Interesting take on the Ukranian conflict

submitted by MuskyIndependent from self.politics

https://twitter.com/ArmchairW/status/1728320020240093686

https://nitter.net/ArmchairW/status/1728320020240093686

With news breaking that the Ukrainians are moving towards a final, total mobilization against Russia - and me regretting I didn't post about it yesterday when I had a hunch on the matter - something occurred to me. I've underestimated the Russians before. What if I still am?⬇️

The Russians, after all, could quite easily attack and seize huge swathes of Ukraine via high-speed maneuver. The Ukrainians have a thousand kilometers of lightly-defended and barely-fortified left flank running from Kharkov to Lvov. The Russians could crash through it quite easily if they actually wanted to and they've always had forces in reserve that could do it - these days a huge mass of them. As things currently stand Russian special forces roam at will in Sumy and Chernigov, preying on the thinly-stretched garrisons.

But, no, the Russians have consolidated their position in Ukraine into a convenient stretch of highly defensible terrain in the country's east and then just sat there, for over a year now, killing Ukrainian soldiers at horrifyingly lopsided ratios. When they can defend, they defend. When they must attack to keep the pressure on, they find some Ukrainian salient and turn it into a shooting gallery. Where they don't want to push the front up, they just mow the lawn and pull back - they have to have taken the same line of strongholds east of Kupyansk a dozen times by now, each time pulling back and letting the AFU flood the same old trenches with new recruits again.

Ukrainian casualties have been so astronomical they're now deep into desperate measures trying to keep soldiers in the ranks, drafting women and looking at emptying out the small pool of privileged young students to feed the front. When the war is over, Ukraine will be a broken society in which most of the people willing to fight for an independent Ukrainian state - and a Western-oriented Ukrainian national identity separate from Russia - will be dead.

What if that's the point? Objectively speaking, if the Russian plan was simply to kill as many Ukrainian combatants as possible, as efficiently as possible, with as little risk to themselves as possible, then they're doing it. The Russians know full well that the current iteration of Ukrainian national identity is implacably hostile to Russia and they cannot coexist with it - and they're very coldly killing anyone and everyone willing and able (or coercible) to bear arms in its defense on the battlefield. In their manic drive to expel the Russians and fight for every inch of their land, the Ukrainian leadership is facilitating this.

Is this genocide? No. The Russians are fighting armed combatants. It's no violation of the law of war to inflict horrific casualties on the enemy, and any comparison with the ongoing war in Gaza will show that the Russians have been meticulous to avoid civilian casualties. Will it have the effect of breaking the Ukrainian nation at the end of the war? Yes.

Is it an ugly thought that the Russians may very well have planned it this way? Very

http://midi.moe/f/hygte.jpeg

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[–]zyxzevn 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The channel Military Summary makes an overview every 12 hours. Today
It does geolocating of the videos to check validity.
Not perfect, but reasonably neutral info.

Based on the daily info, the Ukraine forces have been doing suicide runs, while on drugs, with no strategic support.
They claimed victory on grey areas that are purposefully left open to create cauldrons.
Like the river area, where they are soon freezing to death.

They could have saved a lot of people by just staying in defense.
Or by not joining Nato, as you can see in the video.

[–]Dune1032 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Russia launched a two-pronged attack in 2022 in an attempt to take Kyiv, but Russian military incompetence and ferocious Ukrainian resistance forced the Russians to abandon the assault. Russia did not just play defense. They attacked Bakhmut. Presently they are attacking Avdiivka. Russian losses are far greater than that of Ukraine. The reason is the use of human wave attacks. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwkIsnTn01E&t=64s 1:39 into video. The Russians use this tactic because of their vast manpower. Ukraine because of their limited manpower is more careful in how they're used. In their 2023 counteroffensive, Ukraine had to abandon large scale attacks because they were suffering unsustainable losses attempting to break through deep minefields. Consequently, Ukraine had to resort to small unit assaults. Russia's present strategy is probably a war of attrition hoping that the West will abandon Ukraine. Ukraine's strategy is probably to wait until the F-16s arrive. In the meantime, they can hit targets deep in Russian-held territory with their longer range ATACMs.

[–]Bigs 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

lol, that was cute

[–]neolib 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

This is another pro-Russian anonymous blogger, so everything should be taken with an enormous grain of salt. Especially "Ukrainian casualties have been so astronomical" - there's no source for that, not even in reputable Russian media.

Last more or less credible numbers I saw were these (in the middle of counteroffensive, so could be closer now):

https://saidit.net/s/WarWatch/comments/bccl/russias_military_casualties_the_us_officials_said/

[–]MuskyIndependent[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

there's no source for that, not even in reputable Russian media.

The Discord leaks had the Pentagon estimating 176k casualties on the Ukranian side.

[–]neolib 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

No, some screenshots were edited (and spread by pro-Russian bloggers), the initial one shared on 4chan showed 17k KIA for Ukraine (Mar 2023):

https://saidit.net/s/Geopolitics/comments/axqe/i_dont_think_russia_is_incompetent_but_the_guy/12hbk

[–]MuskyIndependent[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

(The second one is blurrier just because I did a crappy screenshot on my phone)

👀 How does that work?

So apparently there's no non-blurry copy of this supposedly fake misinformation edited by Russian hax0rs and the only thing the hackers did all war was to change unbelievable fatality numbers to believable ones when neither Ukraine or Russia seemed to care about the leak otherwise.

[–]neolib 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Do you want me to find an archive of the initial 4chan thread, when nothing about the leak was known at all? Just some random guy shared these pictures in the thread when arguing about the war, and that's when journalists/osinters start to dig and found the discord servers and everything.

I saved my copy (https://files.catbox.moe/7lk6a9.png, my upload) from that very thread when it was still live on 4chan (found it by googling Post ID from a twitter screenshot).

Background refresher: 2022–2023 Pentagon document leaks