Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Todd_is_God]

49 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

You think most of the temporary closures and cuts in volume weren't planned in advance for leverage against sanctions and military aid to Ukraine? Like all the military exercises planned ages ago in Belarus and Eastern Russia for January and February?

I know for certain this was not announced because Russia was, as Wee Bully put it, "feeling the pressure" - which was the point of the initial reply.

I would be slightly sceptical of the suggestion they planned events 12 months ago to be taking place over six months into a war they expected to be long since over, though. That seems less likely.

[vikingTON]

Not even a shred of awareness in this laughable take:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/30/gorbachev-political-legacy-destroyed-by-putin

Quote

By the time Gorbachev stepped down at the end of 1991, the Nato-Soviet frontier was no longer a flashpoint. Nato pulled all but a few thousand troops back from the eastern flank, and the terrors of the cold war seemed consigned to history books and museums. In the wake of the Ukraine invasion in February, Nato has rushed troops eastwards, mobilising 40,000 troops under its direct command, with plans to put 300,000 on high alert.

1) There was no NATO-Soviet frontier during the Cold War. It was a NATO-Warsaw Pact frontier. One of those Cold War alliance systems was disbanded - NATO however was not because it was a vehicle for continued American imperialism. 

2) NATO's rush eastwards was actually decided in the 1990s, when the pinky promise that Gorbachev accepted that it would not expand proved to be utterly useless. 

That - along with the 60+ million people dumped into abject poverty - is why Gorbachev is viewed as an arch-chump rather than a 'great statesman' by his own people. His legacy was trashed by his own stupid actions and the domestic/international brigade of looters he enabled. 

Edited August 31, 2022 by vikingTON

[dorlomin]

The reason everything is so static is neither side has the excess of forces to build up the kind of multi echelon force power to break into a layered defence then have the troops available for the next echelons to break out and take large amounts of territory, combined with both having severe logistics constraints. 

Large parts of WWII were also like this with massed formations grinding it out against each other until there was a sudden break. It was largely down to the huge allied material and manpower advantages in the mid to late war period that these phases were broken by breakouts like Bagration, the break out from Normandy and the collapse of Army Group South in early 42. There were also extended periods of slow warfare like the Courland campaign, Italy and the two months in Normandy to wear down the Axis till the break out was affected. Cities could take an entire army weeks to take, the Rhineland being a series of very hard fought city battles that no one remembers happened. 

A Javelin is no less lethal to a modern tank than a Panzerfaust was to a Sherman or T-34. 

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Mr Gorbachev, tear down my back walls. 

[LongTimeLurker]

9 hours ago, dorlomin said:

...A Javelin is no less lethal to a modern tank than a Panzerfaust was to a Sherman or T-34. 

Probably true in some ways but did you not have to be in very close with a panzerfaust and hence highly likely to get mown down in the immediate aftermath? Not quite as risky to take out a tank nowadays when you can be two miles away and it's a case of fire and forget.

 

[welshbairn]

9 hours ago, Stringer Bell said:

Mr Gorbachev, tear down my back walls. 

Cyprus wouldn't be the thriving economy it is today was last year without Mikhail Gorbachev tearing down the front walls. Putin's little adventure is putting them all back up, bang goes the timeshare in Limassol for Moscow's middle management cadre. Everybody loses, apart from arms companies and commodity speculators.

Edited August 31, 2022 by welshbairn

[TxRover]

21 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Probably true in some ways but did you not have to be in very close with a panzerfaust and hence highly likely to get mown down in the immediate aftermath? Not quite as risky to take out a tank nowadays when you can be two miles away and it's a case of fire and forget.

 

Panzerfausts came in 30, 60, 100 and 150 metre range versions, so you had to pop, shoot and scoot…and that usually resulted in death if there was any infantry nearby. Effective range was about half the rated range due to accuracy and not velocity (as the shaped charge didn’t care a whit what velocity it stuck a target at).

Javelin has an effective range of between 2,500 and 4,750 metres, which allows stand-off engagements, but in a cluttered area (urban environment, forested areas, etc) the range can be much less. The minimum range for a Javelin engagement is around 500m, which would be well within the covered perimeter of a properly deployed combined arms force, and would likely be deadly to the Javelin team. Shooting from further away increases survivability, but often comes at a cost in accuracy…the ideal attack range is thus dependent upon the enemy deployments and the environment.

The more apt comparison to the Panzerfaust would be the NLAW, with a 20-800m effective range, and a straight-line flight path. While it was extremely effective during the initial attack, it’s now more of a counter hard-target weapon due to the Ukrainian advances. Its relatively short range and flat flight path, compared to the Javelin, has resulted in it becoming almost ineffective/suicidal vs dug-in armoured units with supporting infantry.

[LongTimeLurker]

20 hours ago, dorlomin said:

The reason everything is so static is neither side has the excess of forces to build up the kind of multi echelon force power to break into a layered defence then have the troops available for the next echelons to break out and take large amounts of territory, combined with both having severe logistics constraints...

If twitter commentary is to be believed (dubious at best obviously) there is some talk of that kind of thing happening on a small scale onthe Ukrainian side yesterday south of Davydiv Brid in Kherson oblast where they already had a smzll bridgehead across the Inhulets river: 

 

Edited September 1, 2022 by LongTimeLurker

[Fullerene]

On 31/08/2022 at 06:30, virginton said:

Not even a shred of awareness in this laughable take:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/30/gorbachev-political-legacy-destroyed-by-putin

1) There was no NATO-Soviet frontier during the Cold War. It was a NATO-Warsaw Pact frontier. One of those Cold War alliance systems was disbanded - NATO however was not because it was a vehicle for continued American imperialism. 

2) NATO's rush eastwards was actually decided in the 1990s, when the pinky promise that Gorbachev accepted that it would not expand proved to be utterly useless. 

That - along with the 60+ million people dumped into abject poverty - is why Gorbachev is viewed as an arch-chump rather than a 'great statesman' by his own people. His legacy was trashed by his own stupid actions and the domestic/international brigade of looters he enabled. 

The main reason NATO still exists is because countries feel safer inside it than not.  Sweden and Finland haven't suddenly acquired an enthusiasm for US imperialism.

Countries in the Warsaw Pact did not feel safer inside it.  In fact the threat cames from within, namely the Soviet Union.  Witness the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia simply for going off message.

NATO's rush eastwards was caused by the distrust of these countries towards Russia.  They also feel safer inside the alliance.  Georgia and Ukraine and Moldova have demonstrated they were right.

The Soviet Union was crap.  It relied on terror to keep the system working.  Once Gorbachev reduced the terror, the whole thing collapsed and he was condemned for not anticipating this would happen or having anything in place afterwards.

 

[Fullerene]

I like the joke Gorbachev said himself.

Two men are standing in a long queue for something.  One of them says "This is terrible.  I blame Gorbachev.  I am going off to shoot him" and he walks away.  Five minutes later he is back.  His friend says "I thought you going to shoot Gorbachev". He replies "That queue is longer".

[Detournement]

1 hour ago, Fullerene said:

The main reason NATO still exists is because countries feel safer inside it than not.  Sweden and Finland haven't suddenly acquired an enthusiasm for US imperialism.

Countries in the Warsaw Pact did not feel safer inside it.  In fact the threat cames from within, namely the Soviet Union.  Witness the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia simply for going off message.

NATO's rush eastwards was caused by the distrust of these countries towards Russia.  They also feel safer inside the alliance.  Georgia and Ukraine and Moldova have demonstrated they were right.

The Soviet Union was crap.  It relied on terror to keep the system working.  Once Gorbachev reduced the terror, the whole thing collapsed and he was condemned for not anticipating this would happen or having anything in place afterwards.

 

There wasn't any terror after Stalin died. 

And from my point of view a few decades of political repression isn't as bad as, say, a couple of centuries of racial oppression like good old uncle Sam. 

[LongTimeLurker]

17 minutes ago, Detournement said:

There wasn't any terror after Stalin died...

Maybe not anything like as bad but it still wasn't a fun place to live if there was any sort of protest against the government:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novocherkassk_massacre

 

[vikingTON]

2 hours ago, Fullerene said:

The main reason NATO still exists is because countries feel safer inside it than not.  

... because their populations are white and their territory doesn't have oil wealth to plunder.

States wanting to be pishing out of the tent with the only superpower in the world is entirely understandable without resorting to claptrap about their safety. 

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Detournement said:

There wasn't any terror after Stalin died. 

And from my point of view a few decades of political repression isn't as bad as, say, a couple of centuries of racial oppression like good old uncle Sam. 

Weird that they had to lock all the doors to stop people leaving for the evil West though.

[dorlomin]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62750584

Quote

 

The chairman of Russia's Lukoil oil giant, Ravil Maganov, has died after falling from a hospital window in Moscow, reports say.

Maganov, 67, was being treated at the city's Central Clinical Hospital and died from his injuries, sources told Russian media.

He is the latest of a number of high-profile business executives to die in mysterious circumstances.

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Lukoil called for the war to end.

Early in March, the Lukoil board called for the conflict in Ukraine to end as soon as possible, expressing its sympathy to victims of "this tragedy".

Ravil Maganov took over as chairman of Lukoil's board two years ago. He began working for the private oil company in 1993.

In May a former senior manager at Lukoil, Alexander Subbotin, reportedly died also under unusual circumstances.

 

 

[vikingTON]

33 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Weird that they had to lock all the doors to stop people leaving for the evil West though.

1 million Bulgarians have left their country since 1991, and its population is expected to shrink by a further 2 million by 2050 within the EU.

Lithuania's population has dropped by 23% since Soviet rule ended and it gained independence.

Latvia has lost one-fifth of its population since EU accession in 2004.

But please tell us more about how Soviet political repression was responsible for people wanting to live in western Germany and run around Munich in a Merc all day. 

[vikingTON]

Fun bonus point: If it weren't for Western Europe's own locked door policy on migrants coming from Ukraine, then there'd have been several million fewer inhabitants living there by the time of the Russian invasion. 

A large portion of the refugee population won't be returning even if Ukraine retakes its 2014 borders and becomes a shining model of democracy. They're fine living in western Europe now thank you very much. 

[welshbairn]

4 minutes ago, virginton said:

1 million Bulgarians have left their country since 1991, and its population is expected to shrink by a further 2 million by 2050 within the EU.

Lithuania's population has dropped by 23% since Soviet rule ended and it gained independence.

Latvia has lost one-fifth of its population since EU accession in 2004.

But please tell us more about how Soviet political repression was responsible for people wanting to live in western Germany and run around Munich in a Merc all day. 

Polish emigration shot up when they joined the EU, but dropped right back as their economy grew.

[Detournement]

45 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Weird that they had to lock all the doors to stop people leaving for the evil West though.

There are people that are queuing up on the Mexican border to get into the USA who will end up as agricultural slaves. 

Migration is a mirror image of economic inequality. People want to live in the West to benefit from the wealth stolen from the global south. 

[Detournement]

This is from a big Ukranian channel. Who could be devising these suicidal tactics with no regard for Ukranian life?

It was never in doubt.