Yeah, that's what it looks like to me too. Pretty amazing how bang-on US Intelligence was and continues to be. Continually forewarning of Russia's intentions prepared both a reluctant Ukraine and the wider world in spite of widespread skepticism everywhere that Russia would actually perform a full-on invasion. They sounded like Chicken Little, until everything happened exactly that way.
Biden and the US should be getting a lot more credit for what's going on and the bringing together of NATO and other players in opposition to Russia. Application of US soft power behind the scenes, without the usual Texan or New York idiots making it all about them, will likely turn out to be a huge part of this story when the smoke clears. If the smoke clears.
The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to PostandIn For This Useful Post:
It really baffles me that Putin clearly didn't seem to think the Ukrainians would defend this hard, when the very reason he uses to justify the invasion is their shared heritage: a shared heritage of fighting bloody invasion and subjugation over a millennium, where they almost always fight and die to the last man.
One of the Russian propaganda quotes I read prior to the invasion was that the Ukrainians would never take up arms against the Russians! The cultures are like brothers, they can't fight like this. But if my brother came into my house and started roughing up my wife and kids I would definitely kick the #### out of him...
Last edited by Monahammer; 03-01-2022 at 12:25 PM.
Since I haven’t seen anyone else admit it… when I first saw they were fighting off tanks with “javelins” I was REALLY confused. I mean, I can see that Ukrainians are tough, but the images I imagined were too far fetched.
I dunno. This guy would be pretty dangerous out there too.
“I think you can say, well, Putin’s out of his mind. Yes, maybe so,” said Robertson, 91. “But at the same time, he’s being compelled by God. He went into the Ukraine, but that wasn’t his goal. His goal was to move against Israel, ultimately.”
With 20 plus years of US eff ups around the world largely dealing with the war on terror I'm finding the reports from the defense department quite interesting.
When you piece together US intelligence and defense reports, it paints a picture of a pretty impressive intelligence apparatus, better than anything we've heard about in some time.
I guess approaching 30 plus years post Cold War they are as dialed in with Russia as they ever were.
NATO can probably stop sending equipment there since there is so much semi-useful Russian equipment being abandoned.
I'm Canadian with 100% Ukrainian heritage (and so is my wife). We're both three generations removed from Ukrainian-born ancestors. From the stories I was told by my parents and grandparents, I figured it was only them that did weird things.
After watching the videos and reading reports from Ukraine since the war began I've realized how much of their actions seem to be cultural. I'm not particularly surprised with the Ukrainian one-liners, sayings, steadfastedness, stubborness, humility (and humour) because I've seen witnessed it as long as I can remember.
For some reason I can picture about eight Ukrainian farmers turning all this Russian abandoned equipment into a one massive killing transformer, then breaking it into pieces and each having slightly used farming machinery when there is peace.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to bob-loblaw For This Useful Post:
Since I haven’t seen anyone else admit it… when I first saw they were fighting off tanks with “javelins” I was REALLY confused. I mean, I can see that Ukrainians are tough, but the images I imagined were too far fetched.
Biden and the US should be getting a lot more credit for what's going on and the bringing together of NATO and other players in opposition to Russia. Application of US soft power behind the scenes, without the usual Texan or New York idiots making it all about them, will likely turn out to be a huge part of this story when the smoke clears. If the smoke clears.
You forget though. It doesn’t happen in the first place with the texan counter weight.
You obviously don’t like them. But they serve a purpose and always will.
That better also be acknowledged when the dust settles.
Tiawan is probably wishing there was a texan in power in one of the western democracies. Because they are next.
No one can really be surprised by this. Russian customers don't have currency worth anything to pay for goods anyway.
I'm waiting for Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to start suspending their services to Russians because credit card payments can't be accepted. Google Pay and Apple Pay suspended service in Russia which caused a lot of grief for Moscovites trying to pay for their subway rides.
Comparing North Korea's level of restriction on access to information by its citizens to Russia's isn't even apples to oranges, it's apples to... hamsters? Something that isn't a fruit. They're not even close to the same thing. The government has control over the news networks but it's not like you can't pull up western news in Yekaterinburg if you want to. Seems like a closer analogy would be like if during the Trump years, the only news channels on TV were various versions of Fox News and OANN.
It’s really not, but it’s been a while since I’ve read insufferably pedantic from ya. A lot closer to state controlled media, than what we’re accustomed to in the western world. They have black listed entire domains. More than shaping traffic, and broadcasting their own.
A lot closer to state controlled media, than what we’re accustomed to in the western world. They have black listed entire domains. More than shaping traffic, and broadcasting their own.
It's still completely different from North Korea. It's closer to China - or rather, I suspect Putin's government would like to be comparable China in this arena, but they're not competent or well-organized enough to exert that level of control over informational access.
Information control is one way that Russian people are kept in line, but the reality is that they keep themselves in line for the most part due to the relative stability and sort-of-prosperity available to them under Putin, such that public opinion can in fact turn quite dramatically if the status quo is disrupted (e.g. through severe economic sanctions) and the impact of that public opinion is a real threat to Putin. Xi has considerably less to worry about on that front, and Kim Jong Un has essentially nothing to worry about.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
The Following User Says Thank You to CorsiHockeyLeague For This Useful Post:
It's still completely different from North Korea. It's closer to China - or rather, I suspect Putin's government would like to be comparable China in this arena, but they're not competent or well-organized enough to exert that level of control over informational access.
Information control is one way that Russian people are kept in line, but the reality is that they keep themselves in line for the most part, such that public opinion can in fact turn quite dramatically if the status quo is disrupted (e.g. through severe economic sanctions) and the impact of that public opinion is a real threat to Putin. Xi has considerably less to worry about on that front, and Kim Jong Un has essentially nothing to worry about.
I have been watching France 24s coverage a lot during this crisis and today they had a bit about Stalin nostalgia in Russia and showed examples of new statues and Stalin museums going up. They interviewed some people about what they thought and some of the answers I think demonstrate how it doesn't matter what information is readily available. One lady said she approved of the Stalin statue, and when asked about the bad things Stalin did, her reaction wasn't denial. She said that if you think about the negative things, you will feel negative, so it's better to not think about those things. Another man, whose grandfather was killed by Stalin said that it was OK and put the blame on the local authorities following orders, and not on Stalin. Everybody they asked seems OK with recent images of Stalin being put up in places.
So it wasn't even that they are not aware of the bad things, they just think they are excusable or not worth considering.
Small sample size of course, so I don't know if this means that much, just thought it was interesting.
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 03-01-2022 at 01:47 PM.
It's still completely different from North Korea. It's closer to China - or rather, I suspect Putin's government would like to be comparable China in this arena, but they're not competent or well-organized enough to exert that level of control over informational access.
Information control is one way that Russian people are kept in line, but the reality is that they keep themselves in line for the most part due to the relative stability and sort-of-prosperity available to them under Putin, such that public opinion can in fact turn quite dramatically if the status quo is disrupted (e.g. through severe economic sanctions) and the impact of that public opinion is a real threat to Putin. Xi has considerably less to worry about on that front, and Kim Jong Un has essentially nothing to worry about.
If the reports are true as well, it seems that there are many Russian civilians who are against what's happening and against Putin in general as their leader (though I believe Pointman has pointed out that from his discussions, it might seem that there are more Russians supportive of Putin than not). Compare this with China where the majority of Chinese citizens are very supportive of Xi and are happy with the conditions they live in (supported through the many family members I have there as well as non-Chinese expat friends I have working and living there now for many, many years).
It really baffles me that Putin clearly didn't seem to think the Ukrainians would defend this hard, when the very reason he uses to justify the invasion is their shared heritage: a shared heritage of fighting bloody invasion and subjugation over a millennium, where they almost always fight and die to the last man.
One of the Russian propaganda quotes I read prior to the invasion was that the Ukrainians would never take up arms against the Russians! The cultures are like brothers, they can't fight like this. But if my brother came into my house and started roughing up my wife and kids I would definitely kick the #### out of him...
This is what happens when you surround yourself entirely with sycophants and start to believe your own lies so you can sleep at night.
Putin was enjoying the smell of his own farts too much and went anoxic.
You forget though. It doesn’t happen in the first place with the texan counter weight.
You obviously don’t like them. But they serve a purpose and always will.
That better also be acknowledged when the dust settles.
Tiawan is probably wishing there was a texan in power in one of the western democracies. Because they are next.
You make that statement as fact when it's impossible to know. Unless you are omniscient and we just haven't seen ample proof of it yet.
And acknowledge Bush and Trump for what? Wandering into Iraq for no reason and killing 100's of thousands while simultaneously trashing what little was left of US legitimacy on the global stage? Or systematically undermining nearly every democratic principle and taking a hard right towards authoritarianism in four short years? Like what? Are those the valuable purposes they've served? Bizarre. These are the kinds of purposes the world doesn't need.
Do we have any sort of on the ground reports of how the additional equipment and weapon delivery is going? I can't help but think tactically as weak as the Russian's have been in the eyes of many, we, the global community were late with weapons delivery.
If the massive convoy is about to encircle Kiev than how would the fighters and the military get any sort of reload of supplies? A lot of them I believe are coming from Poland .
If the global community had just made some additional deliveries a few days quicker, than I could see some additional successes. Hopefully I am wrong and the military has what they need for the time being but approaching a week into this, the main forces in key battle ground areas may be running low or exhausted weaponry that can be of assistance. That convoy and taking it out with air support, drones, damaging roads and pathways would be very beneficial right now but the fact that hasn't happened yet may be indicative of what the situation is.
I have been watching France 24s coverage a lot during this crisis and today they had a bit about Stalin nostalgia in Russia and showed examples of new statues and Stalin museums going up in Russia. They interviewed some people about what they thought and some of the answers I think demonstrate how it doesn't matter what information is readily available. One lady said she approved of the Stalin statue, and when asked about the bad things Stalin did, her reaction wasn't denial. She said that if you think about the negative things, you will feel negative, so it's better to not think about those things. Another man, whose grandfather was killed by Stalin said that it was OK and put the blame on the local authorities fallowing orders, and not on Stalin. Everybody they asked seems OK with recent images of Stalin being put up in places.
So it wasn't even that they are not aware of the bad things, they just think they are excusable or not worth considering.
Small sample size of course, so I don't know if this means that much, just thought it was interesting.
I'm curious as to Pointman's perspective on this, how is Stalin taught in schools or as general history? He's pretty comparable to Hitler in my mind, but I doubt that's the case in Russian classes
I'd be interested to know what the level of fuel was in the abandoned vehicles, my best guess is like all of us on a road trip when the gas gets down to almost empty you start looking for a place to bail, it may not have been desertion as the natural desire not to be stuck sitting in a immobile rocket magnet left behind by your mates, it may be they siphoned their gas into fewer vehicles to extend the range
If that's the case its a stunning indictment on how bad Russian logistics are, it's not like they are deep into Ukraine, they are at most just a few hundred km's across the border
A lot closer to state controlled media, than what we’re accustomed to in the western world. They have black listed entire domains. More than shaping traffic, and broadcasting their own.
