Actually he stated before the picture "I'm just hoping they wreck a fuckton of refineries, power plants, meat-packing, railroad bridges, etc."

Where did you read "a scorched Earth campaign" or targeting civilian infrastructure more than that?

Ok, well that was an interesting video.  If it's to be taken at face value -

- The Russian people (of course this is just one small town as described by the BBC reporter, and Russia is huge) genuinely trust and support Putin.
- They're highly nationalistic and admire their military and soldiers who are fighting in Ukraine.
- Clearly the war is not completely hidden from them.  The enlistment bonus signs suggest that the population is aware that there is a major military effort in progress.
- They want peace.  But that is peace achieved through victory, and (again taking the video at face value) that even the older people wish to contribute to the effort.

The takeaway is, for me at least, an even more grim picture for Ukraine.  The goal of embarrassing Putin and getting the Russian people to turn on him because of Kursk does not seem to have occurred.  The people in the video seemed somber but resolute.  As if they know that the commitment to the conflict may be even deeper and that it could last longer than they had been told / anticipated (speculation on my part, but seemed to be suggested by the video).  The belief in their leadership doesn't appear to be diminished by the recent events.  They're committed to bringing the thing to a close on their terms (Ukraine being defeated).

I'm not even going to begin to pretend that this video speaks for all Russians.  It's far too big of a place for that.  But, perhaps it's a good example of what we might consider "Everytown USA" if the situation were reversed?  Is that your assessment of it?


 

Yeah I couldn't remember the exact quote and just characterized Sherman and the mindset succinctly. I'm not seeing the big distinction here that you are.

You looked to be offended and found a way to do so, taking liberties with the facts as to what was posted when it's easy for everyone to see what was posted.  

Half of the posts in this thread:

No one here is offended but you. Switch to decaf.

That's a deep burn.  I haven't heard "I'm rubber, you're glue" since elementary school.

You inserted yourself into a conversation you didn't understand and misread who was posting what and why. So just calm your tits.

Easy guy.  It's a forum, nobody is butting into a private conversation.

But I look forward to seeing how you incorrectly characterize this in a couple posts when you can't remember the exact quote.  It's not like you can just go back a page and read it again before you make a comment.

Incorrectly characterize?

I said Sherman was scorched earth. How in the fuck is that mischaracterized? What would you say Sherman is known for if not that?

Jesus christ. I tried to be nice about this. Fucking pilots always running their mouths never knowing a single fucking thing about who or what they are talking about.

It should not be taken at face value.  Consider this. The data was probably cherry picked.  Because nobody in his right mind will speak the truth about the "СВО".  Because doing so means a quick and long jail sentence.  For "discreditation of the armed forces". Literally, I doubt they could find one person to speak against it.  They  don't have any kind of freedom of speech or anything remotely close to it. This is not like people here protesting against the Nam war.

Peope get prison sentences for quoting or "liking" a post which contradicts the Party's Line about the war.  You don't even have to be the author. It like the 1938 Purge except everyone has a smart phone. Could you image going to Moscow in the middle of the Great Purge and finding even one person willing to speak on camera about his opposition to anything?

I believe the video was posted as evidence of an objective assessment regarding Russian public opinion towards the Ukraine conflict.

Shrug.gif

That's how many Russians feel - apparently a "double standard" exists in The West because we're not condemning Ukraine's "invasion" of Russian territory.

Those people are as brainwashed as any Soviet era Russians were - it's fucking sad.

In their defense, according to the international Law of Special Military Operations it’s not legal for the country being invaded to attack the aggressor country.

The irony of the part in red is hilarious.

Ok, we agree that what I call neoconservatism and 90's-00s mainstream democrat foreign policy aren't dramatically different.  Would you agree that whatever we call it, it is ensconced, since that time, at State and the broader foreign policy establishment?  One could argue that Obama, when left to his own devices, and Trump deviated from this 30-40 year pattern.   Each maybe in a different direction.

The left now is divided, as we are about to see at the DNC, over Israel.  The progressive left is so anti-Bibi and and Anti-Israel as to stride apologetically into antisemitism, while Biden despite the consensus here, it a full on Zionist.  Obama was no real supporter of Israel, while Trump is perhaps it's strongest recent supporter.   The Bushes, Clintons and Biden all fall into this category whatever we choose to call it.  Trump and Obama do not.  Obama is probably more of a Jacobin and Trump certainly a populist authoritarian.

If you look at modern Jacobins they are hard progressives as far as I can tell, maybe at one point they shared a philosophy similar to my understanding of neoconservatism, but I don't think that is the case anymore.  

I think the label of neoconservatism in regards to foreign policy is one of the great magic tricks of American politics.  There is nothing particularly new or conservative about it and the label implies a partisanship that doesn't exist.

Should we follow or ignore our Constitution?

What should they do regarding theirs.

Defend your answer.

Another month to figure out how this settles long term

But the war also continues in Ukraine too

Yesterday Russia claimed its seized New York

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/19/ukraine-pokrovsk-russia-evacuation/

Good.

I try to watch a fair amount of interviews with common citizens. One thing I've noticed is a stark divide between young and old Russians. Older Russians are solidly behind Putin, with a few exceptions. Younger Russians have experienced capitalism, traveled to Europe and/or have had friends from other countries. They don't buy what Putin is selling, with some exceptions.

One thing the war has done is give Putin an excuse to clamp down even harder on dissent, but also interaction with free countries. If things don't change in Russia, that bloom of peace in the younger generation will get cut off and killed. Putin wants and needs that.

I think the Kursk action was more for the Ukrainian audience than the Russian one. They've faced 18 months with little or no success, just hanging on, and that hasn't been good for recruitment or public morale. This offensive puts out a new positive story to make the impending loss of Pokrovsk not hurt as bad.

And there's good military value in forcing the enemy to expend blood & treasure taking his own lands rather than yours. Tarnishing Putin's image was never going to be a leading goal, just a small bonus with limited impact.

I think you're right about the audience being more geared towards Ukraine versus Russia.  I also believe that it was meant to inject fresh optimism in the west.  Would you say that it's done both fairly effectively?  It seems so.

Thing is, I'm not sure that young Russians are as disillusioned as you suggest.  Young people globally seem to be similarly affected by social media, smartphones, and the like so I'm not disagreeing completely.  The reason Zhukov posted that video was because I had previously written that it's nearly impossible to gauge Russian public sentiment regarding this conflict.  When I gave my thoughts on the video, I was assured (to be fair, not by Zhukov) that I shouldn't trust anything I just saw.  That the BBC was effectively spreading Russian misinformation either deliberately or accidentally.  Again, I'm in no way trying to insinuate that Zhukov shares this opinion.  It just surprised me I guess.  There is such a reflexive distrust that any information from Russia is automatically deemed counterfactual.  It's appropriate to a degree, but the instinct seems to go so far as to be anti-reason.  That there can be nothing useful and the only appropriate response is to shut one's mind off from anything it might indicate.

In my view, this approach of "no information can be trusted or serve as a metric because it comes from Russia" is creating a big blind spot for us.  It certainly has at least temporary propaganda value because it tunes out any perspective contrary to the western narrative du jour.  But it creates a situation where big shocks can occur.  In my opinion, Kursk is going to be one of those.  There has not yet been a clear explanation of the strategic value of this operation or why it's a good use of Ukraine's limited resources.  Some have written that it was an attempt to wrestle control of nuclear power plants.  That, so far, has been a failure and now Russia is responding with sufficient capacity to effectively slow, stop, or re-route the incursion into other non-important areas.  Then others have explained that the real value of Ukraine's actions is to embarrass Putin.  It appears to have had the opposite effect in Russia, the only place where it genuinely matters.  Is being unrealistic about this whole thing beneficial to Ukraine?  When does optimism become something more delusional and unnecessarily destructive?  

Embarrassing Putin isn't going to win this for Ukraine.  It is, from what I've seen, going to make it more likely that Russia will seek a harsher settlement than they would have accepted previously.  Is that a good thing for Ukraine?  I would argue it is not.  The situation amounts to an unnecessary doubling down rather than a focused approach.  Perhaps things have reached a level of desperation where such a risk was deemed worth it?  I can't figure out why Ukraine would take this tact as any PR value is kind of "preaching to the choir" for a western audience.  Maybe it's about getting Europe and the US prepared for another big package of aid.  That would at least make sense.  

In any case, thank you for your reply.  I appreciate and respect your perspective on this despite our differences.

Escape from New York.

Supposedly the Russians are grabbing the greenest of the green recruits and scraping up what was left of the REMF's and rear area security to respond to Kursk.  

Even if the Ukrainians halt today and the Russians don't counter attack it seems to me that's going to completely dry up front line replacements over the next several months, weaken the already terribly inadequate support units, and give Ukrainian SOF and saboteurs an open field to play in.  Also if the Russians had any delusions remaining about the usefulness of the Kadyrovites that seems to have been dispelled.

This implies this operation is only good for propaganda value. I disagree.

Ukraine had the following options:

1) Maintain a defense only posture.

2) Conduct amphibious operations against likely stiff resistance in the south.

3) Conduct frontal assaults against stationary fortifications in the east.

4) Initiate this offensive into Russia where the Russians were apparently completely unprepared to defend.

By initiating this offense, Ukraine has already inflicted significant damage to Russia's rail infrastructure and petroleum infrastructure, and they've rounded up a bunch of POWs and assets and taken them back to Ukraine. These aren't things that might happen, these are things that have happened. The offense is still making significant progress, and we can only speculate what the next COA is. Russia also has to redirect resources to deal with this offense, and we're still waiting to see what that looks like.

I am also not convinced Ukraine should allocate everything they have to defensive operations. Russia is losing close to if not more than 1,000 bodies a day, and they've only gained something like 1,500 sq km so far this entire year. That's not great.

Pokrovsk? That's a small city with a pre-war population of 60k people. How many Ukrainians can point to Pokrovsk on a map? How many Americans can point to St. Joseph, MO, Salina, KS, or Janesville, WI on a map? These cities have economic significance to the surrounding counties or whatever, but they don't move the needle much.

There's a business decision to be made in how many resources Ukraine should spend defending ground. If Ukraine had 500,000 sq km left at the beginning of this year, and they only lose 2,000 sq km this year while inflicting disproportionate casualties on the Russians, is that a bad thing?

"Losing slowly, nobody wants to do that" says the country currently importing savages by the boat load.

I read that yesterday not gonna look good when those guys get killed or captured.

This whole operation is intriguing.  Ukraine seems to have tried an Ardennes to force Russia to negotiate and leave.

Russia does not seem to be biting it.

Ukraine does not seem to have the resources to expand it much more at the risk of getting too thin.

Russia does not seem to have enough resources to push back and continue the offensive in Ukraine at the same time.

So, now it's a matter to see who can hold it longer.  Interesting times ahead, except for the civilians and soldiers in the area.

Nevertheless, it just shows once more that the news we get are not what's really going on over there.

There are a bunch of reports that Ukraine is now doing something inside Bryansk Oblast, Russia which is on Russia's border with Belarus.



Not sure if a raid or something bigger.

Id be tempted to go full-on assclown and anex the occupied lands.  Make a huge show of it, bring in camera crews, currency exchange to Ukranian, levy taxes while voiding all Russian taxes, debts, and contracts.  Bring in Ukrainian school books with updated maps.  Just full-on spit in Putin's eye.

98% referendum vote

Lol, they're sending mechanics and stuff? Reminds me of the Luftwaffe ground troops in WW2, who were understandably garbage.

That's what I've been reading - the Russians are sending the B and C teams to deal with Kursk.

That's why they're getting more POWs than anytime before, it seems.

Talk is also starting up about possibly getting another mobilization in Russia, which would be REALLY interesting. They're going to have to revoke a whole bunch of exemptions to get the numbers they need, and that won't go over well. They'll have to settle for lower numbers, or piss off a bunch of their own people.

The B and C teams would be the old guys and barely trained conscripts we've seen for much of the war.

Sending engineers, technicians, and radar operators in as infantry is... a choice. These are trained and specialized personnel with functions that are probably strategically important being squandered.

Why would a nation with a population of 143M people do this?

While the article doesn't state Donetsk, they seem in to in part coming from somewhere on the Eastern Front 2.

Their infrastructure is incredibly manpower hungry because it is way short on automation, it's aging, it's spread out over an absolutely enormous country with a challenging climate, it's frequently damaged by drunks, components are supplied below spec due to corruption, replacement parts are in short supply due to corruption, and there is epic theft.  Plus now sanctions mean that automation is failing and parts are in even shorter supply.  The Russian Army refusal to use pallets and forklifts, standard in the west for 50 years, and instead throwing large gangs of men into loading and unloading crates by hand is a stark example of their refusal or inability to improve productivity.

Their working age male population is shockingly small for a population this size because of the nearly apocalyptic 1990's birthrate collapse and surge in infant mortality (there are half as many 25-35 year olds as there should be), 1990's-2000's economic mass emigration that skewed young male and young family (many absent 40-50 year olds and their kids who would be in their 30's today), 2023 draft dodger mass emigration (young male), and an epidemic of fatal alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and suicide that is predominantly male.

There are reports that the Russian civilian economy is parking 10% of its busses for lack of drivers, the internal security forces are reduced to half strength when they need them most, and the absolutely vital railroad system is beginning to sputter from a manpower shortage.  

They have unusually high labor demands and an unusually small and unhealthy labor pool.  The sharply rising line of demand on the chart has crossed the sharply falling line of supply.  They are close to being tapped out of men who can be sent to the front if they want the inefficient manpower hungry civilian economy to keep functioning.

Hoping Ukraine goes all General Sherman on Russia.  Bastards deserve it.  

Incursion?  

Why not just say invasion?

That is a strategy.

All of that can and likely is true, but the numbers still don't make sense to me.

If a population is 30% or so military age males, Russia should have tens of millions to work with. Their losses are in the thousands.

Maybe even tens of thousands.