The War in the Ukraine

Who Will Win

  • Ukraine

    Votes: 1 20.0%

  • Russia

    Votes: 1 20.0%

  • Nato

    Votes: 1 20.0%

  • The West

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • America

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Right

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Wrong

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Good

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Evil

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Putin

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Zelensky

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • God

    Votes: 1 20.0%

  • Prigozhin

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Chechnya

    Votes: 1 20.0%

  • Trump

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    5
Grand Potentate

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www.nytimes.com

Pentagon Plans to Set Up a New Command to Arm Ukraine, Officials Say

The mission in Germany would streamline a training and assistance system that the United States and its allies created on the fly after Russia’s invasion, officials said.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

Pentagon Plans to Set Up a New Command to Arm Ukraine, Officials Say​

The mission in Germany would streamline a training and assistance system that the United States and its allies created on the fly after Russia’s invasion, officials said.
 
Grand Potentate

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Fifteen Points About the Future of the Ukraine War - Ian Welsh

Let's lay it out. First: the next while belongs to Ukraine. They have the initiative and new Russian troops will take time to arrive. Second: Russia is almost certainly mobilizing more than 300K troops, the bill allowed for one million. The more they mobilize the more training time will be...
www.ianwelsh.net www.ianwelsh.net

Let’s lay it out.


First: the next while belongs to Ukraine. They have the initiative and new Russian troops will take time to arrive.


Second: Russia is almost certainly mobilizing more than 300K troops, the bill allowed for one million. The more they mobilize the more training time will be required; not just because there are more troops but because they are reaching deeper into reserves to people who have been out for longer.


Third: When enough of those troops reach the front, Russia will stop their territorial losses and go back on the offensive. The more Russia mobilizes, the stronger the offensive. If they go up to a million, they will have about 2:1 when added to current troops in Ukraine.


Four: Russia is not fighting just Ukraine. If it was, it would win. It is fighting Ukraine + NATO, and it’s clear that means that NATO officers are doing the majority of the planning and we now know that there are some NATO troops on the ground, we will find out there were more, and that a lot of volunteers were “volunteers.”


Five: Western propaganda has included a lot of declarations that the end-goal is regime change, recapturing Crimea and even breaking up Russia. It has been declared, over and over again, that there will be no negotiated peace with Putin. This means the Russians regard this war as existential.


Six: what Putin said was “all methods” not tac-nukes, that includes things like level bombing, taking out Ukrainian infrastructure (remember, power, water and sewage are on in most of Ukraine and Putin could turn them off tomorrow.) Tac-nukes are part of all-methods, but unlikely to be the first thing reached for. They will be used if necessary to defend Russian territory, which to Moscow includes the Oblasts that recently were declared part of Russia.


Seven: OPEC cutting oil production is, in fact, helpful to Russia. Understand clearly that outside the West and our client states like Japan, Korea and Taiwan, most of the world is not cheering for NATO to win, because for good reason they hate and fear Europe and the US far more than they do Russia.


Eight: The only country which has sufficient leverage over the Russians to force and end to the war is China. However China does not want Russia to lose the war, for their to be regime change, and so on. Russia is their satrapy, their junior ally and absolutely necessary to their security. A regime friendly to them must stay in power. With Russia China can survive a western naval blockade, without it China cannot. It is that simple.


Nine: there is nothing that Russia absolutely must have that it cannot get from China and India. They cannot be choked out economically without those two nations cooperation (though really, it’s about China) and China in particular will not cooperate, though it may make mealy mouthed statements as if it is.


Ten: Europe is suffering more from sanctions than Russia is: significantly more.


Eleven: However bad this war has been, it can be a lot worse. It hasn’t even reached Iraq war levels of destruction of infrastructure, for example, as pointed out in six.


Twelve: the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged so Europe in general and Germany in particular would have less reason to press for peace, especially as the winter makes clear how much they need Russian natural gas. It was done to keep the war going, and to help de-industrialize Germany and Europe so that America can maintain its hegemony.


Thirteen: because the Russians now see this war as existential, they will mobilize as much as they need to. If that is millions of men, it’s millions of men. Though there is clearly some resistance to mobilization, it is unlikely to be enough to stop it, and the more the West threatens to break up Russsia and so on, the less resistance there will be. Russia has traditionally been willing to bear huge losses in what it considers existential wars.


Fourteen: The war will go on until one side or another is actually defeated. That may be economic defeat, political defeat or military defeat, though they tend to go together.


Fifteen: peace can only be made in two ways: crushing your enemies entirely, or negotiating. You can’t make peace with your friends, only with your enemies.


Bonus Point: Kennedy negotiated because Russia then, and now, has enough nukes to end the world. Also the crisis was caused because the US put nukes in Turkey.

Addendum To My Fifteen Points On The Ukraine War - Ian Welsh

Decided a little more needed to be added to the post, but email went out just before I added it, so I'm putting it here. Addendum: My argument, from the beginning, has always been simple: Russia can mobilize more men than Ukraine and has reason to do so. Unless they are weaker...
www.ianwelsh.net www.ianwelsh.net

Decided a little more needed to be added to the post, but email went out just before I added it, so I’m putting it here.

Addendum:

My argument, from the beginning, has always been simple: Russia can mobilize more men than Ukraine and has reason to do so. Unless they are weaker internally/China than I think or NATO intervenes more than I think, they will eventually have a conventional military victory.

Of course, I could be wrong, but nothing which has happened yet has changed my view. What has happened is that NATO was willing to mobilize more resources than I expected, and that has made a Russian victory require more mobilization (and I always felt doing this with only 200k men was stupid.) However, absent sending in large numbers of NATO troops, the fundamental assertion remains.

As for the internals, the Russia economy, as far as I can tell, is doing better than much of Europe. The fundamentals are simple: Russia a food and fuel surplus and can get almost everything else they need from China and other sources and China needs Russia to not lose. This is not the late USSR, constantly running food deficits.

This leaves internal political instability, and my judgment is that if Putin loses power he is replaced by hard right wingers who will mobilize more, not less. There is no meaningful centrist or left wing opposition in Russia.

If you believe I’m wrong on any of these points and you’re right my argument may be wrong, but this is the argument.
 
Grand Potentate

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Dropbear

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De-Nazification completed, they are now moving on to de-Satanization.

21E0BF18-F0A6-4F02-A796-3C9484459DCB.jpeg
 
Dropbear

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Russia visually-confirmed losses of over 40% of all their tanks.

6574A79C-2978-40DA-A65F-48BF49B5D257.jpeg
 
Grand Potentate

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Ukraine - Lights Out, No Water And Soon No Heat​


Earlier today the Russian military shut down the Ukrainian electricity network.


Previous attacks had limited the distribution capacity to some 50% of demand. Controlled blackouts over several hours per day allowed to give some electricity for a few hours to most parts of the country. The attack today created a much larger problem. Not only were distribution networks attacked but also so the elements that connect Ukraine's electricity production facilities to the distribution network. All four nuclear power stations of Ukraine with their 15 reactors are now in shutdown mode.

ukrelhit1-s.jpg
 
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Grand Potentate said:
responsiblestatecraft.org

'About $45 billion' in new Ukraine aid tucked into omnibus bill - Responsible Statecraft

If the spending measure is passed this week, that will mean more than $100 billion will be allocated to Kyiv since February.
responsiblestatecraft.org responsiblestatecraft.org

zelensky coming here like we're an ATM
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I think they would say the same thing about paying in their blood while America just sends weapons.

Kinda surprised he didn’t pull out the suit, but I guess this is his wartime uniform now:

D4B1AE74-8D96-41AB-A267-4995C09CE41B.jpeg
 
Dropbear

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And more from the Trump-Putin wing of the party:

But a small group of House Republicans critical of the ongoing funding to Ukraine, including Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida, did not clap for Zelensky when he walked onto the House floor and rarely stood throughout his speech. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the top critics of funding the war, did not attend.
Click to expand...

 
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The Patriot Air Defence system seems like a long-term solution that fails to address the short-term needs. Even assuming that we have been training them on it’s use these past months, which may not be the case.

www.defense.gov

$1.85 Billion in Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine

On December 21, as part of President Zelenskyy's visit to the White House, the Department of Defense announced $1.85 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine.
www.defense.gov
 
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