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This 39 minute video is the best over-all discussion of the energy war that is going on. Oil and gas may be Russia's greatest strength, but it is also their greatest weakness. No matter what Russia does they are doomed to future poverty. The longest time span discussed is about 30 years.
It's for serious students only. Cheerleaders will simply become bored.
Originally Posted by Sprawling_Home[URL="https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1520559950837448706"
[/url]owner;63534063]In the other thread you wrote several posts since February pointing to Russian setbacks. To say the "situation is fluid" is simply a meaningless deflection.
Russia is winning.
That's because those posts were showing Russia having many setbacks especially around the areas of Kyiv and Kharkiv. They simply got ran out of Northern Ukraine....and these were not feints...they didn't have the resources to sustain these campaigns. Here is a time lapse map of Ukraine to the end of April
Looks like setbacks to me. Even in this moment Ukrainians are launching successful counter-offensives in the Kherson Oblast albeit on a small scale...these would be Russian setbacks too. All wars are fluid....No one imagined Ukraine would have turned this into a conventional war in the beginning. And if the Russian military reaches a state of culmination even if they take the entire Luhansk Oblast...what kind of Victory is that?? The underlying premises of all my posts regarding this "Special Military Operation" is that there is a Fog of War...that accompanies all wars. When relevant information becomes corroborated...it gets posted.
My money is still on Ukraine. I think this play in the Donbas is desperate of a propaganda victory in Russia that is short sighted. None of us know how this will play out.
This is a good interview with ISW's Natalia Bugayova. She gives a good birds eye view of what's going on, Putin's bigger objectives and what needs to be done. She points out that once Russian forces reached culmination in Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine conducted successful counter-attacks in these areas and pushed the Russians out. That is something that may be playing out here....hold onto as much ground as you can and when the Russian military advance culminates...counter-attack and re-take occupied territory. As far as sustaining western support she points out there is no ambiguity in this war. Russia is an imperialist aggressor. Period.
ISW’s
@nataliabugayova
joined
@holmescnn
to explain the consequences of an extended #Russian presence in #Ukraine’s southeast, including a potential renewed Russian offensive and continued Russian atrocities.
Me? I personally saw couple of videos on the Russian sites and they were terrible. That was couple of weeks ago.
Of course Western media wouldn't want anyone to know about torture by Ukrainian Nazis, but the idiots post videos on the social media themselves, bragging about their own crimes.
And they start circulating, so Western media HAD TO cover the subject somehow, even if it's "allegedly" and "we can't confirm."
Or "both sides should stop torture" - this kind of "acknowledgement."
Mhm.
"Both sides"
8,000 of Ukrainian prisoners in Russia all alive and well, and about 144 of Russian POWs, to whom international organizations were denied access. ( So no one knew for sure how many Russian POWs were there even to begin with.)
Did you see the "press conference" of Russian POWs that Johnboy posted here?
Where do you think these injuries ( both old and new) on their faces came from?
It has been noted on the Russian military channels that once you are captured by Ukrainians, tell whatever they are forcing you, "admit" whatever - do what you need to save your life. No one will judge you or hold it against you. You don't argue with terrorists of Isis type.
It has been confirmed by a Frenchman as well, who was in Ukraine with volunteer mission - I posted the translation of his interview. He stated that he saw it with his own eyes that Russian POWs were badly beaten/executed.
So yeah.
As much as Western media would like to remain tight-lipped about it, it still HAD to talk after all, even if "allegedly" and "both sides," since they couldn't avoid comments any longer.
But Russians ( and those that cared to explore the subject) know perfectly well what's going on in this "free and democratic" Ukraine within its "valiant" Nazi troops.
( By the way the majority of "Azov" battalion captured in Mariupol are still in LDNR, but SOME of them went straight to Russian investigative organs, when the names/faces matched the description of crimes committed by these particular people starting from 2014 in Donbass. There were some of them involved in tortures, like gauging people's eyes during interrogations of LDNR soldiers. Literally so.)
That's because those posts were showing Russia having many setbacks especially around the areas of Kyiv and Kharkiv. They simply got ran out of Northern Ukraine....and these were not feints...they didn't have the resources to sustain these campaigns. Here is a time lapse map of Ukraine to the end of April
Looks like setbacks to me. Even in this moment Ukrainians are launching successful counter-offensives in the Kherson Oblast albeit on a small scale...these would be Russian setbacks too. All wars are fluid....No one imagined Ukraine would have turned this into a conventional war in the beginning. And if the Russian military reaches a state of culmination even if they take the entire Luhansk Oblast...what kind of Victory is that?? The underlying premises of all my posts regarding this "Special Military Operation" is that there is a Fog of War...that accompanies all wars. When relevant information becomes corroborated...it gets posted.
My money is still on Ukraine. I think this play in the Donbas is desperate of a propaganda victory in Russia that is short sighted. None of us know how this will play out.
Russia does not need to seize Kiev.
The goals of the Russians' effort has included, from the beginning, de-nazification - the permanent defeat and elimination of all extremists who fly the swastika, warriors who have Third Reich/Adolf Hitler tattoos, etc. The very people that C-D posters claim do not exist.
Obviously, neither you nor I have access to the top secret Russian intelligence privy to President Putin and the highest level of government and military. But they're not going to lose this war.
Yes, key word is imagination.
72% of Russian population is approving of this operation, lousy as it is.
Voyenkomaty, or army draft offices, have lines of those, who apply to join.
This happens, when you walk only with one leg. You run in circles. If you listen to only one side of propaganda, you only follow the imaginary and lopsided path.
That's why they've eliminated the age limit of recruits, because obviously, there are so many volunteers, they just don't know what to do with them all.
The goals of the Russians' effort has included, from the beginning, de-nazification...
That's enough of a statement to know you have swallowed the kool-aid of Putin's nonsense propaganda.
You can choose your beliefs but you can not change reality. This firehose of falsehood is not working.
Repeating the Glavset lies does not help you convince anyone that Putin is an angel who just wants to help Ukraine. Putin is a cold blooded murderer, a corrupt and greedy public official who has no regard for human life, and he has unleashed hell upon a neighboring sovereign state in an unprovoked attack.
The central government in Kyiv has a freely elected administration, which peacefully succeeded another freely elected administration despite Russian interference in Ukrainian politics. They have been successfully battling corruption, and the president is a popular Jewish Ukrainian businessman from the Russian speaking region. Putin's first goal was to topple the Ukrainian government in Kyiv, and he failed to do so, the people have rallied behind behind their president and they are fighting for their freedom.
War is tragedy, period. An excerpt from a long twitter conversation:
@WarintheFuture
·
7h
17/ It is also one of the tragedies of war, that in seeking quick victories, nations often ensure they involve themselves in long & destructive wars instead. The nature of human conflict has a way of ensuring such hubris is rewarded with more death & brutality than imagined.
@WarintheFuture
·
7h
18/ Such is the case now in Ukraine. Russia, in planning a short lightening war, has instead drawn Ukraine, and Europe, into an expensive and prolonged conflict.
@WarintheFuture
·
7h
19/ Not only is it resulting in more Ukrainian and Russian deaths than the Russian high command anticipated, it is changing the fundamental security architecture in Europe.
@WarintheFuture
·
7h
20/ In turn this has, at least in the mind of Putin, confirmed the vicious conspiracy theories that he peddles to his people about NATO threats against Russia.
@WarintheFuture
·
7h
21/ So, we should steel ourselves for what will probably be a long war in Ukraine. The destruction of towns & cities, the deaths of soldiers in their thousands, the unnecessary slaughter of Ukrainian civilians, and wider economic hardship will continue for some time to come.
And Putin is holding the poor of Africa and Asia hostage with his refusal to allow grain exports. Now he wants to starve Africans and Asians, not just Ukrainians.
The goals of the Russians' effort has included, from the beginning, de-nazification - the permanent defeat and elimination of all extremists who fly the swastika, warriors who have Third Reich/Adolf Hitler tattoos, etc. The very people that C-D posters claim do not exist.
Obviously, neither you nor I have access to the top secret Russian intelligence privy to President Putin and the highest level of government and military. But they're not going to lose this war.
Like the Wagner Group? Nobody buys into this propaganda in the free world...thats how it became so United in this....I mean supporting Ukraine has the support of the Trumpiest of the Trumpers to AOC....thats how pathetic the justification of this war is.
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