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Where Do Things End With Vlad? (h/t romad1)


chasfh

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21 hours ago, chasfh said:

I don’t think the parents of soldiers would have the same pressuring effect on Putin as they would on an American president ex. Trump. 

Reasonable.  A couple of things make the Russia watchers think its actually a concern for Vladdie. 

The first is the antecedent of the Soviet war in Afghanistan which played a significant role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.  The other is that he is actually manipulating mobilization to avoid big pulls from the two big metros of St Pete and Moscow specifically to avoid having those two populations impacted.  

Russia's organizational military DNA is shambolic and chaotic only overcome by sending masses of men into the fray at huge costs.  But, they do have breaking points.  They did in WWI.  The disasters can be put off by controlling the media narrative but social media appears to be much more open in post-Soviet Russia -- they run Telegram for example -- that people like Navalny have a relatively easy reach into the homes of the switched-on urban types.

The last item is the example of Prigozhin.  His people are out there and angry about the casualties, the MOD's craptacular running of the War. 

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4 hours ago, romad1 said:

Reasonable.  A couple of things make the Russia watchers think its actually a concern for Vladdie. 

The first is the antecedent of the Soviet war in Afghanistan which played a significant role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.  The other is that he is actually manipulating mobilization to avoid big pulls from the two big metros of St Pete and Moscow specifically to avoid having those two populations impacted.  

Russia's organizational military DNA is shambolic and chaotic only overcome by sending masses of men into the fray at huge costs.  But, they do have breaking points.  They did in WWI.  The disasters can be put off by controlling the media narrative but social media appears to be much more open in post-Soviet Russia -- they run Telegram for example -- that people like Navalny have a relatively easy reach into the homes of the switched-on urban types.

The last item is the example of Prigozhin.  His people are out there and angry about the casualties, the MOD's craptacular running of the War. 

the other thing is that 15% of Russia's population is in Moscow/StP. People talk about Russia's population advantage over Ukraine, but it you are trying to exempt 15% of your population from service, they lose a chunk of that advantage, plus the general health and educational quality of recruits from the hinterlands is also lower.

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On 10/23/2023 at 7:35 PM, 1984Echoes said:

Turkey’s Erdogan Backs Sweden NATO Membership After Long Delay

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/turkey-erdogan-backs-sweden-nato-153334096.html

 

This still has to pass Turkey's legislature and then...

Hungary is still playing ****ing games with this and they also have not passed Sweden's admission through their legislation. Their government says yes, their legislature says... nothing, so far.

Proposal: Hungary's authoritarianism and still-boot-licking of Russia/ Putin is also vexing NATO and the EU... so, solution: England/ Germany/ US (whomever) propose to kick Hungary out of NATO and add Sweden. Hungary can not vote on getting kicked out of NATO so only all other countries aside from them can vote on this measure. I don't think this measure would even need to come to a vote as I think the Proposal itself will move Hungary off their asses and do a swift approval of Sweden's accession into NATO.

However, if it actually did come to a vote anyways, I wouldn't be opposed to holding that vote, nor would I cry over Hungary's expulsion. The reality is that Poland and Turkey would vote to NOT expel Hungary... but I think even HAVING this vote would send a HUGE message(s) to everyone in NATO: Quit ****ing around with Putin. Quit ****ing around with anti-democratic authoritarianism. And get your ****ing priorities straight. 

Just my 2 cents.

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I have not heard a lot out of Ukraine in terms of the war in the last month or two.  I think by this time we can concede the counter-offense was not successful, at least in terms of reclaiming land.  

I saw an article yesterday saying the average age of the Ukrainian fighter is now 43.  Not sure if that just means so many older man volunteered it skewed that number, but that sounds concerning.

I know the pro-Zelensky argument is to just give more to them, but we've given them a lot and we still are giving more.  Do we just allow this to be a forever war because it's a cost effective way to drain the Russian army as well as other Russian ally countries now helping supply it?

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1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

I have not heard a lot out of Ukraine in terms of the war in the last month or two.  I think by this time we can concede the counter-offense was not successful, at least in terms of reclaiming land.  

I saw an article yesterday saying the average age of the Ukrainian fighter is now 43.  Not sure if that just means so many older man volunteered it skewed that number, but that sounds concerning.

I know the pro-Zelensky argument is to just give more to them, but we've given them a lot and we still are giving more.  Do we just allow this to be a forever war because it's a cost effective way to drain the Russian army as well as other Russian ally countries now helping supply it?

The recent news was the Russians counter attacking and taking losses. TBF, I don't think many analysts thought the Ukrainians could dislodge the dug in Russians without effective air power and the long range weapons to destroy Russian rear guard supply lines. The miscalculation was how slow the US would be to supply either. US 'pacing' has added another year, or possible more, to the war - probably unnecessarily.

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3 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

The recent news was the Russians counter attacking and taking losses. TBF, I don't think many analysts thought the Ukrainians could dislodge the dug in Russians without effective air power and the long range weapons to destroy Russian rear guard supply lines. The miscalculation was how slow the US would be to supply either. US 'pacing' has added another year, or possible more, to the war - probably unnecessarily.

To finish the thought, it's hard to dismiss the notion that the Biden admin is deliberately acting to drag out this war and achieve the maximum possible bleed-out of the Putin Regime.

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