Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Corvus]

The amount of money the US has sent to Ukraine is a rounding error for them.

[Gaidax]

The amount of money the US has sent to Ukraine is a rounding error for them.

This does not matter. What does matter is perception and the noise is already starting, especially given the inflation and energy crisis.

US midterm elections coming when? November? Imagine US lawmakers approving another $40b a month before - yup, not gonna happen.

[Corvus]

Beating the Russkies is one of the few things that unified both sides of US politics.

And it is easy to point out that inflation is caused by Russia's attack, so a few dollars spent beating them will help.

Besides, the US is rich enough to support Ukraine with a few dollars and support its populace.

- - - Updated - - -

Reports are coming in that the Ukrainians have kicked off something near Kherson and have driven the Russians back there.

[Kaleredar]

This does not matter. What does matter is perception and the noise is already starting, especially given the inflation and energy crisis.

US midterm elections coming when? November? Imagine US lawmakers approving another $40b a month before - yup, not gonna happen.

The US population is in pretty staunch support of Ukraine. Most criticism of Biden on the situation is that he's not doing enough to aide Ukraine, not that the US is doing too much or shouldn't be helping.

US media has been demonizing Russians in one way or another for a good... oh, 70 years now. A few Putin lap dogs like Trump and Cucker aren't going to change that perception in just a few years. Russia lost the messaging part of the war the moment they invaded, and have never been able to come back on it.

If the war has a negative impact on Biden/the democrats it'll be in ways in which the GOP try and not connect it to the war... i.e, they'll complain that Biden is causing rising fuel prices or causing inflation or stock market unrest because "he's a democrat and his liberal policies are failing," and certainly not "because he's involved us in a conflict with Ukraine by supporting them and has caused supply chain issues by levying sanctions against Russia." That latter point is far too nuanced and invites far more discussion than the GOP wants their audience thinking about. So they'll stick to the age-old "if something is going wrong under a democrat president, it's because they're a democrat and Jesus hates them."

The US funded its wars in the middle east for decades, and that involved sending in actual US service men and women who took the risk of dying to fight a nebulous foe with nebulous goals. But the US' involvement in Ukraine? Literally just handing equipment off to Ukraine for them to blow up the invading Russians. A much easier sell.

[Corvus]

Kremlin insiders are reportedly saying there are plans for a second offensive against Kyiv and that they expect full victory before the end of the year because they will grind Ukraine and the West down and that Europe will tire of supporting Ukraine and come crawling to Russia for consessions.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05...own-in-the-end

[Kaleredar]

Kremlin insiders are reportedly saying there are plans for a second offensive against Kyiv and that they expect full victory before the end of the year because they will grind Ukraine and the West down and that Europe will tire of supporting Ukraine and come crawling to Russia for consessions.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05...own-in-the-end

That sounds shockingly like their initial plan for Ukraine.

[Iphie]

Kremlin insiders are reportedly saying there are plans for a second offensive against Kyiv and that they expect full victory before the end of the year because they will grind Ukraine and the West down and that Europe will tire of supporting Ukraine and come crawling to Russia for consessions.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05...own-in-the-end

To be fair 4 days ago Meduza reported that the Kremlin was very pessimistic about the war, so I'd take it with a little caution, either way.

[Corvus]

To be fair 4 days ago Meduza reported that the Kremlin was very pessimistic about the war, so I'd take it with a little caution, either way.

There probably are elements in the Kremlin that are pessimistic but as long as Putin and his sycophants are in charge it matters little, and the recent minor success in the Donbas seems to have encouraged them.

[zealo]

It is almost a sure scenario, unless some sort of miracle happens.

I simply don't see it any other way, because realistically Ukraine is not geared to push Russia out of Donbas, let alone Crimea.

I also wonder how long financial and military support for Ukraine will last - will US really be able to afford or more importantly explain to its citizens another few dozen billions USD package for Ukraine once the current runs out at around October? That especially given what looks like a start of global economy downturn. And right before US midterm elections happen?

Same goes for EU, which will be further saddled with complicated realities of energy dependency that won't really go anywhere upcoming winter.

--

In short Russia is fucked, but I don't think Ukraine is in much better position either. They both will dig in and do their war of attrition because they have no capacity to kick each other out and not enough logistics and money to do so.

Overall - the time will still work for Ukraine, because I do believe Putin has 2 years left max before he's out of the picture and then maybe successor will decide to cut their losses and pretend it was all "that guy there".

I can guarantee you the US military industrial complex will not get tired of lobbying the US government for continuing to send aid to Ukraine by October.

The likes of Raytheon were wanking furiously when they heard the term lend-lease get used by the US government.

[Kante]

I think that's an overly rosy outlook there.

What will happen is that Russia will take most of Donbas, dig in and then it will be a long war of attrition until there will be some sort of political breakthrough.

The initial Russian idiocy has ended and they have concentrated now on getting what they actually can and they absolutely can take Donbas as it is now.

On Ukrainian end, the weapon shipments that matter will take another month the least to arrive and be deployed - then it remains to be seen if Ukraine can actually push Russians out of positions they have taken. Both Kherson and Mariupol, aren't going to just fall over and it will be city battles with huge losses there both military and civilians. And it's not even Donbas.

Assuming Ukrainian counterattack happens in July, as I see it - absolutely best case scenario would be liberation of Kherson and maybe some smaller parts of Donbas, but that's about it.

Then it will turn into a huge war of attrition that can last almost indefinitely until Russia will be forced to withdraw and who knows when that will come. Maybe it will happen once Putin croaks or is deposed in a year or two and maybe not even then - depending on who be the successor.

The last thing the Russians want is Ukrainian retake of the North Crimean canal that started funneling water into Crimea in the early stages of the war after the dam was destroyed by Russian troops, despite Russian claims of overcoming the shortages since the capture of Crimea, the cultivation areas dropped massively due to shortages of water, they will most likely go all out to prevent a large chunk of territory to remain without sufficient water supply, AGAIN.

[KrayZ33]

According to a german article I've seen earlier, Russia attacks farms, farmers and their equipment specificially. They also steal them and send them to Russia.
The pictures seem to confirm that story. Their "harvest" are bombs and rockets this year.
Great... if it wasn't obvious already with the demand to lift sanctions for grain, Russia tries to weaponize hunger now. Despicable...

I've seen the satellite images of them stealing crops/grain but this is even worse since it shows that they consider these farms that are like 20 miles away from any frontline as worthwhile targets.

[Iphie]

Zelenskiy: no military solution in Crimea, other lost territory

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has expanded - a little - on his earlier assertion that Donbas would remain in the country’s hands, despite the furious onslaught by Russia’s military forces in the region.

Tonight, he said that he didn’t believe all the land seized by Russia since 2014, which includes Crimea, could be recaptured militarily.

In a television address late Saturday, Reuters reported, Zelenskiy thanked Ukraine’s forces for holding out in Donbas, and repeated his belief that Moscow would come to the negotiating table if his country seized back all the land taken by Russia since its 24 February invasion.

But he ruled out going further and attempting to retake Crimea and other territory lost since the Russian invasion there in 2014 by force:

I do not believe that we can restore all of our territory by military means. If we decide to go that way, we will lose hundreds of thousands of people.

Zelenskiy acknowledged that the situation in Donbas, where Russia has claimed to have taken control of the strategically important town of Lyman and encircled Sievierodonetsk, was challenging:

It’s indescribably difficult there. And I am grateful to all those who withstood this onslaught.

The Ukraine president added that he expected “good news” on weapons supplies next week, but did not give further details."

I found this on one of those live blogs from the Guardian.

Seems that the Ukrainian goals are: Kick out russia as much as possible, try to negotiate Crimea and the rest at some point in the future, and he seems to allude to enormous, and unacceptable, escalation if the Ukrainians try to reach their goals militarily.

[Gabriel]

According to a german article I've seen earlier, Russia attacks farms, farmers and their equipment specificially. They also steal them and send them to Russia.
The pictures seem to confirm that story. Their "harvest" are bombs and rockets this year.
Great... if it wasn't obvious already with the demand to lift sanctions for grain, Russia tries to weaponize hunger now. Despicable...

I've seen the satellite images of them stealing crops/grain but this is even worse since it shows that they consider these farms that are like 20 miles away from any frontline as worthwhile targets.

Well it isn't the first time russia commits genocide on Ukrainians via weaponized famine.

[Shalcker]

According to a german article I've seen earlier, Russia attacks farms, farmers and their equipment specificially. They also steal them and send them to Russia.
The pictures seem to confirm that story. Their "harvest" are bombs and rockets this year.
Great... if it wasn't obvious already with the demand to lift sanctions for grain, Russia tries to weaponize hunger now. Despicable...

I've seen the satellite images of them stealing crops/grain but this is even worse since it shows that they consider these farms that are like 20 miles away from any frontline as worthwhile targets.

There also was feel-good story earlier in the war about John Deere equipment that was taken from Ukrainian dealership and ended up in Chechnya being remotely disabled... or maybe you're talking about same thing? That probably didn't do much in the end as circumvention of this particular American tech is well-known.

Farms seem to be working just fine in occupied areas around Kherson and Melitopol; hard to see how Russia would impact areas where they never were around too.

[PhaelixWW]

TheGuardian: Russia given up on Kyiv but diplomat insists it was never a target

Kelin says that Russia has given up on Kyiv in response to Myrie’s question, “yes, I think,” he says.

He adds that none of Russia’s leaders, including Vladimir Putin have ever said they wanted to seize Kyiv.

“I don’t believe it is possible to seize Kyiv or occupy Kyiv, it is a big big city.”

Myrie asks why troops were in the region near the capital if they never had any intention of occupying or taking it, saying he saw them himself.

“We did have troops, but not for the seizure of Kyiv. I’m not a military person, I am not a diplomat, but even I understand that if you want to do things on one front, you have to do different things on another.

“We didn’t have a goal of seizing Kyiv at the initial stage. I don’t believe that’s a possibility.”

So, uh... those Russian troops were in northern Ukraine, near Kyiv... not to actually capture Kyiv, but to... "do different things"?

Seems like Russia is suggesting that the war crimes were the actual point of the northern push. And I guess that 40km convoy stuck in mud was just a huge distraction, huh?

[Gaidax]

Kremlin insiders are reportedly saying there are plans for a second offensive against Kyiv and that they expect full victory before the end of the year because they will grind Ukraine and the West down and that Europe will tire of supporting Ukraine and come crawling to Russia for consessions.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05...own-in-the-end

That's not going to be happening - the most Russia can take and hold is Donbas and Mariupol. And I have doubts they would be able to hold Kherson for long too.

[PhaelixWW]

Haha, right on cue:

TheGuardian: Claims of war crimes in Bucha a 'fabrication', says Russian ambassador to UK

On to Bucha, the town near Kyiv, where there was evidence Russian forces committed war crimes against civilians. Clive Myrie shows aerial footage roughly two weeks apart showing dead bodies on Bucha’s streets.

“Is this how Russian troops are supposed to conduct this war. It suggests they are committing war crimes,” Myrie says.

Andrei Kelin says that for three days after Russian troops left there was no evidence of any dead bodies. “Can you imagine any professional troops, they will step over dead bodies and just leave them? I cannot believe this, it is unprofessional.”

“In our view, it is a fabrication. It is used to interrupt negotiations. There were, at the beginning of the conflict, we had very good negotiations. The Ukrainians have had a constructive position, and then it changed, someone has used this situation to cut off that negotiation, and there is now a stalemate.”

"No... wait, what? I said we were there to 'do different things'. But, uh... not those things. Definitely not those things. We would never do those things. All those dead Ukrainians in the streets... those mass graves seen by satellite while we were still occupying the area... yeah, we definitely were busy doing other things and that wasn't us. Totes, furreal. You believe us, right?

...

Want to buy some oil?"

[Iphie]

TheGuardian: Russia given up on Kyiv but diplomat insists it was never a target

So, uh... those Russian troops were in northern Ukraine, near Kyiv... not to actually capture Kyiv, but to... "do different things"?

Seems like Russia is suggesting that the war crimes were the actual point of the northern push. And I guess that 40km convoy stuck in mud was just a huge distraction, huh?

There is a, somewhat valid, military argument: Having troops threaten Kyiv, even if you have no intent of capturing it, means that Ukrainian troops are tied up in the defense, which means they can't go anywhere else. Now I'm not saying that was the objective, but that's what he could eb alluding to.

[gondrin]

You know your war is going bad when you have to "recruit" senior citizens to fight for you.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...9f2838975f4b2b

Putin signs law scrapping military age limit in Russia, allowing over-40s to join and fight in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed a law removing an upper age limit on the Russian military, meaning over-40s can now serve.

The law was passed just over three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, amid heavy Russian losses said to be limiting its ability to fight.

The invasion, which Putin and his inner circle expected to be swift and decisive, instead proved protracted and deadly for Russia.

Western officials estimate that some 15,000 Russians have been killed. Ukraine on Saturday claimed to have killed 30,000, while Russia has not given recent figures of its own.

The new law carries no specific upper age limit, allowing anybody of "normal working age" to fight, according to Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

The proposal was passed by Russian lawmakers earlier in the week and Putin's signature means the measure is now a law.

Lawmakers who argued in favor of removing the age limit said it would help recruit specialist troops such as doctors and engineers.

UK intelligence officials recently said Russia's losses have caused serious problems for its invasion, now focused on Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

In one update, they said personnel problems had forced Russia to rely on mercenaries and irregular forces like militants from Chechnya rather than its main army.

In another, they predicted that commanders would rush exhausted troops back into fighting after capturing Mariupol without properly resting or re-equipping them, which is likely to lead to more deaths.

Ukraine has long accepted older fighters into its military. As part of its general mobilization as the invasion began, the country banned all men aged 18 to 60 from leaving in case they were needed to fight.

After weeks of apparent stasis in the attacks on the Donbas, Ukrainian officials have in recent days conceded that Russia is gaining ground.

[Vorkreist]

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/putin-canc...164929127.html

Vladimir Putin has cancer but won't "die tomorrow", a Ukrainian intelligence official has reportedly claimed.

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, told Ukrainian news outlet Pravda that the Russian president has "several illnesses".

He told the outlet: "Yes, we fully confirm this information, that Putin has cancer.

"He has several serious illnesses, one of which is cancer.

Thoughts and prayers for our little hitler.
Its weird to think russians would let someone clearly impaired by severe ilnesses make such catastrophic decisions. They're all completely insane.