Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Elder Millennial]

Not really following the rest of your conversation but you realise that Russians are still vacationing in Crimea, yes? And that aside from the Kerch bridge (which has a workaround installed for the road section and unaffected train connection) there are ferries in addition to the emergency use of the currently military-onky Zaporizhye land-corridor?

And that's before considering that the Azov sea (+connected rivers) and the Black Sea itself have been used to supply the peninsula, as Turkey is not too keen on losing Russia as leverage in its dealings with the rest of NATO.

So chances of actually denying Crimea in practice approach zero, at worst you can make them thirsty because that dam Ukraine blew up supplied Crimea with easy water. But they've managed to deal with that for the eight years preceding the war as well.

That's mostly the case because frankly the frontline is still too far from Crimea for Ukraine to actually start hitting it without using up their very very limited supply of long range cruise missiles. But if they make it up to Melitopol and the coast, which is clearly their mid term objective, they'll be in range to start hitting Crimea with a wider range of weapons, hit shipping in the Sea of Azov with coastal batteries etc.

But as I have said, Ukraine does not and probably will not have the aerial and seaborne assets required to militarily threaten Crimea. But it will be able to make life on Crimea a lot harder for the nearly 2 million people living there, which could ultimately lead to a mass exodus or possibly simply mandatory evacuations.

The Russians are not above mandatory evacuations like that, we've already seen them doing it in Belgorod over a month ago and we know that most civilians still haven't been allowed to return home. Tho this possibly has more to do with the Russians doing "counter insurgency" tactics... as they aim to remove civilians from the area to prevent Russian Ukrainian Volunteers from hiding among the civilian population.

[loras]

"According to the hotel booking website Ostrovok.ru., Crimea accounts for just 1 percent of 2023 summer bookings by Russian tourists, down from 19 percent in 2021, the summer prior to Russia’s invasion. Crimea accounted for 3 percent of bookings last year. "

I mean... lets not make it sound as if people go there like nothing happened or whatever....

But I don't think anyone has to fear not having something to eat or something.

but:

"Yevgeny , the owner of an apartment in the village of Kurortnoye in eastern Crimea, also confirms a sharp drop in tourism, which he pins on difficulty reaching the peninsula.

“Not everyone wants to use up several days of vacation on the road,” he said."

Not really sure what you think a single booking site would say, more referring to the traffic jam from hell on the Kerch bridge at the start of vacation season (and those that naturally left again after they realised war does not recognise borders and claims).

The attempt to twist it into stuff purely about the war was pretty funny too: https://businessinsider.mx/russia-mi...bridge-2023-7/

No that's definitely an advantage they have over us: Since the SU ended they aren't stupid enough to gobble up what their government says without question anymore. None would be stupid enough to go there because old man Put-Put requested it, rather they do so because it has been a popular vacation destination since at least the times of the russian empire.

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That's mostly the case because frankly the frontline is still too far from Crimea for Ukraine to actually start hitting it without using up their very very limited supply of long range cruise missiles. But if they make it up to Melitopol and the coast, which is clearly their mid term objective, they'll be in range to start hitting Crimea with a wider range of weapons, hit shipping in the Sea of Azov with coastal batteries etc.

But as I have said, Ukraine does not and probably will not have the aerial and seaborne assets required to militarily threaten Crimea. But it will be able to make life on Crimea a lot harder for the nearly 2 million people living there, which could ultimately lead to a mass exodus or possibly simply mandatory evacuations.

The Russians are not above mandatory evacuations like that, we've already seen them doing it in Belgorod over a month ago and we know that most civilians still haven't been allowed to return home. Tho this possibly has more to do with the Russians doing "counter insurgency" tactics... as they aim to remove civilians from the area to prevent Russian Ukrainian Volunteers from hiding among the civilian population.

Very fair, at that point it starts to come in range though one could question the wisdom of setting oneself up to be surrounded like that shoukd the tide turn yet again. That didn't work out so well for Mariupol i recall.

Maybe, i don't think we have enough munitions to allow them to waste it on terror tactics (considered calling them "siege" tactics but that requires a credible military goal for the tactic).
I mean Biden already cited ammo shortage as a reason to send cluster munitions instead, which doesn't necessarily mean others are running out as well but which does serve to remind us that supplies are very much finite.

They also evacuated Cherson and pillaged the city before abandoning it, so yeah plenty of examples. Dunno about the counterinsurgency stuff but could be right; the first, more succesful attack on the Kerch bridge was via car bomb after all.
And Belgorod too had been targetted by sabotage for months.

[Mekh]

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Right, good way to get rid of large amounts of Ukrainians then. Not sure if i approve.

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Georgia reopened air travel with Russia. ^^'

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I see neither tears nor loss, though should Russia manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory i will still not give damn.

Issue is however that they are currently holding on to pretty much all of their war goals (Crimea+supporting lands, donetsk, luhansk) have destroyed roughly all of Ukraine's war industries and are effectively blocking NATO accession with this war.
And then there is the mildly embarassing disconnect in suffered casualties in which we need multiple high level government leaks to confirm what everybody already knows: That the Ukrainians are getting slaughtered in droves out there.
Hell one of our western outlets (cba to look it up right now) recently worded it hilariously euphemistic as "Ukrainian morale remains high but fatalistic" concerning the ongoing charges into minefields.

But war is war and tides tend to change repeatedly; maybe this latest push of theirs does not end in failure.
Either way is fine with me, i would just prefer we get our heads out of that particular ass before we suffocate economically.

- - - Updated - - -



Not really following the rest of your conversation but you realise that Russians are still vacationing in Crimea, yes? And that aside from the Kerch bridge (which has a workaround installed for the road section and unaffected train connection) there are ferries in addition to the emergency use of the currently military-onky Zaporizhye land-corridor?

And that's before considering that the Azov sea (+connected rivers) and the Black Sea itself have been used to supply the peninsula, as Turkey is not too keen on losing Russia as leverage in its dealings with the rest of NATO.

So chances of actually denying Crimea in practice approach zero, at worst you can make them thirsty because that dam Ukraine blew up supplied Crimea with easy water. But they've managed to deal with that for the eight years preceding the war as well.

Oh good we haven't had a retard of Shalcker-levels in a while on this thread.

"Russia has reached its goal of barely holding the peninsula they already held before the war, just with less water and NATO has been reigned in by expanding it to Finland and Sweden."

[loras]

Oh good we haven't had a retard of Shalcker-levels in a while on this thread.

"Russia has reached its goal of barely holding the peninsula they already held before the war, just with less water and NATO has been reigned in by expanding it to Finland and Sweden."

No idea who that is, but since you insist:

- One of the two has effectively been fully rid of Ukrainians, the other (with Bakhmut) has been conquered for the most part (though the Ukrainians are currently hopeful regarding the reconquest of "totally not llost" Bakhmut
- The water was restored for a time thanks to the invasion & conquest of Cherson and Zaporizhye, until the dam was blown up
- Sweden and Finland were effectively already in NATO thanks to their EU association, joining formally amounts to little more than a denunciation and...
- ...the drama involved with them actually joining has put a bit of a dent in the illusions of unity

The final resolution of the conquest is anybody's guess, but at present it looks like the Ukrainians need a miracle after their first attempt at a counteroffensive reminded of "Faramir's Sacrifice" in LotR (keeping in line with their own propaganda guidelines).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N3qrhhMCJlI

Perhaps this new push of theirs will be that miracle, but during the last attempt their overt optimism peaked whenever reliable reports were far away and waned when someone actually took stock.

[Mekh]

No idea who that is, but since you insist:

- One of the two has effectively been fully rid of Ukrainians, the other (with Bakhmut) has been conquered for the most part (though the Ukrainians are currently hopeful regarding the reconquest of "totally not llost" Bakhmut
- The water was restored for a time thanks to the invasion & conquest of Cherson and Zaporizhye, until the dam was blown up
- Sweden and Finland were effectively already in NATO thanks to their EU association, joining formally amounts to little more than a denunciation and...
- ...the drama involved with them actually joining has put a bit of a dent in the illusions of unity

The final resolution of the conquest is anybody's guess, but at present it looks like the Ukrainians need a miracle after their first attempt at a counteroffensive reminded of "Faramir's Sacrifice" in LotR (keeping in line with their own propaganda guidelines).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N3qrhhMCJlI

Perhaps this new push of theirs will be that miracle, but during the last attempt their overt optimism peaked whenever reliable reports were far away and waned when someone actually took stock.

See? Hilarious. We're gonna have fun.

[Jastall]

No idea who that is, but since you insist:

- One of the two has effectively been fully rid of Ukrainians, the other (with Bakhmut) has been conquered for the most part (though the Ukrainians are currently hopeful regarding the reconquest of "totally not llost" Bakhmut
- The water was restored for a time thanks to the invasion & conquest of Cherson and Zaporizhye, until the dam was blown up
- Sweden and Finland were effectively already in NATO thanks to their EU association, joining formally amounts to little more than a denunciation and...
- ...the drama involved with them actually joining has put a bit of a dent in the illusions of unity

The final resolution of the conquest is anybody's guess, but at present it looks like the Ukrainians need a miracle after their first attempt at a counteroffensive reminded of "Faramir's Sacrifice" in LotR (keeping in line with their own propaganda guidelines).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N3qrhhMCJlI

Perhaps this new push of theirs will be that miracle, but during the last attempt their overt optimism peaked whenever reliable reports were far away and waned when someone actually took stock.

Donbass is the only thing Russia has actually gained in this war, for now, but its leadership is particularly dumb if they think the current significant loss of personnel, materiel, international standing and economic opportunities is worth it alone. Their overall wargoal definitely wasn't to hold on to Crimea and to take the quarter of Ukraine that's been in proto civil war for 10 years and counting. You don't mobilize like they did for that alone.

Restored for a time, now it's not restored. Oopsie.

And what illusion of unity lol. Everyone knows Turkey is out of Turkey. This is the usual performative bargaining from Erdogan that everybody expected. If you want to talk about loss of unity, we may perhaps start with a country's premier hired warlord stopping just short of staging a barely opposed coup.

[Gabriel]

No idea who that is, but since you insist:

- One of the two has effectively been fully rid of Ukrainians, the other (with Bakhmut) has been conquered for the most part (though the Ukrainians are currently hopeful regarding the reconquest of "totally not llost" Bakhmut
- The water was restored for a time thanks to the invasion & conquest of Cherson and Zaporizhye, until the dam was blown up
- Sweden and Finland were effectively already in NATO thanks to their EU association, joining formally amounts to little more than a denunciation and...
- ...the drama involved with them actually joining has put a bit of a dent in the illusions of unity

The final resolution of the conquest is anybody's guess, but at present it looks like the Ukrainians need a miracle after their first attempt at a counteroffensive reminded of "Faramir's Sacrifice" in LotR (keeping in line with their own propaganda guidelines).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N3qrhhMCJlI

Perhaps this new push of theirs will be that miracle, but during the last attempt their overt optimism peaked whenever reliable reports were far away and waned when someone actually took stock.

Lmao no we weren't. If Russia didn't invade Ukraine, we would never have joined.

[Iphie]

Lmao no we weren't. If Russia didn't invade Ukraine, we would never have joined.

Well, we would have gotten a lot more support from the EU and as a result NATO since a lot of EU countries are also NATO countries. Simply put we had allies who we could rely upon to get off their asses the moment russia looked funny towards us, something Ukraine had not.

[loras]

Donbass is the only thing Russia has actually gained in this war, for now, but its leadership is particularly dumb if they think the current significant loss of personnel, materiel, international standing and economic opportunities is worth it alone. Their overall wargoal definitely wasn't to hold on to Crimea and to take the quarter of Ukraine that's been in proto civil war for 10 years and counting. You don't mobilize like they did for that alone.

Restored for a time, now it's not restored. Oopsie.

And what illusion of unity lol. Everyone knows Turkey is out of Turkey. This is the usual performative bargaining from Erdogan that everybody expected. If you want to talk about loss of unity, we may perhaps start with a country's premier hired warlord stopping just short of staging a barely opposed coup.

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International standing hasn't exactly suffered, only standing with "the west" plus dependancies (Korea, Japan). Hell even Israel has refrained from fouling its hands with this conflict. If anything it has served to show that the "western world" is a rather small and delusional bubble, not exactly a loss for Russia.

Between 3 and 4 million refugees fleeing to Russia more than makes up for even the wildest Ukrainian dreams in terms of casualties inflicted.

Material likewise is less of an issue for them than for us since they have the materials, the energy and the men to manage production. We may have ideas and some (rather disappointing) tech but frankly its value is rather diminished in warfare scenarios.

Economic opportunities lost are indeed great and dire, but as Europe (and the west at large) is pivoting away from Ukraine in various senses i think even you know in your heart that this hurts us no less than them.

You do mobilise like that for drawing out your enemies into unfavourable battles in order to weaken them:
"If the tiger ever stands still, the elephant will crush him with his mighty tusks. But the tiger will not stand still. He will leap upon the back of the elephant, tearing huge chunks from his side, and then he will leap back into the dark jungle. And slowly the elephant will bleed to death.". It has worked against us in Afghanistan, Vietnam and arguably even Syria partially. He's trying the same here.
And while i cannot accurately estimate their costs in this i can see those on our side are magnitudes greater than propaganda allows to admit.

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Out of the past ~10 years they had ~1,5 years of easy water, all of that was due to the invasion.
That the Ukrainians went "Well if we can't have it then neither can they!" by blowing the dam and sweeping away Russian defenses leads me to believe that on some level they already know they will not retake that land in the long run; not their mess to clean up.

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Oh you mean that bit of "theatre" lasting less than a day?
Just recently Prigozhjin was spotted in St. Petersburg with some african leaders.
Even France's riots were more significant, and certainly were accompanied by more impressive censorship.

[Iphie]

Out of the past ~10 years they had ~1,5 years of easy water, all of that was due to the invasion.
That the Ukrainians went "Well if we can't have it then neither can they!" by blowing the dam and sweeping away Russian defenses leads me to believe that on some level they already know they will not retake that land in the long run; not their mess to clean up.
.

Are you seriously claiming that Ukraine blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam? Get back under your bridge kremlin creature.

[Gabriel]

Well, we would have gotten a lot more support from the EU and as a result NATO since a lot of EU countries are also NATO countries. Simply put we had allies who we could rely upon to get off their asses the moment russia looked funny towards us, something Ukraine had not.

Honestly, I don't trust EU on its own would have been worth a damn in case Russia tried to invade us.

[Elder Millennial]

Very fair, at that point it starts to come in range though one could question the wisdom of setting oneself up to be surrounded like that shoukd the tide turn yet again. That didn't work out so well for Mariupol i recall.

Maybe, i don't think we have enough munitions to allow them to waste it on terror tactics (considered calling them "siege" tactics but that requires a credible military goal for the tactic).
I mean Biden already cited ammo shortage as a reason to send cluster munitions instead, which doesn't necessarily mean others are running out as well but which does serve to remind us that supplies are very much finite.

They also evacuated Cherson and pillaged the city before abandoning it, so yeah plenty of examples. Dunno about the counterinsurgency stuff but could be right; the first, more succesful attack on the Kerch bridge was via car bomb after all.
And Belgorod too had been targetted by sabotage for months.

I'm only going to address this bit.

The cluster munitions being provided to Ukraine are a stop gap measure. The ammo shortage is real, but both the US and the EU have been allocating long term funding to the ramping up of production. This takes time. While output has already increased, the investments probably won't go into full swing until next year spring.

NATO has a real problem with neglecting ammo production, but at the same time it's worth mentioning that while Russia and Ukraine are both primarily artillery armies (both being offshots of the Soviet model) NATO has been primarily an air force "force" at least since the 1960s. It true that NATO also learned some hard lessons from this war (don't underestimate the sheer staying power and simplicity and value of artillery in a conventional war) and will likely revitalize its own artillery capabilities.

But NATO remains at its core air power reliant. Which is where the provision of F16s becomes so important. It's not because the F16 is some magic warmachine, but because it's a weapons platform that will allow NATO to supply Ukraine with any of its gazillion different types of NATO standard airborne munitions, air to air, air to surface, air to ship, anti-submarine, cruise missiles, bunker busters and fuck knows what else about half a dozen NATO manufacturers have been stockpiling and making since the 1970s (F16s can fire essentially anything made in the last about 60 years).

With ramped up munitions productions, new systems like the GLSDB, which really only starting to enter production now, all the stuff you can fire from an F16, if the Ukrainians make it to the coast, Crimea is in for a bad time.

And regarding the morality of this "siege" as you put it, attacking enemy shipping and transportation supplying an occupation of what is essentially Ukrainian territory is not "terror tactics" under any definition of "terror tactics" outside of what Moscow defines as "terror tactics" which is essentially any form of armed or even political resistance to its invasion.

[Wilian]

Oh good we haven't had a retard of Shalcker-levels in a while on this thread.

"Russia has reached its goal of barely holding the peninsula they already held before the war, just with less water and NATO has been reigned in by expanding it to Finland and Sweden."

I hope I am mistaken here of your meaning but the war started with conquest of Crimea and occupation of eastern areas in Ukraine. This latest escalation of invasion that started in February 2022 was not the start of war. War started in 2014 when Russia begun their proxy operations, invaded Ukraine and unlawfully claimed annexation of Ukrainian land.

[Jastall]

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International standing hasn't exactly suffered, only standing with "the west" plus dependancies (Korea, Japan). Hell even Israel has refrained from fouling its hands with this conflict. If anything it has served to show that the "western world" is a rather small and delusional bubble, not exactly a loss for Russia.

Between 3 and 4 million refugees fleeing to Russia more than makes up for even the wildest Ukrainian dreams in terms of casualties inflicted.

Material likewise is less of an issue for them than for us since they have the materials, the energy and the men to manage production. We may have ideas and some (rather disappointing) tech but frankly its value is rather diminished in warfare scenarios.

Economic opportunities lost are indeed great and dire, but as Europe (and the west at large) is pivoting away from Ukraine in various senses i think even you know in your heart that this hurts us no less than them.

You do mobilise like that for drawing out your enemies into unfavourable battles in order to weaken them:
"If the tiger ever stands still, the elephant will crush him with his mighty tusks. But the tiger will not stand still. He will leap upon the back of the elephant, tearing huge chunks from his side, and then he will leap back into the dark jungle. And slowly the elephant will bleed to death.". It has worked against us in Afghanistan, Vietnam and arguably even Syria partially. He's trying the same here.
And while i cannot accurately estimate their costs in this i can see those on our side are magnitudes greater than propaganda allows to admit.

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Out of the past ~10 years they had ~1,5 years of easy water, all of that was due to the invasion.
That the Ukrainians went "Well if we can't have it then neither can they!" by blowing the dam and sweeping away Russian defenses leads me to believe that on some level they already know they will not retake that land in the long run; not their mess to clean up.

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Oh you mean that bit of "theatre" lasting less than a day?
Just recently Prigozhjin was spotted in St. Petersburg with some african leaders.
Even France's riots were more significant, and certainly were accompanied by more impressive censorship.

Only the West? Why is it that China hardly speaks of the invasion for fear of Western sanctions, while also gobbling up Russia's traditional vassals in Central Asia? And it's not like the West is unimportant as well considering Russia's previous economic ties.

Penniless refugees aren't exactly the ideal in terms of population you want in your country in the first place, If casualties mean nothing why is it that Russia has raised the age of conscription? For fun?

Pivoting away from Ukraine how? Arms deliveries aren't significantly slowing down, nor will they anytime soon, and economically the West is in a very significantly better shape than Russia. Aid to Ukraine is a rounding error in America's military budget and hasn't affected our economies to any sort of quantifiable degree. Losing easy access to Russian gas hurt some countries in Europe a bit but not enough to be significant either, and it's nowhere near as bad as Russian propaganda claiming Germans would freeze to death all winter long somehow.

Ukraine blowing up the dam is right back into crazyland. What evidence have you of this?

And if it was only theatre, do explain what was the point exactly. What sort of 5D chess is Putin playing, or are you also going to just say "propaganda" while washing your hands off the subject?


Like in the other thread, you're dead-set on trying to appear like an enlightened non-partisan but treat everything that favors the West as lies and propaganda while treating everything that favors Russia as a straight fact. It's impossible to take seriously. Next you're going to quote Chomsky at me or something.

[KrayZ33]

Not really sure what you think a single booking site would say, more referring to the traffic jam from hell on the Kerch bridge at the start of vacation season (and those that naturally left again after they realised war does not recognise borders and claims).

I don't know why you think it's just about a single booking site.
The Russian goverment literally gives away money if hotels and resorts will keep their staff hired and won't let them go, because many hotels remain empty and are 10% booked instead of 80+% - for 2 years now.
And that's with price reductions such as 50% discounts.

Obviously, that's a given since there is a freaking war going on and you can hear explosions on there from time to time.
All I'm saying is that Crimea is no longer a location for vacation for most people.

Out of the past ~10 years they had ~1,5 years of easy water, all of that was due to the invasion.
That the Ukrainians went "Well if we can't have it then neither can they!" by blowing the dam and sweeping away Russian defenses leads me to believe that on some level they already know they will not retake that land in the long run; not their mess to clean up.

Yeah... no. It was most likely Russia. Ukraine was about to counterattack and that made everything just more difficult for Ukraine.

[Huehuecoyotl]

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International standing hasn't exactly suffered, only standing with "the west" plus dependancies (Korea, Japan). Hell even Israel has refrained from fouling its hands with this conflict. If anything it has served to show that the "western world" is a rather small and delusional bubble, not exactly a loss for Russia.

Between 3 and 4 million refugees fleeing to Russia more than makes up for even the wildest Ukrainian dreams in terms of casualties inflicted.

Material likewise is less of an issue for them than for us since they have the materials, the energy and the men to manage production. We may have ideas and some (rather disappointing) tech but frankly its value is rather diminished in warfare scenarios.

Economic opportunities lost are indeed great and dire, but as Europe (and the west at large) is pivoting away from Ukraine in various senses i think even you know in your heart that this hurts us no less than them.

You do mobilise like that for drawing out your enemies into unfavourable battles in order to weaken them:
"If the tiger ever stands still, the elephant will crush him with his mighty tusks. But the tiger will not stand still. He will leap upon the back of the elephant, tearing huge chunks from his side, and then he will leap back into the dark jungle. And slowly the elephant will bleed to death.". It has worked against us in Afghanistan, Vietnam and arguably even Syria partially. He's trying the same here.
And while i cannot accurately estimate their costs in this i can see those on our side are magnitudes greater than propaganda allows to admit.

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Out of the past ~10 years they had ~1,5 years of easy water, all of that was due to the invasion.
That the Ukrainians went "Well if we can't have it then neither can they!" by blowing the dam and sweeping away Russian defenses leads me to believe that on some level they already know they will not retake that land in the long run; not their mess to clean up.

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Oh you mean that bit of "theatre" lasting less than a day?
Just recently Prigozhjin was spotted in St. Petersburg with some african leaders.
Even France's riots were more significant, and certainly were accompanied by more impressive censorship.

Is this satire? Because nobody could actually believe this and still retain the capacity to work something as complicated as a keyboard.

[Mekh]

I hope I am mistaken here of your meaning but the war started with conquest of Crimea and occupation of eastern areas in Ukraine. This latest escalation of invasion that started in February 2022 was not the start of war. War started in 2014 when Russia begun their proxy operations, invaded Ukraine and unlawfully claimed annexation of Ukrainian land.

You are of course correct but I didn't feel like having a discussion with this idiot about when the official beginning of the war was, considering he's probably also a defender of the Little Green Men claim.

[Wilian]

You are of course correct but I didn't feel like having a discussion with this idiot about when the official beginning of the war was, considering he's probably also a defender of the Little Green Men claim.

This is acceptable!

[Gaidax]

Only a complete Vatnik can claim something like "international standing hasn't exactly suffered" as far as Russia goes. The latest Russia-Africa summit quite plainly dismisses that claim with its attendance.

Now, Russia still has quite a deal of influence in the World whether by coercion, or thanks to its vast natural resource and it's not as isolated as some claim, but it has quite clearly either directly or indirectly damaged its relationships with much of the world and put itself into an inferior position of dependence on China and Iran (for goodness' sake - Soviet leaders spin in their graves, that is an unthinkable humiliation for Soviet legacy).

He brought Israel as some sort of example, and it is true that we do our best to not stick our noses into this one. But when just even a few years ago there could have been a possibility of a state visit of our PM in Moscow, now it's pretty much unthinkable and the best Russia can hope for is that we won't directly supply Ukraine with military equipment.

[Belize]

- The water was restored for a time thanks to the invasion & conquest of Cherson and Zaporizhye, until the dam was blown up

So. They don't have water.