Frozen ground could have made it easier to move around but on the other hand, troops are generally much more miserable when it is cold outside. Don't think that just because they are Russians they don't get cold.
From what I am seeing Russian soldiers do not seem to be prepared well for cold. It seems they thought they will only go for some military maneuvers and then back home, not into full scale winter war.
And another thing I am seeing is that they seem to be trying to find pretext to abandon their equipment. Those tanks stuck in mud -- there are ways to extract them. Russians regularly train in muddy conditions so I can't imagine they are surprised by conditions in March.
I read a few days ago that Germany's gas reserves were at 31% and they were basically just being helped by the good weather. A colder winter would've made it a much bigger problem. And Germany had very recently decided to basically go cold turkey on nuclear, which means using more gas plants. Now they're thinking of extending the life span of nuclear a bit. Not that a gas furnace can heat with electricity though, so not sure how much that will help.
If you had to replace every single gas heating system that would be both very expensive and without having any actual data I would gather that you wouldn't be able to retrofit all of Germany with that in time. Wood I would gather is gonna be even worse. While I can see how a single family home would convert (lots of folks have replaced their gar furnace with a wood pellet heater w/ auto-feeders), how would that work for apartment buildings with individual gas heaters in the apartments? These are all concrete buildings where it'd be quite the feat to replace the gas distribution with central water distribution for radiators. And those gas heaters do not take a lot of space and are used even in tiny apartments. Where do you store wood pellets in that situation?
Of course there are exceptions where heat is provided remotely already by a "Heizkraftwerk" (e.g. fed from industrial cooling systems or garbage burners).
I don’t think it’s break up, I think it’s resistance, they are getting stalled in the cities.
Ukraine has paved highways moving tanks isn’t an issue, except that the highways run through cities.
The problem is fundamentally that for every soldier and civilian they kill they are creating 5 to 10 freedom fighters. The more people are killed the greater the resistance. The less likely they can hold the country without reprisals from the people. If they have to resort to barbarism to subdue the people then the sanctions will never end.
Putin needs to establish a govt quickly that doesn’t have to resort to atrocities to govern. If he fails to do that he loses the greater overall war.
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/01/russia-lo...
Ukraine will never trust them. But it's enough to take the pressure off, and enough for him to remain in power.
Having watched the previous fall of the soviet union eventually enough people in moscow get pissed off and there is a regime change, although I suspect putin has control of the apparatus and security forces. So, we might just see a Russia civil war.
1. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/eric-swalwell-gun-owners-n...
Didn't this happen two days ago?
That's peace talks. The end of military action is peace.
This is not a definition of "peace" that you share with the Anglophone community in general. Are the United States and Japan currently at war?
Please don't deflect.
Let me ask you: do you think it would be just to have Russia occupy Ukraine? Do you think countries have a right to self determination and sovereignty?
Russia was signatory to the Budapest Memorandum, basically agreeing to acknowledge and help protect Ukraine's borders.
I wonder why you support occupation.
Way harder to do hit and runs on road columns when you can't fall back to where ever but have to follow roads your self.
Source: experience.
Edit: I was thinking of what we had in the Army, which was definitely not guided.
I've never seen a Javelin miss in my entire life. They've got like 5,000 recorded successful engagements.
> Source: experience.
Are you firing them before they've got a chance to get the sensor down to temperature?
I guess you posted that for the compiled footage, but Lord do I hate voice synthesized narration.
From my armchair, it seems totally practical to hit-and-run attack the convoy on foot using fire-and-forget Javelins from 1.5-2 miles away. If the terrain is impassible to vehicles, the attacker can just shoot from the top of a hill and run away down the other side (maybe without even being seen).
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...
Note that that is a lower bound.
From what I've read, they have too few javelins already
Or is the javelin so high up in the air, so it could typically see the tank anyway?
Best invasion is a cancelled invasion of course...
It will become even more wet and muddy.
- Israel has a rich history of Palestinian attacks with many Jewish *civilian* casualties, whereas the russian aggression is unprovoked.
- Israeli forces are better prepared and better treated by its country than the russian cannon fodder with e.g. outdated food rations or poorly armored vehicles, though I don't know if that's what bamboozled meant as well.
- I could be wrong, but while not being emotionally prejudiced towards/against Palestine, Israel, Russia and Ukraine prior to the conflicts, in a heuristic sense, just estimating the severity of breaking human rights, russian forces seem to have far worse standards than Israeli forces. Likewise with Ukraine vs Palestine. In case of Ukrainians we see refugees and children hiding in bunkers and being dragged out of them by russian forces. In case of Palestine...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_child_suicide_bombers_b...
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Your comparison to black people is even less justified, to the point where I won't even comment on it.
Even if everything you say is true, it is inherently wrong as well as unproductive to refer to ethnic/religious groups as "barbarians" based on the actions of some portion of that groups behaviour. It essentialises the group even though there are countless Russians who dont support this behaviour and therefore aren't "barbarians".
Behaviour can certainly be barbaric and referred to as such (I would have had no problem if the original comment said "the invasion of the Ukraine by Russians is barbaric" as an example), but referring to entire nations/ethnic groups/religions as barbarians based on a portion of that group's behaviour is deeply dehumanising and one of the most toxic ways to engage in these sorts of discussions with very negative outcomes for both sides by denying other people their humanity.
Can you name a single time in history ever where framing conflict in such a manner has led to anything positive? Because I certainly can't and there are PLENTY of examples of it being done. However much some people may relish the opportunity to finally have an "enemy" they can dehumanise and hate, it is always ethically wrong as well as being counter-productive to do so no matter how good it might feel to some people.
Focusing on the wrong thing - it seems so. Bamboozled used the word "barbaric" to precise which russians he describes. He didn't use the word to insult all Russians. Have you ever heard the term "Nazi Germany"? Do you think, that people using this term intend to insult Germany? I find that ridiculous in a semantic way, that's just not how words work. Look at 2nd Bamboozled's comment and at Michaelmrose comment.
> (I would have had no problem if the original comment said "the invasion of the Ukraine by Russians is barbaric" as an example)
So you have no problem with what Bamboozled meant, only with how he phrased it. That's splitting hairs.
What bamboozled said was:
> If there’s a lot of snow and temps at the ground are above zero, it’s a worse situation for the Russian barbarians.
Scroll up and you can see for yourself.
"Scroll up and you can see for yourself" my previous comment where I argued the difference.
I honestly don't know if Israeli forces should be called barbaric. It is a narration common enough that it motivated me to investigate - where I quickly discovered many facts speaking in favor of the Israel. Again, I don't support what Israel is doing, but the initial fire of my outrage got quickly quenched by facts. As soon as it turned out to be quite an intricate conflict, I humbly switched my interests on the basis of being too stupid to judge either side.
Meanwhile in case of russian invasion, I just see nothing in defense of the invader. The moral aspect of the conflict is ridiculously asymmetric - like in a Disney movie. On one side there's a small country, with its president risking life in Kiev, on another a Goliath country run by a coward hiding in a bunker, shamelessly lying to his citizens, with the world almost unanimously condemning his war crimes.
So, to sum it up, without defending Israeli forces in Palestine, I see a huge difference between them and the russian barbarism in Ukraine. I don't know if the former is barbaric, but the latter is as barbaric as it gets.
It does sadden me to see how little has been learnt from post-9/11 where muslims or even people wearing turbans were subject to increased demonisation and abuse while everyone applauded.
Individuals should not be targetted and demonising groups based on ethnicity with comments of "Russian barbarians" is a big way this type of thing starts.
Anyway, plenty of people seem hellbent on reserving their "right" to demonise whole ethnic groups when the opportunity arises so going to leave it here. Thank you for the discussion in any case although the outcome very much saddens me.
I feel like I'm talking with a wall. No, we don't agree, we disagree. I've put some effort to formulate specific arguments and I didn't see a response to them.
To say that a plural form describes individuals is outright ridiculous and reminds me of a comment I've seen on Reddit once:
> The individual voice does matter if it's expressed by a large enough group
https://www.reddit.com/r/cynicalbritofficial/comments/63w0qq...
So then what is your problem with the term "Israeli Barbarians" or would it be better if I used the phrase "Israeli Occupiers"? And I presume you also have no issue with "Black savages" or "Black barbarians"? And I'm guessing you also have no problem with "Muslim barbarians" either?
Because remember, it is "ridiculous" to say the plural form describes individuals. So there is no coherent logical standard that makes "Russian barbarians" okay but not those other examples. In these types of cases you need to think about what the norm you are establishing will mean when it is turned against you, and it won't be pretty.
You repeat questions I already answered.
A Russian barbarian calling his mom.
I just made a direct analogy point to point between Israel's actions and Russia's actions. I do not really believe they can be viewed in a different light, in particular Israel in a more favorable light, which I believe is something you (whoever I wanted to answer to) deduced in your comment. You can put one on one points between the Russian invasion and the Israeli colonization of Palestine, and the only real difference is that in Israel the victims were not white people.
Let's not forget Israel still bombs civilians and children.
How is THAT more justifiable than what Russia is doing, I wonder. Invade foreign land you have no business invading? Check. Drive much of the population away in the process? Check. Confine the invaded populace in specified areas based on race? Russians have not done that yet in Ukraine, I acknowledge that. The first difference in the two conflicts that matters. Kill whoever resists? Check. Routinely bomb civilians? Check.
Does any other detail matter to not condemn the one and condemn the other? What could Russia learn from the Israeli case to make its invasion and occupation equally justifiable?
Not sure if it is disinformation, but the Russians announced that there are no conscripts in this war. Time will tell, but maybe the Western media/intel got it wrong?
> Russian law prohibits conscripts from being sent to the front unless they choose to sign a contract and become career soldiers. Currently, compulsory service in the Russian army is one year, including four months of basic training. In reality, says Olga Larkina, chair of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, soldiers are either forced to sign a contract against their will, or their military IDs are confiscated, and they are signed to a contract without their knowledge. In recent days, her organization has received dozens of pleas for assistance about this from parents of draftees.
[1] https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium.HIGHLIGHT...
Honestly, snow and air temperature have a bit of a counterintuitive relationship. It can also be too cold to snow, so a lot of really cold places are actually really dry and get very little precipitation because of that.
I don't understand the narrative that Russia is in any way "losing" here. Taking over a country in the span of a month is considered an incredible military feat, and yet somehow Russia is in "a quagmire" four days in.
It is a humiliating defeat because it indicates that the cost of pacification would be outright horrifying. Full control might well cost a 5 figure death toll and could approach the Russian GDP and this indeed buys you what? The privilege of getting to literally square one in Afghanistan 2.0.
I don't understand your moral stake in it. I also don't know your level of experience. Caveat: As I'm neither a military strategist nor a military historian, my understanding of what constitutes a difficult situation military is rather poor. I've certainly never won any wars. But I wonder why you think marching a few hundred miles from your territory into someone elses territory in a week isn't significant. It took the US a couple weeks to take Fallujah, at an arguably far greater mismatch. Not as close, I know, but America was already in the region. I don't know why you think the cost for one city was thousands of vehicles and soldiers. I can imagine I'd lie about those numbers whichever side I was on, if I was involved. I also don't know that these are massive numbers at the scale of modern war. I don't know why you think air superiority was something they needed to have before going in, or something they had to have in a week, when it's quite possible neither of those are true. I imagine we will know the answer to that one shortly. I don't know why you think their supply of munitions are shrinking, when Russia has a decent sized munitions industry. I don't know why you assume their factories rely on foreign parts, when they might very well be quite autarchical in their operation, as opposed to the western manner of global supply chains. I don't know why you assume the status of the ruble in the foreign markets is directly germane to the continued existence of Russia as a country, when again, they might be quite autarchical. After all, Russia is not America. And finally (for your first paragraph) I do not understand how you have come to the conclusion that Russia is in "a geopolitical position so bad that the only thing keeping the rest of the world from absolutely murdering them is a threat to murder the world combined with a reputation so degenerate that people believe they are apt to do it." given that the worlds largest superpower, China, seems to be behind them, and India also does not seem to be terribly opposed. It seems more that half the world seems to support Russia, and it is that half that manufactures most of what the world consumes. I don't know why you believe Russia's reputation to be "so degenerate". I find the language more charged than necessary.
I don't understand how you know what Putin wants is "pacification" when it could very well be surrender, treaty signing, and then departure, or why you judge 5 figure death counts to be "horrifying" when on the scale of modern war (as opposed to "counter-insurgency" and "counter-terrorism") those seem to be rather small.
Above all, and forgive me as I don't know who you are or what kind of stake you have in all this, but I don't understand why you're grandstanding moral about it.
What makes me say all that is the fact that the moralizing position on this is incomprehensible to me. It feels like everyone got whipped up into a frenzy because all the major western propaganda organs and all the social media astroturfing started marching in lockstep to the drums of war.
If I believed in our rulers, I suppose I’d be marching too. But they’ve lied a lot on every other war. And worse? They’ve LOST every other war. Why follow a bunch of losers?
China will probably prop Russia up 1) It will get Oil and Gas cheaper 2) A mean Russia keeps the West from picking on China. 3) Russia has a lot of nukes and making it crazy helps nobody.
Exactly, Putin is not the grand strategist the world thinks he is
Chances are the invasion on the northern and eastern fronts are more or less feints, and only the southern front actually matters to him, as it gets him full control of the Black Sea shore and the oil fields. He needs the Ukrainian forces fully occupied elsewhere, and doesn't much care what happens there as long as it absorbs enough of their attention.
There's only one way for him out now, and it doesn't involve him being alive. It's only a matter of time at this point.
What way is that? Because I think the one he's banking on is victory in the war over the next four weeks.
Russia will suffer greatly under sanctions, but that itself is unlikely to bring him under.
The Hitler 1945 option.
The other enlightening book is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_(Beevor_book) which shows just how truly absurd the war between Germany and Russia was and how megalomaniacal the leaders of those countries were.
Tanks and such are maintenance nightmares, and need a lot of material support in order to be effective.