving their internal differences peacefully and with relatively little disruption. However, the Russians have invaded a neighbouring sovereign state - that's quite a fundamental difference. What do you expect the US would do if Mexico invaded New Mexico/Texas because most people there are Hispanic or, a bit more far fetched maybe, but what would the UK do if Pakistan invaded to 'protect' their populations in Blackburn/Bradford ?

True, everybody has lost in this war - but that's the case in most wars.
I feel for the Ukrainian people and the loss of life and destruction is terrible, but I don't see that they have much choice but to fight on.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by kenneal - lagger »

New Democracy - the ruling Kleptocracy voting for what the people can vote for and adjusting the vote if the people still get the vote wrong.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by kenneal - lagger »

Vortex2 wrote: 03 Jun 2022, 09:30 .........

All because everyone has insisted that Ukraine is a homogenous democracy whereas in reality it's two separate 'states' glued together by an undemocratic regime.

..........
No, you are the mug, Vortex. You have swallowed Putin's line hook, line and sinker.

This war has shown the remarkable unity of the Ukrainians. They have come together and valiantly fought against a brutal oppressor whose stated aim is to wipe Ukraine and the culture that Putin says it doesn't have off the map. The President comes from the Russian speaking population and the Ukrainian speaking population have joined with him in his resistance. The president has vowed to not speak Russian again and I suspect that many Russian speakers will do the same such is their hatred for Putin and Russia over this cowardly, treacherous attack.

The way that the Russians have mercilessly bombarded Russian speaking people and their homes shows that Putin has no real care for Russians abroad, his public excuse for the massacre, the war crime, he is presiding over. He just wants the Holy Russian Empire back again to show what a wonderful Tsar he has been lording it over the Russian people these past twenty years. He wants that legacy so that when he dies he goes down in Russian history as a hero not the kleptomaniac thug that he and we know he really is.

The Russian speaking people of Ukraine have voted with their feet in millions as they have taken refuge in the west of Ukraine or in western countries. Where are all the refugees in Russia that they could parade on TV as a justification for their brutal, merciless, cowardly attack, their "liberation" of the Russian speaking people. Perhaps he should have asked them first if they wanted liberating. Being the megalomaniac dictator that he is he knew he knew what the people of Ukraine wanted. He certainly knew that he knew what the people of Ukraine needed. Turns out they got it wrong so Putin is showing them what it means to have the temerity to disagree with a psychopathic megalomaniac.
It has caused vast physical and social damage in the Ukraine.
Much of that social and physical damage would likely have occurred anyway as Putin Russified a reluctant people. The Ukrainian people would have lost most of the good things of life as Putin's kleptomaniac oligarchs and a few Ukrainian quislings stole everything from the cowed Ukrainian people as they continue to do to the cowed serfs who are the Russian people in Russia. There are plenty of free Russians enjoying the fruits of life but they have chosen to live outside Russia in order to do that.
Thousands of lives have been lost.
Thousands of lives would have been lost in a new Holodomor as Putin's kleptomaniacs stripped the Ukraine of its valuables and food. They couldn't wait for the war to be over so they have started stealing Ukrainian grain already.
The global economic structure has been torpedoed.
Do you really think that Putin would not have used his resource weapons to strangle the west and the rest of the world. And do you think he would have stopped at Ukraine? He would have nibbled away at the old soviet empire until his megalomania was sated. The trouble with megalomaniacs is that their mania can never be sated. Have you not read the history of the 1930s and 40s, Vortex? Can you not see the parallels with Hitler?
Energy and food markets have suffered major disruption.
As I said above do you not think that Putin would not have used these weapons in a new war to grab back the old soviet Russian Empire. You would have been the equivalent of Chamberlain coming back from licking Hitler's a***e in Munich waving his precious, useless bits of paper as he got off the plane. "Peace in our time" would have lasted just as long, well maybe a year or two longer as Putin's army got their logistics sorted out.

You and people like you are the Chamberlains of our time, Vortex, no doubt well meaning but equally as delusional. And we are not the mugs.
Action is the antidote to despair - Joan Baez
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by kenneal - lagger »

Mark wrote: 03 Jun 2022, 12:28 ...........Putin is now trying to play the same 'social engineering' game, but has he got enough Russians to bring to the party ? ......
Russians are voting on what they think of life in Russia with their reproductive organs and not reproducing. Russian life is so unrewarding that they don't want to bring children into such a dismal world and so aren't having any. The reproductive rate in Russia is one of the lowest in the world and since very few people want to migrate there the population is falling like a stone.

Still Russia will be a great place to be a man in a few years time as they will be a scarce commodity at the rate the Ukrainians are killing them and will be able to pick and chose from Russian women. Expect an avalanche of Russian women looking for husbands joining the brain drain into the west after the war is over.

There won't be such a problem in Ukraine as more of the civilian population is being killed in Russian bombardments. Also a large proportion of the women of the war stricken areas is in the west already.
................
I feel for the Ukrainian people and the loss of life and destruction is terrible, but I don't see that they have much choice but to fight on.
If they stop fighting they will likely be killed as Putin sends them to Siberia to be replaced by more compliant Russians. Stalin did it and he seems to be Putin's role model.
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BritDownUnder
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by BritDownUnder »

Putin's afraid that the Ukrainians will have a successful democracy. From the TV programs I am surprised how European and un-Soviet that Ukraine looks.
Next the Byelorussians will like the EU and democracy. Then maybe Russian's themselves will want change. That's what keeps him awake at night.

Russia is in constant struggle between East and West and at the moment they are trying the Eastern way.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by PS_RalphW »

Ukraine is claiming to be pushing back Russian forces in Sievierodonetsk and inflicting heavy casualties. The truth is hard to know at present but urban warfare is notoriously hard for invading forces and Russian infantry has not had a very good war so far. Obviously the Russians have to stop the artillery bombardments in the areas that the troops are moving in to, giving the defenders holed up in their soviet era bunkers a chance to come out and snipe at the ground forces as they advance.

The Russians are blowing the bridges to stop supplies getting to the defenders.

I don' think this battle is decided yet.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Vortex2 »

For an unbiased military analysis of the Ukraine war, as at 1st June, this video from the Austrian Army is quite revealing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpC1kXhW2Lw

WEIRDNESS! I watched this in German initially, then pressed the Repeat symbol .. and YouTube then presented the English version ... magic!
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by kenneal - lagger »

It seems that the Ukrainians have to cede ground to avoid the Russian artillery barrages but if they can then get back in contact with the Russian infantry they can relatively easily push them back while the artillery can't fire on their own side. If the Ukrainians can get the long range artillery to push the Russian guns and rockets back they can make mincemeat of the very inferior Russian infantry and start to regain ground. Time will tell.

There were a couple of articles in the Observer today about the war, one of which was saying that almost all pro Russian sentiment in the east of the country has evaporated since the invasion and the country has unified and now wants to speak Ukrainian in the main. Apparently western Ukrainians have been impressed by the fight that the local militias have put up in Kharkiv and other eastern, Russian speaking areas and are now much better disposed towards their fellow countrymen. They were doubtful about their Ukrainianness before the invasion but have no doubts now.

There is also an opinion piece from Simon Tisdall complaining about the reluctance of Biden and the west to properly arm the Ukrainians and about shackling them by not allowing them to strike back against attacks from Russian soil. This is not something that I thought I would ever read in the Guardian but it is something that I agree with.
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Vortex2
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Vortex2 »

A few points:

* Speaking Russian in today's Ukraine can end up with the speaker in a SBU jai

* Many of the destroyed bridges in Ukraine have been blown up by the Ukrainians

* Many/most of the sea mines blockng shipping off Ukraine were laid by Ukraine itself.

* The M777 howitzers (30 km range) shipped by the US to Ukraine are not equipped with their fancy guidance systems.

* The Russians probably have already destoyed 6 of the 18 M777 guns sent by the US.

* The US Department of Defense (DoD) has announced plans to deliver four M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Ukraine.
These will have rockets limted to 70km range.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by invalid »

UndercoverElephant wrote: 03 Jun 2022, 07:47
It has already been explained to you on numerous occasions, by several different people.
Where, what's your explanation? If Russia has already lost, what's going on right now?
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Mark
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Mark »

Bore off invalid.....
OK if you post some new/different insight into the conflict, but you don't.
We all know that you're either Russian or in the pay of the Russians and you're just being antagonistic...
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by clv101 »

I think it's now clear the west is not providing Ukraine with the equipment necessary to repel the Russian invasion. The longer things take the lower down the west's priority list this conflict falls and the more inconvenient the sanctions become. A slow war of attrition benefits Russia.
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by invalid »

Mark wrote: 05 Jun 2022, 22:51 Bore off invalid.....
OK if you post some new/different insight into the conflict, but you don't.
We all know that you're either Russian or in the pay of the Russians and you're just being antagonistic...
I don't have any particular insights. But UE has also posted contradictory things repeatedly, and also continually avoids explaining himself. It may be boring, but this weak argumentation should be called out. Just because it agrees with the commonplace position of this board, doesn't mean it should go with examination

He has 'a feeling' that the Russians will lose the ground they have recently won in a few weeks, but also believes they lost in the first week. And hasn't said anything to back that up, or, ostensibly, shown any interest to reappraise that position on the light of current events on the ground.
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Mark
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

Post by Mark »

According to your leader/boss, it's only a minor 'special military operation', so why worry ?
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Re: Ukraine Watch...

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invalid wrote: 05 Jun 2022, 22:26
UndercoverElephant wrote: 03 Jun 2022, 07:47
It has already been explained to you on numerous occasions, by several different people.
Where, what's your explanation? If Russia has already lost, what's going on right now?
What's going on now is that Russia is rapidly losing soldiers and equipment for very little gain, in order to get nowhere near any of its original war objectives. If Putin had had a crystal ball before the invasion and could have known this would be the situation on June 6th then he'd never have invaded. He didn't even imagine the current situation as a worst case scenario.
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