Quick note: It’s never occurred to me that my ‘Tip Jar’ link may be a tad obscure and buried at the bottom, as I’ve gotten several emails from people not knowing how to donate.
It sounds like our reporting here may have been prescient as breaking news states a massive Russian attack on Kharkov region has begun and some early reports even claim Russians already captured a village on the Ukrainian side of the Kharkov border.....has the big one begun? Or perhaps just a dry run for now....stay tuned
I don't think so. Most likely, the main goals of this "offensive" are to create a buffer zone to reduce shelling of Russian border territories, and to pin down some of the Ukrainian troops and reserves to weaken other sectors of the front. But if Ukraine will not transfer reserves there, then this could turn into a real offensive.
the commentary I have seen - classic probing attack. if enemy moves reserves (exposing them to attrition) then other fronts become much easier and reserves could be pinned. if enemy does not, then opportunity may develop (like in the south in 2022 where land bridge was almost an accident, no one expected for initial resistance to be that weak). We will see. I have two great uncles that fought to liberate Kharkov in 1943 (and I believe one died and buried in a land that treat now officially treat him as 'occupier' under 'decommunization laws' and another was maimed/wounded) so I would not cry if RF would kick out Kiev junta from the area. And when I see UA regime desecrating the memorials and burial places of soviet soldiers it does make me upset and angry that this is allowed...
Sounds like the intent is to create a 12km bufferzone on the Borderlands in order to reduce bombardment of civilians
Ukraine reports that the RF has amassed up to 400 tanks, 130 armored vehicles & 990 artillery pieces, including 120 multi-launch rocket systems
50,000 Russian troops fill out this First Wave--not enough to take out Sumy outright but to get to the outskirts of Sumy, dig in, shape the battlefield & then begin concentrating forces in a Second Wave
Very interesting that it STARTED in Charkov. As EngNobody writes, it is an attack of opportunity but with a cunning goal. If Ukraine deploy reserves then the Donbas-vector against Konstantinovka will be easier to break through. If Ukraine just try to hold then Russia can pour more troops in to the battle in front of Charkov and exploit weaknesses. If it indeed is a summer offensive then we should expect even more activity in 3-4 vectors in a matter of days.
Well the US normal procedure is to use proxies and throw them to the wolves
By some process known only to science the US infects these scapegoats with the death wish
The US is priming the Aus, the Philippines, Japan and Sth Korea as proxies, and most of these are showing a lot of eager to be sacrificed, so far so good
With further contributions from willing victims such as UK, Germany NATO and so on
As for Taiwan, once the US can strangle TMSC to offshore factories and personnel - that island can be sunk without ceremony
I think Korea turned out to be reasonably peer-opponent once the Chinese came in. And how did that turn out? The Chinese cleaned the US forces' clock, pushing the Yanks all the way back to where they started from.
Well .....the China war has been brewing for awhile, although the Marcos's want to speed it up it seems, I guess you've got a far flung island retreat planned
And nicer. Chinas is an astonishing place that more US citizens should visit. It would open their eyes to their own parlous estate. That applies to europe too.
Well the question is what war can the US now concentrate on? I guess they may begin a propaganda campaign emphasizing the military strength of and danger posed by nations such as Papau new Guinea, Solomon Islands or a renewed invasion of Grenada to recreate some military success.
Gerald, I agree, the blob will move on, Ukraine is fizzling out, they will say they did their best, declare not so much victory as moral vindication in defeat.
The media will laud the entire effort as an attempt at goodness and justice in the face of evil. Your neighbours and friends will happily take the summation story at face value and silence will ensue, all will be quiet, Ukraine will be gone, memory holed next to Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the myriad others.
The political Gnosticism of the liberal imperium is infinitely robust, the message making media utterly reliable and the sham demos of a western citizenry is really just a shabby mob of apathetic consumers who don’t care.
The engine of this nightmare is greed, war is our greatest industry and Ukraine will be replaced with Gaza, Iran, DPRK, Taiwan, maybe even Russia.
As for me I don’t really care either. I sincerely believe war is what we deserve and from the comfort of Canada I look on with a quiet sense of schadenfreude.
Canada has a large coast line on the now defrosting arctic ocean natural resources rush, lots of OTHER natural resources (and FRESH WATER), is politically enmeshed with their rather grabby southern neighbor. And might need some invading and a regime change or two if it tries to sit out the global game of musical chairs now underway- Can you sing the "Blame Canada" song from South Park? Yes, I think I've just realized who is going to be invaded by the USA next...
I like, sincerely, Canada does deserve a good comeuppance , and we will get it one day, good and hard.
But in truth, we are not an independent country. We are a resource store for the United States, energy and rocks and minerals so that’s the reason America will never invade us. What I’m saying is you have already invaded us and won.
The unemployed and retarded psychopath arrived on time with his usual 100 idiotic posts, copied here or there by some tabloid or listened to by the barber.
I was at an RSA lunch earlier this week. The head of Accenture's Identity Management worldwide team was part of a panel talking about identity; he started with a story about ChatGPT and how he created an agent that summarized a 500 page academic paper that he did not have time to read.
I asked him privately: how do you know the agent is working correctly if you never read the actual paper? LOL
And of course, all academic papers have executive summaries. Just how different was this agent's output vs said summary?
You're right that large language models (LLMs) can make up results and shouldn't be trusted in general.
But for our breakdown posts, we use LLMs to help us understand the material. We usually read the breakdowns first, then the actual posts, and then use the breakdowns to review what we've read.
So far, we haven't found any factual or meaning-related errors in the Simplicius articles we've processed using this method. (But this is just based on our own experience, so it's not necessarily proof.)
Hallucinations are an issue but they primarily arise when the accuracy knobs are turned down - not coincidentally, it is from lower accuracy word cloud analysis that the so-called "intelligent" results come from.
The one thing that LLMs do is that they have proven to understand basic grammar very well, so I don't actually expect serious problems with non-adversarial reading comprehension situations.
The actual risks are far more insidious: the reality is that each and every LLM model is more like a guideline steering the underlying LLM engine - and users have zero visibility or control over the way this engine operates. Put another way: if the LLM engine owner, be it OpenAI or Google or Microsoft or some other, decides suddenly that gray should be come white - then this occurrence would trivially propagate across all users regardless of the "models". And given the profit motive of these companies - the enshittification potential is guaranteed to be realized sooner or late.
Like with the Dapra Mrna in covid. Going onto the Ft. Derrick grounds and all the people puttering around as if they didn't know that this base was and still is an utterly demomic place (says the atheiest -with buddist leaning) "creating" the worst ways for mankind to die and working with British labs as well...search -wikipedia Doctor Death South Africa..English cunts.
As Ukrainians retreat to Skuchne, which means boring in Russian, they may find themselves with nothing to do until the Russians come and “rescue” them.
Great article. Assuming Russia does intent on starting some kind of offensive soon in the Kharkov/Sumy region, what do you believe is probably gonna be their modus operandi? Some kind of big offensive to siege and take Kharkov (which would then logically be the ultimate goal of the operation)? Border battles aimed at diverting troops and finding weak spots from where to advance? Or maybe some localized offensive in Vovchansk to separate Kupyansk from the rest of the Ukrainian front and cause a collapse there?
If I had to guess, the optimal way to fight this offensive would be a combination of the two last options. This would offer the best trade off between risk and reward. Enlarging the front in itself without necessarily aiming for deep big arrows is in the benefit of the Russian Federation (the more populous and stronger side) now that it finally managed to tap into it's manpower reserves. Ukraine would be hard pressed to keep up.
The situation is vastly different from the time when Russia had to retreat and consolidate from the same front.
I would think almost certainly it wouldn't be to besiege/take Kharkov just yet, but would be more preliminary actions like cutting off the rears of the Kupyansk group as you stated to make them think twice about staying, with a simultaneous launch of a larger offensive from the Kupyansk/Sinkovka side to push the AFU west.
Then Russia can play it by ear and see how it goes depending where Ukraine deploys its reserves. The thing is, it favors Russia even to just incur 10-15km into Kharkov region and muck things up and entrench themselves there. Why? Because they would keep the entire northern AFU group busy which would vastly decrease strikes on Belgorod region. Also it would put Russian troops much closer to any of the units striking Belgorod which would allow far greater ISR and counter-strikes which would effectively stop attacks on Belgorod.
Then as the AFU slowly breaks down deeper in the future, Russia can slowly begin closing a ring around Kharkov to cut it off entirely, but I could see that happening much farther down the line.
For now I'm not convinced they'll even incur past the border, but if they do, the above is more how I see it playing out in the near to mid term because it accomplishes several actually strategically important tasks at the same time. Which is: 1. securing the border which means stopping AFU/DRG/RDK assaults on Belgorod region, 2. pushing back AFU in general and stopping shelling of Belgorod, and 3. pressuring or cutting off the rear of the Kupyansk group, which could lead to its destabilization and eventual collapse.
Taking Kharkov by direct attacks is likely not the plan. Bypassing and containing the troops there is. Those will surrender once properly isolated and Russia has pushed the front to Dnepr.
Go Russia. The Arrogant West insisted on this fight , which they claimed is totally unprovoked. Next they insist that the leader of Isra Hell resign. Why don't Bibi go fight for Ukraine and give the people he slaughters a break?
Funny how you wouldn't even know that Russia sacrificed thirty million or so against the folks who keep sending weapons against them still ...but this shit will stop soon,... as the demilitarization and deNaziefication is starting to yield impressive results, and Biden is gonna declare fictory and sniff the hair of the statute of liberty
Wonderful, very informative, thank you! I love the final photo of Putin with his teacher, there is a lot to like about the man. If you have time would value your insight into Russia's decision to shut down access to Telegram { edit: Rumble} throughout Russia. Thank you again!
I have no idea what you're talking about. Russia tried to shut down Telegram almost 10 years ago and failed because it's impossible. Telegram is specifically set up to be impossible to block because it doesn't rely on one fixed address. The only way to block Telegram would be to shut it down via its HQ in Dubai.
That being said, Telegram does, on occasion, work WITH governments to block certain CHANNELS, which is a more subtle and nuanced thing. But shutting down access to the entire app? Impossible.
That's what i love about Simplicius' posts. His (my misogyny is showing) community of followers are also so well informed. I've learned something useful here. Thanks
It is trivial to ban telegram - have the Apple and Google stores drop support for it. It will be gone in no more than 3 OS cycles.
Or if you are a smaller country, force the telecom providers to de-install the app from all handsets.
Even on desktop - it isn't hard at all to stop Telegram. Every single desktop/laptop has malware/virus "protection" built into the OS, if not actual standalone software. The OS providers therefore have an exhaustive list of all files and therefore programs on said machine. And no, Linux is no better because you have the same builtin monitoring systems on the back end due to the interdependence of Linux on core libraries. Only those at least moderately proficient know how and what to turn these off.
Then there's the browsers - not hard at all to block names like "telegram". Blocking by IP number only is no longer required.
China's Great Firewall can detect and remove pictures inside apps more than 7 years ago - the notion that a nation cannot block Telegram is 100% wrong.
Thus there are no technical barriers whatsoever to blocking any particular app, web site, or whatever - there is only the question of whether governments wish to disabuse their populations of their illusions of technological independence.
The only reason this has not happened yet is because Telegram is still very much a niche platform for information distribution. There are far more scammers and what not than real information sources - of which no small number are both lol.
Tech OG from 1984 (IBM PC JR with the chic lit keyboard were were later told here) Just a suggestion I use the Brave browser (not shilling for them at all because I am an attorney and "we" are "trained to extract wealth" at "every opportunity," thus our 16% ethics rating by Galllup; so much data could be extracted from that survey to show the decline of the USA as a Weak Old Uniparty) and a load of extentions as I was "always on the bleeding edge" of tech and still waiting for "fusion" (coming out in 20 years for the last 10 years and we worry about Debt/MIC), still waiting and paid for a nice National train like Eurail (Yes, we have Detroit and Amtrak..so Proud).
The Brave browser is nice but it provides zero protection against nation state actors much less the United State government. Among other things, the US can reach into your phone and/or computer via any number of routes that are completely undetectable/unblockable by you in any way short of turning off the internet:
1) Your ISP - whoever is providing your internet service, sees all your traffic and all the web sites you visit. A VPN may or may not help because there is an ISP on the other end...
2) Your phone/computer operating system owner - whether it is Android or Apple, Windows or Mac, or even Linux, there are innumerable hooks inside the operating system allowing outside access - not least of which is the built in "virus protection".
3) Your browser - amiunique.org is a great site. It informs you just how "unique" you are just from asking questions to your browser. Very few people are not unique.., meaning your activity is easily traceable just via this browser profile which is accessible by literally every single web site you visit.
I work in cybersecurity, so the above is informed as my professional opinion.
I will say that I agree with most of what you say. Since I am out of north America, I know for sure that nearly all of my communications are routed through large surveillance centers in NYC and then to Ft Meade, which we know what is housed there. Since I know the security state, I know what to say and what not to say. Also the security state still missed 9-11, 7-10, and will "miss" the next false flag. I do have a VPN but being in computers so long, there is no privacy anywhere. Thanks for the comment. If you can suggest a better browser, I am all ears?
Among other things, there are so many different types of communication that it is extremely unlikely it would all get routed to New York. Voice over copper, VOIP, internet packets, SMS messages, cell messages, app messages, pics, video, surveillance camera footage, license plate readers, facial recog, checkins at airports, credit card usage, utility bills, legal docs - the notion that it is copied, stored and accessible for any significant period of time over say, 1 month is risible. To give a simple example: a single day's bitcoin transactions, which is only about 500K, is 60 gigabytes by itself.
Even the CIA keeps a lot of its data in Nevada and only for a relatively short time.
Then there are the social media providers: the replication of all that data into government data centers would be a cost visible almost at the top level in the US budget. Why would the USG bother copying it when they can get it right from the horse's mouth, as it were?
You clearly have no idea just how much of an impediment, too much data is. This is a major reason why AI is so exciting for the Disinformation Industrial Complex - they can sell the bullshit notion that AI can suck all that in and summarize it perfectly.
If you want to be anonymous, you use burners and change them frequently.
You move around all the time, randomly and you don't frequent the same sets of web sites just from different burners.
This isn't rocket science - if the terrah-ists can figure it out, so can you. The numbnuts in the surveillance state are so busy trying to make their "capture all, analyze all" work that there is very little bandwidth left for any actual original investigative work or analysis.
Glory to Great Soviet Sacrifices! Glory to all Heroes! To those who been fought the Fascism in World War 2 and those who fighting Fascism today. They all stand tall equally among the Martyrs. May God bestow them, Victory!
The only uncle I never met was a paratrooper, Blaine H., shot out of the sky at age 21 in the Pacific Islands during WW2. The fascist resurgence reminds me of bedbugs and cockroaches that somehow always manage to survive. Kudos too to the excellent commenters here who are fonts of insights and historical knowledge. As always, the western newspapers, shills and liars that they are, still serve the useful purpose of being receptacles for spent coffee grounds. I was really despairing until I saw the students and staff rise up to challenge the Nazi Orthodoxy. Hats off the the Russian and Soviet people who sacrificed so much in WW2. All best in your current eradication endeavors. And FJB and Bibi, the real ruler of the disunited states of America.
You have to empathize with those brave Ukranian soldiers huddling in their trench knowing it’s a lost cause. Like being a Wehrmacht soldier on the east front in 1944. Just waiting to be killed.
The German War Machine lost more men in the time frame after Bagration and Normandy, then in the hole war from 39 to the autum of 44, which includes disasters like Stalingrad.
Class, Class, exudes Class, Putin is a great statesman probably the worlds best at present, that exchange with the Black Sea Marines Maj General… wow, you can see the mutual respect, feel it, the moment for me best of all, given everything read and viewed these past days Russia, Russian, the exchange with his former teacher, her words, summing up all we need know… the free world will be in good hands Putin at the helm… make it happen.. Kia Kaha from New Zealand
I phrased that wrong and retract the incorrect implication I made: what I meant to say (and would have if I hadn't been half asleep) was that the use of the word 'class/classy' would be an ironic one to use for a person who is often ACCUSED by the western narrative of being a frustrated/defeated Communist and closet KGB agent, as Putin is. Putin commented once that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a great catastrophe, which was immediately taken as meaning he wished it hadn't happened.
I agree that my comment was off-kilter and sounded stupid; thank you for correcting me.
Having said that, I stand by my opinion that the word 'classy' is a little tone deaf, imo!
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin officially began his fifth presidential term yesterday. We lived with him for an entire era: four official terms and one intermediate term (prime minister) - almost thirty years.
Historians compare Putin with the Roman Emperor Constantine, who from the collapsed Roman Empire created Byzantium, which lasted for more than a thousand years and had a huge impact on the development of all human civilization.
Putin laid exactly the same meanings into the foundations of the revived Russia, and they are already exerting a key influence on planetary civilization today.
First of all, we challenged the tyranny of the West and thereby gave hope to many peoples for a fair world order - without the predatory exploitation of some countries by others. This is Putin’s merit to all humanity.
But VVP also has personal qualities, following which each person can specifically make their life more meaningful and prosperous. The President, by his example, shows what is good and what is bad, that is, he behaves in a fatherly manner towards all of us. What am I talking about?
Once during an interview, when a famous TV presenter began to use contemptuous words towards third parties, he immediately corrected him - I ask you not to utter such words in my presence.
Putin's 1st rule is restraint. Vladimir Vladimirovich never insults his opponents, he is always emphatically proper. Even if he is provoked to the contrary, he does not react.
There is such a well-known psychological maxim - when arguing with an opponent (criticizing him), never get personal (don’t insult). This works both in relation to states and in relations between people at the everyday level. Peace of mind cements confidence and strength.
Putin's 2nd rule is honesty. Even in small things. I remember an incident when, during a trip, Putin, still in the rank of prime minister, spoke to an elderly journalist from the pool. He couldn’t answer one question, but promised that he would find out and give an answer later. During the next trip, VVP personally approached this journalist and answered.
Before that, through my work, I communicated with many famous leaders - Gaidar, Chernomyrdin, Nemtsov, Luzhkov, governors. None of them gave any meaning to their words - they promised, knowing in advance that they would not be questioned later.
Throughout the 90s, if you remember, miners were banging their helmets on the humpbacked bridge in front of the White House. They were promised everything - with cameras, without cameras.
But Putin promised and solved the problems.
Putin’s 3rd rule is to live in the soul with God.
I think at some stage Vladimir Vladimirovich realized that without faith in the highest justice he could not cope here on earth. And it is not at all by chance that the Lord gave us this ruler for many years - so that the VVP would build the building of a new Russian statehood.
It’s probably worth writing a book “Lessons from Putin” so that each of us can understand our leader and try to follow his worthy example.
The Russian anaconda continues to gradually squeeze the life out of its victim, while constantly gaining strength...A very interesting style of war for those of us who are used to "shock and awe."
Many people wonder what victory could look like in the Ukraine war pitching NATO versus the RF
From the NATO side it is indeed hard to say, for the western ruling class is split into cabals, each with their own calendars and programs
In the US there is a salty soup of Neo Cons, realists, anti everyones, China hawks, and so on
In Europe the Eastern Europeans, the BalNors, the large countries, the EU Commission fail to agree on just about everything except ‘our exceptional democracy’
The Neos and major part of the ruling class wish for decolonisation, that is to say splitting RF into malleable sized tasty chunks, stealing everything, as per Irak, Afghanistan, Syria and Gaza – safe to say their aims never alter
The aims and intents of the RF are more modest, practical and realistic – VVP never tires of saying : "denazification, demilitarisation and its neutral status".
On a wider scale the RF is concerned to build a new world order to replace the current US led chaos- this is the work of a generation, and involves creating increasing collaboration with many countries not only bilaterally, trilaterally, but altogether
People all over the world are now discussing whether a third world war will break out. On this question, too, we must be mentally prepared and do some analysis. We stand firmly for peace and against war. However, if the imperialists insist on unleashing another war, we should not be afraid of it. Our attitude on this question is the same as our attitude towards any disturbance: first, we are against it; second, we are not afraid of it. The First World War was followed by the birth of the Soviet Union with a population of 200 million. The Second World War was followed by the emergence of the socialist camp with a combined population of 900 million. If the imperialists insist on launching a third world war, it is certain that several hundred million more will turn to socialism, and then there will not be much room left on earth for the imperialists; it is also likely that the whole structure of imperialism will utterly collapse.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (February 27, 1957), 1st pocket ed., pp. 67-68.
Our country and all the other socialist countries want peace; so do the peoples of all the countries of the world. The only ones who crave war and do not want peace are certain monopoly capitalist groups in a handful of imperialist countries that depend on aggression for their profits.
"Opening Address at the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China" (September 15, 1956).
To achieve a lasting world peace, we must further develop our friendship and co-operation with the fraternal countries in the socialist camp and strengthen our solidarity with all peace-loving countries. We must endeavor to establish normal diplomatic relations, based on mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty and of equality and mutual benefit, with all countries willing to live together with us in peace. We must give active support to the national independence and liberation movement in countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as to the peace movement and to just struggles in all the countries of the world.
Ibid.
As for the imperialist countries, we should unite with their peoples and strive to coexist peacefully with those countries, do business with them and prevent any possible war, but under no circumstances should we harbour any unrealistic notions about them.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (February 27, 1957), 1st pocket ed., p. 75.
Imperialism will not last long because it always does evil things. It persists in grooming and supporting reactionaries in all countries who are against the people, it has forcibly seized many colonies and semi-colonies and many military bases, and it threatens the peace with atomic war. Thus, forced by imperialism to do so, more than 90 per cent of the people of the world are rising or will rise in struggle against it. Yet, imperialism is still alive, still running amuck in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the West imperialism is still oppressing the people at home. This situation must change. It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism.
Interview with a Hsinhua News Agency correspondent (September 29, 1958).
It will take a long period to decide the issue in the ideological struggle between socialism and capitalism in our country. The reason is that the influence of the bourgeoisie and of the intellectuals who come from the old society will remain in our country for a long time to come, and so will their class ideology. If this is not sufficiently understood, or is not understood at all, the gravest mistakes will be made and the necessity of waging the struggle in the ideological field will be ignored.
Ibid. pp. 52-53.
In our country bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology, anti-Marxist ideology will continue to exist for a long time. Basically, the socialist system has been established in our country. We have won the basic victory in transforming the ownership of the means of production, but we have not yet won complete victory on the political and ideological fronts. In the ideological field, the question of who will win in the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie has not been really settled yet. We still have to wage a protracted struggle against bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideology. It is wrong not to understand this and to give up ideological struggle. All erroneous ideas, all poisonous weeds, all ghosts and monsters, must be subjected to criticism; in no circumstance should they be allowed to spread unchecked. However, the criticism should be fully reasoned, analytical and convincing, and not rough, bureaucratic, metaphysical or dogmatic.
Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work (March 12, 1957), 1st pocket ed., and pp. 26-27. *
I've found Russia's 'strategic clarity' very logical, justified and easy to follow, unlike the dogs-breakfast of NATO mechanations. Funny, as I've always been told that the Russians are so ham'fisted at PR....
This is because they have nothing to hide, and most statements are aimed at an internal Russian audience, or a RoW audience, both of whom appreciate straightforward clarity
USEU statements are all lies, designed to try and fool everyone, so they wind up trip wiring themselves
When the ruling class is aligned in interest with the working class truthful statements are easier to come by
There is no strategic ambiguity with NATO or the West. Everyone knows it wants to take down Russia and China.
Don't accept numb-nut mainstream media mislabeling of moronic Macronic flipfloppery for strategy - it is nothing more than tactics. Thus both the West and Russia are clear on strategy; it is at the tactical level that Russia and the West differ.
The West and Ukraine trumpet their weapons transfers, their pending offensives, their terrorist activities disguised as conventional war while the Russians say nothing about offensives until only the most idiotic Westerner fails to understand they are underway, and don't even talk about captured towns or strategic positions until days and weeks after they are taken.
Looks like the Battle for Kharkov is not going to happen after all. And I was hoping to see Kharkov come back to its home. Sigh. Odessa (my town) still remains far.
My worry is that only the Donbass will be liberated and everything else will prove too hard of a nut to crack. The fact that such a small force is present around Kharkov is not encouraging.
Successful wars of attrition are fought with great patience. Do not focus on what is or is not happening around Kharkov - focus on the fact that Russia is completely destroying Ukraine's military and its infrastructure - major territorial gains like Kharkov will eventually fall into the hands of the RF without much effort.
In the paid article it seemed to indicate that degradation of infrastructure takes years, but I am not seeing it honestly. Lights are still on in Kiev and many major Ukrainian cities
I think they are trying to take out as many military (and dual-use) facilities as possible, leaving the remaining ones for civilian use. They are attacking PPs as we write. Same with transport. Same with fuel centres. They are trying to maximise military destruction and minimise civilian impact - which sounds like, from what you say, they are at least somewhat successful, as your power is still on.
We'll see. It is indeed demoralizing to think that Russia will stop at Donbass, leaving the rest for nazis to consume.
What i think is that Russia doesn't have a choice. There were attacks on civilians in Belgorod recently, attack in Crocus, etc. Nazis won't leave Russia alone. Belgorod is actually in the same position as Donetsk or Lugansk, or any other city really, Kharkov, for instance.
Moreover, i think that if Russia wouldn't intervene, nazis would be shelling Belgorod anyway, only latter and in a worse situation for Russia overall.
It's not like Hitler would voluntarily leave USSR or Europe and go back to Germany into nazi paradise. He would keep pushing, building more armies, just like Zelensky does now.
I don't know how the war will end, but it is crazy to think that Europe in 1943 would be left with Hitler in power. It just doesn't seem possible. This is why i don't see a future where Ukraine could win the war.
Victory is victory whether by crushing the enemy's armies utterly or having them unconditionally surrender.
While there are fair points about the Maginot line - the fact is that the French people, government and military surrendered rather than fight after the initial German successes in World War 2. Consider how early Soviet armies were defeated, one after another, a couple years later but the Russians fought on. The Russians were willing to accept enormous losses and keep going but the French were not. These are differing examples of will to fight.
Ukraine is getting closer, every day, to the point where they cannot fight - at which point their willingness to fight becomes irrelevant.
Whether this inability to fight is due to lack of arms, men, money, or willpower is the only question.
The Maginot line was penetrated by an infantry assault with no armor support in June, 1940. The fortifications were of purely local significance and proved irrelevant, as the opposing Siegfried Line did in 1944-45. Both were primarily morale boosters for their respective sides.
Fortification lines beyond trenches are mostly speed bumps and intended to deter and channel assaults.
Sure, but that is not the point. The point is that the French surrendered rather than fight whereas the Russians fought even though the Germans basically accomplished their objectives in the initial campaign against Russia.
The French had less land to work with _and_ had mobilized what they thought was their maximum military fraction. They lost a quarter of their expected force in the initial campaign and all their allied forces. They didn't see a path to producing an army that could stop the Germans in time to have any country left, so they surrendered. It was a logical decision, they had no chance to produce a front before they were thrown out of the country.
Did the Germans capture significant petroleum, their weak spot? No.
Did the Germans capture significant rail nodes such as Moscow, Leningrad or Stalingrad? No.
Did the Germans logistically cripple the Soviet state by harming its productive capacity? Long term, no.
Did the Germans inflict enough casualties to weaken Soviet resistance? No.
Did the Germans achieve their objectives? No. They occupied a lot of territory, that's it. Clausewitz would have told them they were going to lose.
The Soviet Union OTOH had a _lot_ of land to trade for time. They did. They had heavy industry already extant from the various Five Year Plans. They took what they could from the west and dumped it on the other side of the Urals and rebuilt factories out there. Then they scoured the eastern parts of the country for men to put in uniform. They did the prisoner thing like the Russians have done in Donbass. Bottom line: they mobilized 700 divisions over the course of the war, or thereabouts. The German intel estimates suggested 200 or so at the maximum. There's the problem right there, if they'd correctly estimated the scale of the force they'd face, they'd never have invaded. They also expected issues with ammo and small arms ala WWI, which did not manifest. The US helping mostly with road and rail transport equipment, octane boosters for aircraft fuel, communications equipment (telephone poles, wire, handsets) and feeding people, as represented by the ubiquitous Spam cans, did the rest.
What you write is accurate, but is also at least partly excuse as opposed to inescapable reality.
Could the French have fought more? Yes, they could have. They would have experienced horrendous losses like the Soviets did - remember that the Soviet military capacity was not fully mobilized when the initial attack occurred either - but the 2nd and 3d Soviet armies still fought. Nor were there volume shipments from the US for literally years after the initial German attack - it took significant time to get the ships, transport and material lined up.
I'm not saying the French would have won because they probably would not have. But the fact remains is that they did not go even 5% of the way which the Russians did. Were Parisians willing to suffer 1 million dead from besieging German forces as the residents of Leningrad did? Clearly not.
Even the Germans fought far harder than the French did - after it was transparently clear that Germany was going to lose. The same excuse could have been used by the Wehrmacht when faced by attacks from both the US/UK forces on the Western front and the Soviet juggernaut on the Eastern front.
Your justifications of French behavior are reasonable, but war is never just about reason.
Even your laundry list of objectives is at least partly ex post facto.
We know exactly what the German objectives were for the start of hostilities - and they were all met. But they assumed that the Russians would fold like the French did - and the Russians did not. Every Soviet army that was destroyed as per German plans, more sprung up. Even the successor armies were then defeated by the Germans, but a 3rd set sprung up. It wasn't until around the 4th set that the tide turned. And this reflects precisely with the data you put forward: the Germans expected 200 divisions and wound up facing 700.
That's the difference between Russian fighting spirit and French.
Nor is your belief that ":estimations" were wrong, accurate. The German estimations were perfectly accurate: the 500 extra divisions literally did not exist when the Germans started their attack. The Germans simply did not believe that the Russian people and Soviet government would be willing and/or able to create 500 more divisions largely from scratch.
The only reason the stated German objectives were so stupid was that the person making them wasn't thinking about a military victory and thought his opponents were subhumans. I'm actually not exaggerating there. Anyone in Germany who was actually thinking along practical lines would have immediately thought of the objectives I described - I doubt Speer would have said the 1941 or 1942 campaign achieved some reasonable objective, and from their diaries we know both Halder and Goebbels didn't either.
I'm trying to think along the lines of the person of the early 1940s with expected Soviet resistance. I'm pretty sure the Japanese knew better after their experiences fighting Zhukov in Manchuria. I'm also pretty sure that the Poles did too after their war in Russia. The Finns surrendered even though they were winning tactical victories for a time. The 1918 interventions for the Whites didn't come out well. Why would someone with a reasonable frame of mind from that time expect the Soviet Union to collapse under external stress? The simple answer is that you wouldn't.
Honestly, from inside Russia, it seems that the reason the volunteer units take higher casualties than the regular line troops is because the volunteers are literally auxilia, operating in lightly-armed formations with nonstandard/worse/quickened training and sometimes patchy integration with the regular army. Why wouldn't such troops suffer proportionally more casualties even ceteris paribus?
I would question (and dismiss) that whole statistics. Who was killed, in which numbers, and what group they belong to. How the BBC & Co. will be able to find that out? OTOH, a kontraktnik goes to the AF, where ever he is needed, so a probability of <30% to end up in a war zone. Whereas a volunteer goes to the SMO only (that's the difference) and will end up in a war zone with elevated risk.
I actually doubt that there is anything so clear cut as the volunteers all getting sent to the front. Among other things, it does not look like most of the trained volunteers to date are even in Ukraine.
As far as I see the Russian news and discussion, volunteers (доброволци "good-willings") refers only to people that are going directly to the SMO, usually via the Specnas-University in Gudermes (Chechnya), but other ways seem to be possible, just more rarely mentioned. A training course of about two weeks used to be reported - for people having served a full basic service in the military. Whereas people that decide to join the army as regulars (kontraktnik "contract-soldier") never will be named that way, despite the fact they do that out of free will as well. These persons go in large part into the 2 newly (re)created military districts (Leningrad and Moscow) and may also enter a lot of newly created AD units for defending industry and cities. Many kontraktniks won't go to the front line any time soon. Once these military districts will be established, they will get their share of the front line, where the military district may sent some 10%-20% of their personal. Draftees, which are drafted twice a year, in spring and autumn, for basic service, do not go to the SMO.
Again, is this based on first hand knowledge or assumptions? You answered this - you are reporting what you have read from other people - in other words, hearsay = not first hand knowledge.
Among other things: the training periods for volunteers is far longer than 2 weeks unless they are part of some outfit like the Chechens - which is Rosguardia, not Russian army. The vast majority of volunteers are not joining the Chechens or Rosguardia - that would be very visible.
Equally, what you write above is contradictory. What exactly is the difference between a 'volunteer' and a 'contractor'? Is there an actual form or official classification difference? I greatly doubt it. Among other things: just because someone wants to fight in the SMO does not mean the Russian army will send them there. The Russian army has no interest in warm bodies but rather in soldiers it knows can execute tasks given to them. Someone willing to fight and die is just a negative statistic waiting to happen - the Russian army has no need to take any warm body available unlike the Ukrainians.
I talked about доброволец vs контрактник in Russia. What does it mean, and how they are used. The term 2 weeks is from interviews with personal and students from Gudermes University.
If you insist of first-hand-experience - "the training periods for volunteers is far longer than 2 weeks" is based on what first-hand-experience by you exactly? Do you even speak Russian?
I have Russian relatives and have regularly visited there and talked to them, and other Russian people, for 15 years now. These include past and present serving members of various Russian armed forces.
As for your "speaking to personnel and students from Gudermes University" - are these actual normal, walk off the street volunteers? Presuming what you say is accurate - it is like asking DLI members (Defense Language Institute in Monterey) staff and students or Ranger school alumni to understand what the experience of new recruits are to the US Army or Marines ... which is to say, not the least bit accurate.
It would not surprise me at all if military special school alumni have a very different experience than an enlisted who has done nothing more than serve a single term.
Clearly you have not actually considered the possibility of differences between the 450K or more volunteers - of which I am 100% sure no more than a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction ever went to a specialist military school like Gudermes - as opposed to the sources of your information.
I thought BBC was part of the claque which has been assuring us that Russia has lost hundreds of thousands killed.
Eyeballing their graph shows an average of 1500 or less per month. That is 36,000 over the 2 years covered by the graph, which is surely 10% or less of the total Russians the West claims have been killed.
Was this an admission the BBC actually intended to make?
But at the same time as the BBC article that you linked above continues the propaganda by saying this:
"A classified US intelligence report estimated this week that 315,000 Russian soldiers had been either killed or wounded since the war began - which it said was almost 90% of Russia's military personnel at the start of the invasion." So, they still keep to the narrative of waves of Russians dying.
Though in another article titled Russia's meat grinder soldiers - 50,000 confirmed dead,
while quoting Eelensky ludicrous lie of only 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed.
But what I understand that latest estimates are around the 5-600,000 mark with a million plus amputees.
The BBC regularly publishes the Mediazona/BBC estimates of RF dead
That the BBC has to play along with/brunt the more foolish stupidities of the US UK NATO and so on propaganda is inevitable, and indeed necessary, and indeed praiseworthy - best to give both informations, both sides, rather than reporting just one
It is up to the reader to work out which he thinks more accurate and why, rather than relying on 'authority', race/identity, or emotion
Reporting on 'lies' is just as interesting as reporting on 'truths', as long as you think to know which is which
if you read "classified US intelligence report" or anything from "anonymous Pentagon official" - you are being given BS. worse, it is a circle jerk BS because such 'reports' are based on 'ukrainian estimates' which are so wrong and so bad that Bagdad Bob compare to it is an angel of truth.
I personally don't doubt that RF casualties are overstated in much of the West. But, given Russian/Soviet proclivity to withhold actual casualty numbers in the past, it's going to be a losing battle to argue this point until we get around to writing histories of this war.
I dont think the BBC knows exactly which set of instructions it should be following at the moment. The reality is starting to dawn on them but this is mutually exclusive with a lot of their established talking points. I noted a few weeks ago the 'BBC verify' team quietly letting on the hundreds of thousands killed wasn't correct (without ever tacitly acknowledging the fact, of course) - but then we still get breathlesss reports from the likes of Steve Rosenburg about meat assaults and Putin's dark ambitions of European domination.
As an aside, what does having to launch a 'verified' news service in the wake of Covid say about the rest of your output BBC, and the public's trust in it?
No, it wasn't. As other mentioned, they have been publishing these figures from very early on in the conflict. The clue here lies in the fact that this is apparently news to you. You see, these numbers are rarely, if ever, published where western audiences can easily see them. These numbers were published for Russian audiences. Unlike in the west, Russians know the numbers we get to hear are absurd exaggerations. So they don't work, in fact, they work counter-productive. In order to try and stir up casualty-induced anti-war sentiments within Russia, the BBC needs believable, and verifiable, numbers to get any traction at all. Hence these numbers in their collaboration with Mediazone.
I would also like to point out that there are actually two, very different, BBC's. The first is the domestic (UK) BBC, the one most people think of when they see/hear the three letters. That one is tied down (to some degree) by their 'charter' and by parliamentary oversight. The second one is BBC International. That one is very different and can do pretty much what it likes with very little interference or oversight. One could in fact make a very decent case of classifying BBC International as a tool/extension of the British 'intelligence services' rather than a news organisation.
The numbers which we see in the west are those published by BBC UK and are the massively inflated ones, while those collected and published in collaboration with Mediazone are the work of BBC International. So two different groups basically, serving two different purposes.
I seem to recall that the last time the UK tried to shut down the partial independence of the BBC international journalists (at its "World Service"?), someone (iirc Qatar?) hired them all and rebranded them as something called "Al Jazeera". So if the UK doesn't want deja vu all over again on that fiasco, it has to tread carefully... ;)
It sounds like our reporting here may have been prescient as breaking news states a massive Russian attack on Kharkov region has begun and some early reports even claim Russians already captured a village on the Ukrainian side of the Kharkov border.....has the big one begun? Or perhaps just a dry run for now....stay tuned
It has kicked off alright. Massive MLRS strikes (the largest I have seen ever), large scale attacks with FAB-500/1500 aerial bombs.
Russians are attacking from multiple vectors, Goptovka, Krasnoye, Pylnaya, Strelechya, Volchansk, Borisovka.
Big Arrow time?
I don't think so. Most likely, the main goals of this "offensive" are to create a buffer zone to reduce shelling of Russian border territories, and to pin down some of the Ukrainian troops and reserves to weaken other sectors of the front. But if Ukraine will not transfer reserves there, then this could turn into a real offensive.
Agreed. They will probably play it by ear and push where ever the Ukies are weakest.
the commentary I have seen - classic probing attack. if enemy moves reserves (exposing them to attrition) then other fronts become much easier and reserves could be pinned. if enemy does not, then opportunity may develop (like in the south in 2022 where land bridge was almost an accident, no one expected for initial resistance to be that weak). We will see. I have two great uncles that fought to liberate Kharkov in 1943 (and I believe one died and buried in a land that treat now officially treat him as 'occupier' under 'decommunization laws' and another was maimed/wounded) so I would not cry if RF would kick out Kiev junta from the area. And when I see UA regime desecrating the memorials and burial places of soviet soldiers it does make me upset and angry that this is allowed...
55,000 troops = defensive force for the Borderlands, at least initially
More troops to follow, depending on enemy countermoves as you say
Estimates of 100,000 troops in the Orechina theatre--so a full-on offensive has been on the move for a while
Stay spicy, my friend
Sounds like the intent is to create a 12km bufferzone on the Borderlands in order to reduce bombardment of civilians
Ukraine reports that the RF has amassed up to 400 tanks, 130 armored vehicles & 990 artillery pieces, including 120 multi-launch rocket systems
50,000 Russian troops fill out this First Wave--not enough to take out Sumy outright but to get to the outskirts of Sumy, dig in, shape the battlefield & then begin concentrating forces in a Second Wave
General Armageddon @ the helm--?
Lapin
Lapin. Thank you
I'm seeing it
That means "Rabbit" in French. I doubt he is one.
Very interesting that it STARTED in Charkov. As EngNobody writes, it is an attack of opportunity but with a cunning goal. If Ukraine deploy reserves then the Donbas-vector against Konstantinovka will be easier to break through. If Ukraine just try to hold then Russia can pour more troops in to the battle in front of Charkov and exploit weaknesses. If it indeed is a summer offensive then we should expect even more activity in 3-4 vectors in a matter of days.
I'm confident that the French Foreign Legion and British Cameronians regiment are going to bring this to a shuddering halt :)
The slow motion collapse appears to be speeding up. Hope it doesn't take the rest of the house down with nuclear war or a lot of escalation.
Learn about the Prophecy of the Popes....
That is indeed the concern. Western failing hegemony is getting desperate.
Few of those in charge were alive to face a worthy opponent, and have likely completely forgotten how to do so.
True, but any idiot can press a red button.
Do not worry so much - the US has no problems abandoning one war in order to start another
They've got much too much invested in a China war to give it up now
So put the nukes away and concentrate on reality
It is not certain that the US starts wars in order to win them, at least according to any reasonable defintion of 'winning'
In fact it's the other way round
The US starts wars to not win them but to create chaos around these wars
Winning is chaos
Well the US normal procedure is to use proxies and throw them to the wolves
By some process known only to science the US infects these scapegoats with the death wish
The US is priming the Aus, the Philippines, Japan and Sth Korea as proxies, and most of these are showing a lot of eager to be sacrificed, so far so good
With further contributions from willing victims such as UK, Germany NATO and so on
As for Taiwan, once the US can strangle TMSC to offshore factories and personnel - that island can be sunk without ceremony
Your presumption is based perhaps on some bizarre belief that all those countries are okeyfuckingdokey with regional Chinese expansion.
That's TSMC not TMSC, got it transposed there...
Well, now the US is the proxy - of Israel
I think Korea turned out to be reasonably peer-opponent once the Chinese came in. And how did that turn out? The Chinese cleaned the US forces' clock, pushing the Yanks all the way back to where they started from.
Sigh. So many smart people. So little understanding of the American reality.
The US starts wars to make money. None of our ruling class ever reaches the end of one of our wars with less money than they started with.
In our case, money really is the root of all our evil.
As I live in the Philippines, you've given me a lot more to worry about, lmao.
Well .....the China war has been brewing for awhile, although the Marcos's want to speed it up it seems, I guess you've got a far flung island retreat planned
I've got Chinese blood, I'll just blend in when the time comes.
Move to China would be safer....
And nicer. Chinas is an astonishing place that more US citizens should visit. It would open their eyes to their own parlous estate. That applies to europe too.
I agree with that, Gerrard, although not so much the China war bit, that will never happen.
Well the question is what war can the US now concentrate on? I guess they may begin a propaganda campaign emphasizing the military strength of and danger posed by nations such as Papau new Guinea, Solomon Islands or a renewed invasion of Grenada to recreate some military success.
You're right - let's put it to the vote!
Granada would be good, but have you considered Hawaïi? or maybe Canada?
Better yet Texas why not.....that would be spectacular, The Alamo!, and China would surrender immediately they heard the news
Gerald, I agree, the blob will move on, Ukraine is fizzling out, they will say they did their best, declare not so much victory as moral vindication in defeat.
The media will laud the entire effort as an attempt at goodness and justice in the face of evil. Your neighbours and friends will happily take the summation story at face value and silence will ensue, all will be quiet, Ukraine will be gone, memory holed next to Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the myriad others.
The political Gnosticism of the liberal imperium is infinitely robust, the message making media utterly reliable and the sham demos of a western citizenry is really just a shabby mob of apathetic consumers who don’t care.
The engine of this nightmare is greed, war is our greatest industry and Ukraine will be replaced with Gaza, Iran, DPRK, Taiwan, maybe even Russia.
As for me I don’t really care either. I sincerely believe war is what we deserve and from the comfort of Canada I look on with a quiet sense of schadenfreude.
Schadenfreude doesn't stop fallout.
Canada has a large coast line on the now defrosting arctic ocean natural resources rush, lots of OTHER natural resources (and FRESH WATER), is politically enmeshed with their rather grabby southern neighbor. And might need some invading and a regime change or two if it tries to sit out the global game of musical chairs now underway- Can you sing the "Blame Canada" song from South Park? Yes, I think I've just realized who is going to be invaded by the USA next...
I like, sincerely, Canada does deserve a good comeuppance , and we will get it one day, good and hard.
But in truth, we are not an independent country. We are a resource store for the United States, energy and rocks and minerals so that’s the reason America will never invade us. What I’m saying is you have already invaded us and won.
So this should be a slam-dunk! Yes, definitely Canada...
The unemployed and retarded psychopath arrived on time with his usual 100 idiotic posts, copied here or there by some tabloid or listened to by the barber.
A nuclear strike against the largest US coastal cities would turn it, overnight, into something resembling a white nationalist enthnostate.
LLM-derived breakdowns and summaries of that post by Simplicius The Thinker:
https://complexiathesinker.substack.com/p/llm-over-victory-day-anxiousness
I was at an RSA lunch earlier this week. The head of Accenture's Identity Management worldwide team was part of a panel talking about identity; he started with a story about ChatGPT and how he created an agent that summarized a 500 page academic paper that he did not have time to read.
I asked him privately: how do you know the agent is working correctly if you never read the actual paper? LOL
And of course, all academic papers have executive summaries. Just how different was this agent's output vs said summary?
You're right that large language models (LLMs) can make up results and shouldn't be trusted in general.
But for our breakdown posts, we use LLMs to help us understand the material. We usually read the breakdowns first, then the actual posts, and then use the breakdowns to review what we've read.
So far, we haven't found any factual or meaning-related errors in the Simplicius articles we've processed using this method. (But this is just based on our own experience, so it's not necessarily proof.)
Hallucinations are an issue but they primarily arise when the accuracy knobs are turned down - not coincidentally, it is from lower accuracy word cloud analysis that the so-called "intelligent" results come from.
The one thing that LLMs do is that they have proven to understand basic grammar very well, so I don't actually expect serious problems with non-adversarial reading comprehension situations.
The actual risks are far more insidious: the reality is that each and every LLM model is more like a guideline steering the underlying LLM engine - and users have zero visibility or control over the way this engine operates. Put another way: if the LLM engine owner, be it OpenAI or Google or Microsoft or some other, decides suddenly that gray should be come white - then this occurrence would trivially propagate across all users regardless of the "models". And given the profit motive of these companies - the enshittification potential is guaranteed to be realized sooner or late.
Sounds like a plan.
Like with the Dapra Mrna in covid. Going onto the Ft. Derrick grounds and all the people puttering around as if they didn't know that this base was and still is an utterly demomic place (says the atheiest -with buddist leaning) "creating" the worst ways for mankind to die and working with British labs as well...search -wikipedia Doctor Death South Africa..English cunts.
As Ukrainians retreat to Skuchne, which means boring in Russian, they may find themselves with nothing to do until the Russians come and “rescue” them.
Great article. Assuming Russia does intent on starting some kind of offensive soon in the Kharkov/Sumy region, what do you believe is probably gonna be their modus operandi? Some kind of big offensive to siege and take Kharkov (which would then logically be the ultimate goal of the operation)? Border battles aimed at diverting troops and finding weak spots from where to advance? Or maybe some localized offensive in Vovchansk to separate Kupyansk from the rest of the Ukrainian front and cause a collapse there?
If I had to guess, the optimal way to fight this offensive would be a combination of the two last options. This would offer the best trade off between risk and reward. Enlarging the front in itself without necessarily aiming for deep big arrows is in the benefit of the Russian Federation (the more populous and stronger side) now that it finally managed to tap into it's manpower reserves. Ukraine would be hard pressed to keep up.
The situation is vastly different from the time when Russia had to retreat and consolidate from the same front.
Thx.
I would think almost certainly it wouldn't be to besiege/take Kharkov just yet, but would be more preliminary actions like cutting off the rears of the Kupyansk group as you stated to make them think twice about staying, with a simultaneous launch of a larger offensive from the Kupyansk/Sinkovka side to push the AFU west.
Then Russia can play it by ear and see how it goes depending where Ukraine deploys its reserves. The thing is, it favors Russia even to just incur 10-15km into Kharkov region and muck things up and entrench themselves there. Why? Because they would keep the entire northern AFU group busy which would vastly decrease strikes on Belgorod region. Also it would put Russian troops much closer to any of the units striking Belgorod which would allow far greater ISR and counter-strikes which would effectively stop attacks on Belgorod.
Then as the AFU slowly breaks down deeper in the future, Russia can slowly begin closing a ring around Kharkov to cut it off entirely, but I could see that happening much farther down the line.
For now I'm not convinced they'll even incur past the border, but if they do, the above is more how I see it playing out in the near to mid term because it accomplishes several actually strategically important tasks at the same time. Which is: 1. securing the border which means stopping AFU/DRG/RDK assaults on Belgorod region, 2. pushing back AFU in general and stopping shelling of Belgorod, and 3. pressuring or cutting off the rear of the Kupyansk group, which could lead to its destabilization and eventual collapse.
Taking Kharkov by direct attacks is likely not the plan. Bypassing and containing the troops there is. Those will surrender once properly isolated and Russia has pushed the front to Dnepr.
I hope.
Towns and monuments don't fight, dispose of the enemy forces and all will be well. Quite simple actually.
Would the RF not contiue the electrics war against Kharkov, try to move the civilians out?
That's my constant thought too - just keep hitting the electricity until they can't charge their phones or drones!
It seems likely, who would'nt choose this simple way to reduce civilian deaths by obliging them to evacuate
Also cuts down on underground military factories - easier to locate via generator thermics and fuel deliveries
Go Russia. The Arrogant West insisted on this fight , which they claimed is totally unprovoked. Next they insist that the leader of Isra Hell resign. Why don't Bibi go fight for Ukraine and give the people he slaughters a break?
Funny how you wouldn't even know that Russia sacrificed thirty million or so against the folks who keep sending weapons against them still ...but this shit will stop soon,... as the demilitarization and deNaziefication is starting to yield impressive results, and Biden is gonna declare fictory and sniff the hair of the statute of liberty
Ya think the Hair Sniffer will lose to the Pussy Grabber? Stay tuned.
A plague on both their houses.
Are you referring to Hillary, Vinny?
Wonderful, very informative, thank you! I love the final photo of Putin with his teacher, there is a lot to like about the man. If you have time would value your insight into Russia's decision to shut down access to Telegram { edit: Rumble} throughout Russia. Thank you again!
I have no idea what you're talking about. Russia tried to shut down Telegram almost 10 years ago and failed because it's impossible. Telegram is specifically set up to be impossible to block because it doesn't rely on one fixed address. The only way to block Telegram would be to shut it down via its HQ in Dubai.
That being said, Telegram does, on occasion, work WITH governments to block certain CHANNELS, which is a more subtle and nuanced thing. But shutting down access to the entire app? Impossible.
Interesting - thanks.
That's what i love about Simplicius' posts. His (my misogyny is showing) community of followers are also so well informed. I've learned something useful here. Thanks
All pro Russians telegram channel have been shut down in France.
I'm in the area. No trouble getting Russian stuff.
Quite right, I was wrong, it is Rumble that was shut down.
Strange thing. I am in France and still manage to get on Rumble sometimes!
That's interesting, are you using a VPN connection?
No idea. But I get through somehow and sometimes.
Utterly wrong.
It is trivial to ban telegram - have the Apple and Google stores drop support for it. It will be gone in no more than 3 OS cycles.
Or if you are a smaller country, force the telecom providers to de-install the app from all handsets.
Even on desktop - it isn't hard at all to stop Telegram. Every single desktop/laptop has malware/virus "protection" built into the OS, if not actual standalone software. The OS providers therefore have an exhaustive list of all files and therefore programs on said machine. And no, Linux is no better because you have the same builtin monitoring systems on the back end due to the interdependence of Linux on core libraries. Only those at least moderately proficient know how and what to turn these off.
Then there's the browsers - not hard at all to block names like "telegram". Blocking by IP number only is no longer required.
China's Great Firewall can detect and remove pictures inside apps more than 7 years ago - the notion that a nation cannot block Telegram is 100% wrong.
Thus there are no technical barriers whatsoever to blocking any particular app, web site, or whatever - there is only the question of whether governments wish to disabuse their populations of their illusions of technological independence.
The only reason this has not happened yet is because Telegram is still very much a niche platform for information distribution. There are far more scammers and what not than real information sources - of which no small number are both lol.
Tech OG from 1984 (IBM PC JR with the chic lit keyboard were were later told here) Just a suggestion I use the Brave browser (not shilling for them at all because I am an attorney and "we" are "trained to extract wealth" at "every opportunity," thus our 16% ethics rating by Galllup; so much data could be extracted from that survey to show the decline of the USA as a Weak Old Uniparty) and a load of extentions as I was "always on the bleeding edge" of tech and still waiting for "fusion" (coming out in 20 years for the last 10 years and we worry about Debt/MIC), still waiting and paid for a nice National train like Eurail (Yes, we have Detroit and Amtrak..so Proud).
The Brave browser is nice but it provides zero protection against nation state actors much less the United State government. Among other things, the US can reach into your phone and/or computer via any number of routes that are completely undetectable/unblockable by you in any way short of turning off the internet:
1) Your ISP - whoever is providing your internet service, sees all your traffic and all the web sites you visit. A VPN may or may not help because there is an ISP on the other end...
2) Your phone/computer operating system owner - whether it is Android or Apple, Windows or Mac, or even Linux, there are innumerable hooks inside the operating system allowing outside access - not least of which is the built in "virus protection".
3) Your browser - amiunique.org is a great site. It informs you just how "unique" you are just from asking questions to your browser. Very few people are not unique.., meaning your activity is easily traceable just via this browser profile which is accessible by literally every single web site you visit.
I work in cybersecurity, so the above is informed as my professional opinion.
I will say that I agree with most of what you say. Since I am out of north America, I know for sure that nearly all of my communications are routed through large surveillance centers in NYC and then to Ft Meade, which we know what is housed there. Since I know the security state, I know what to say and what not to say. Also the security state still missed 9-11, 7-10, and will "miss" the next false flag. I do have a VPN but being in computers so long, there is no privacy anywhere. Thanks for the comment. If you can suggest a better browser, I am all ears?
Your knowledge does not jibe with my knowledge.
Among other things, there are so many different types of communication that it is extremely unlikely it would all get routed to New York. Voice over copper, VOIP, internet packets, SMS messages, cell messages, app messages, pics, video, surveillance camera footage, license plate readers, facial recog, checkins at airports, credit card usage, utility bills, legal docs - the notion that it is copied, stored and accessible for any significant period of time over say, 1 month is risible. To give a simple example: a single day's bitcoin transactions, which is only about 500K, is 60 gigabytes by itself.
Even the CIA keeps a lot of its data in Nevada and only for a relatively short time.
Then there are the social media providers: the replication of all that data into government data centers would be a cost visible almost at the top level in the US budget. Why would the USG bother copying it when they can get it right from the horse's mouth, as it were?
You clearly have no idea just how much of an impediment, too much data is. This is a major reason why AI is so exciting for the Disinformation Industrial Complex - they can sell the bullshit notion that AI can suck all that in and summarize it perfectly.
If you want to be anonymous, you use burners and change them frequently.
You move around all the time, randomly and you don't frequent the same sets of web sites just from different burners.
This isn't rocket science - if the terrah-ists can figure it out, so can you. The numbnuts in the surveillance state are so busy trying to make their "capture all, analyze all" work that there is very little bandwidth left for any actual original investigative work or analysis.
Are you thinking of Rumble [ not Telegram ]--?
It's Rumble.
Yes! My error, thank you for correcting me!
Glory to Great Soviet Sacrifices! Glory to all Heroes! To those who been fought the Fascism in World War 2 and those who fighting Fascism today. They all stand tall equally among the Martyrs. May God bestow them, Victory!
What Indonesia-1945 said. ^^^
The only uncle I never met was a paratrooper, Blaine H., shot out of the sky at age 21 in the Pacific Islands during WW2. The fascist resurgence reminds me of bedbugs and cockroaches that somehow always manage to survive. Kudos too to the excellent commenters here who are fonts of insights and historical knowledge. As always, the western newspapers, shills and liars that they are, still serve the useful purpose of being receptacles for spent coffee grounds. I was really despairing until I saw the students and staff rise up to challenge the Nazi Orthodoxy. Hats off the the Russian and Soviet people who sacrificed so much in WW2. All best in your current eradication endeavors. And FJB and Bibi, the real ruler of the disunited states of America.
You have to empathize with those brave Ukranian soldiers huddling in their trench knowing it’s a lost cause. Like being a Wehrmacht soldier on the east front in 1944. Just waiting to be killed.
They need to work together and overthrow the puppets who are selling them out.
"Only the dead know the end of war"
And they didn't know about Kolomoisky et al years ago?
But that's hard work! It's much easier to die, all they need to do for that is sit in a trench and wait.
They need to vote with their feet.
The German War Machine lost more men in the time frame after Bagration and Normandy, then in the hole war from 39 to the autum of 44, which includes disasters like Stalingrad.
Theirs not to make reply.
theirs not to reason why
theirs but to do & die
stormed at with shot & shell
boldly they fought & well
into the Jaws of Death
into the Mouth of Hell
Tennyson immortalized the plight of cannon fodder everywhere, regardless of nationality or era, without fear or favor
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Always enjoy your work Simplicius! Thanks.
I've shared your link on our Stack for tomorrow.
A Skeptic War Reports
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/war-reports-2024-05-10
Class, Class, exudes Class, Putin is a great statesman probably the worlds best at present, that exchange with the Black Sea Marines Maj General… wow, you can see the mutual respect, feel it, the moment for me best of all, given everything read and viewed these past days Russia, Russian, the exchange with his former teacher, her words, summing up all we need know… the free world will be in good hands Putin at the helm… make it happen.. Kia Kaha from New Zealand
Ironic you use the word 'class' to admire a frustrated communist.
What a ridiculous comment.
How Putin is communist?
Ironic you call an Orthodox Christian leader of a Democratic Republic a communist. Some might call that witless stupidity, Vinny.
I phrased that wrong and retract the incorrect implication I made: what I meant to say (and would have if I hadn't been half asleep) was that the use of the word 'class/classy' would be an ironic one to use for a person who is often ACCUSED by the western narrative of being a frustrated/defeated Communist and closet KGB agent, as Putin is. Putin commented once that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a great catastrophe, which was immediately taken as meaning he wished it hadn't happened.
I agree that my comment was off-kilter and sounded stupid; thank you for correcting me.
Having said that, I stand by my opinion that the word 'classy' is a little tone deaf, imo!
Kia kaha, ka pai!
Marat Khairulin May 8th, 2024
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin officially began his fifth presidential term yesterday. We lived with him for an entire era: four official terms and one intermediate term (prime minister) - almost thirty years.
Historians compare Putin with the Roman Emperor Constantine, who from the collapsed Roman Empire created Byzantium, which lasted for more than a thousand years and had a huge impact on the development of all human civilization.
Putin laid exactly the same meanings into the foundations of the revived Russia, and they are already exerting a key influence on planetary civilization today.
First of all, we challenged the tyranny of the West and thereby gave hope to many peoples for a fair world order - without the predatory exploitation of some countries by others. This is Putin’s merit to all humanity.
But VVP also has personal qualities, following which each person can specifically make their life more meaningful and prosperous. The President, by his example, shows what is good and what is bad, that is, he behaves in a fatherly manner towards all of us. What am I talking about?
Once during an interview, when a famous TV presenter began to use contemptuous words towards third parties, he immediately corrected him - I ask you not to utter such words in my presence.
Putin's 1st rule is restraint. Vladimir Vladimirovich never insults his opponents, he is always emphatically proper. Even if he is provoked to the contrary, he does not react.
There is such a well-known psychological maxim - when arguing with an opponent (criticizing him), never get personal (don’t insult). This works both in relation to states and in relations between people at the everyday level. Peace of mind cements confidence and strength.
Putin's 2nd rule is honesty. Even in small things. I remember an incident when, during a trip, Putin, still in the rank of prime minister, spoke to an elderly journalist from the pool. He couldn’t answer one question, but promised that he would find out and give an answer later. During the next trip, VVP personally approached this journalist and answered.
Before that, through my work, I communicated with many famous leaders - Gaidar, Chernomyrdin, Nemtsov, Luzhkov, governors. None of them gave any meaning to their words - they promised, knowing in advance that they would not be questioned later.
Throughout the 90s, if you remember, miners were banging their helmets on the humpbacked bridge in front of the White House. They were promised everything - with cameras, without cameras.
But Putin promised and solved the problems.
Putin’s 3rd rule is to live in the soul with God.
I think at some stage Vladimir Vladimirovich realized that without faith in the highest justice he could not cope here on earth. And it is not at all by chance that the Lord gave us this ruler for many years - so that the VVP would build the building of a new Russian statehood.
It’s probably worth writing a book “Lessons from Putin” so that each of us can understand our leader and try to follow his worthy example.
It's just a shame that the epithet Vladimir the Great has been taken. What can history call him then?
The Russian anaconda continues to gradually squeeze the life out of its victim, while constantly gaining strength...A very interesting style of war for those of us who are used to "shock and awe."
10 May 2024 What is Victory ?
Many people wonder what victory could look like in the Ukraine war pitching NATO versus the RF
From the NATO side it is indeed hard to say, for the western ruling class is split into cabals, each with their own calendars and programs
In the US there is a salty soup of Neo Cons, realists, anti everyones, China hawks, and so on
In Europe the Eastern Europeans, the BalNors, the large countries, the EU Commission fail to agree on just about everything except ‘our exceptional democracy’
The Neos and major part of the ruling class wish for decolonisation, that is to say splitting RF into malleable sized tasty chunks, stealing everything, as per Irak, Afghanistan, Syria and Gaza – safe to say their aims never alter
The aims and intents of the RF are more modest, practical and realistic – VVP never tires of saying : "denazification, demilitarisation and its neutral status".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67711802
On a wider scale the RF is concerned to build a new world order to replace the current US led chaos- this is the work of a generation, and involves creating increasing collaboration with many countries not only bilaterally, trilaterally, but altogether
Chairman Mao has the answers, as always
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch05.htm
Annexe
People all over the world are now discussing whether a third world war will break out. On this question, too, we must be mentally prepared and do some analysis. We stand firmly for peace and against war. However, if the imperialists insist on unleashing another war, we should not be afraid of it. Our attitude on this question is the same as our attitude towards any disturbance: first, we are against it; second, we are not afraid of it. The First World War was followed by the birth of the Soviet Union with a population of 200 million. The Second World War was followed by the emergence of the socialist camp with a combined population of 900 million. If the imperialists insist on launching a third world war, it is certain that several hundred million more will turn to socialism, and then there will not be much room left on earth for the imperialists; it is also likely that the whole structure of imperialism will utterly collapse.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (February 27, 1957), 1st pocket ed., pp. 67-68.
Our country and all the other socialist countries want peace; so do the peoples of all the countries of the world. The only ones who crave war and do not want peace are certain monopoly capitalist groups in a handful of imperialist countries that depend on aggression for their profits.
"Opening Address at the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China" (September 15, 1956).
To achieve a lasting world peace, we must further develop our friendship and co-operation with the fraternal countries in the socialist camp and strengthen our solidarity with all peace-loving countries. We must endeavor to establish normal diplomatic relations, based on mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty and of equality and mutual benefit, with all countries willing to live together with us in peace. We must give active support to the national independence and liberation movement in countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as to the peace movement and to just struggles in all the countries of the world.
Ibid.
As for the imperialist countries, we should unite with their peoples and strive to coexist peacefully with those countries, do business with them and prevent any possible war, but under no circumstances should we harbour any unrealistic notions about them.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (February 27, 1957), 1st pocket ed., p. 75.
Imperialism will not last long because it always does evil things. It persists in grooming and supporting reactionaries in all countries who are against the people, it has forcibly seized many colonies and semi-colonies and many military bases, and it threatens the peace with atomic war. Thus, forced by imperialism to do so, more than 90 per cent of the people of the world are rising or will rise in struggle against it. Yet, imperialism is still alive, still running amuck in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the West imperialism is still oppressing the people at home. This situation must change. It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism.
Interview with a Hsinhua News Agency correspondent (September 29, 1958).
It will take a long period to decide the issue in the ideological struggle between socialism and capitalism in our country. The reason is that the influence of the bourgeoisie and of the intellectuals who come from the old society will remain in our country for a long time to come, and so will their class ideology. If this is not sufficiently understood, or is not understood at all, the gravest mistakes will be made and the necessity of waging the struggle in the ideological field will be ignored.
Ibid. pp. 52-53.
In our country bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology, anti-Marxist ideology will continue to exist for a long time. Basically, the socialist system has been established in our country. We have won the basic victory in transforming the ownership of the means of production, but we have not yet won complete victory on the political and ideological fronts. In the ideological field, the question of who will win in the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie has not been really settled yet. We still have to wage a protracted struggle against bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideology. It is wrong not to understand this and to give up ideological struggle. All erroneous ideas, all poisonous weeds, all ghosts and monsters, must be subjected to criticism; in no circumstance should they be allowed to spread unchecked. However, the criticism should be fully reasoned, analytical and convincing, and not rough, bureaucratic, metaphysical or dogmatic.
Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work (March 12, 1957), 1st pocket ed., and pp. 26-27. *
I've found Russia's 'strategic clarity' very logical, justified and easy to follow, unlike the dogs-breakfast of NATO mechanations. Funny, as I've always been told that the Russians are so ham'fisted at PR....
This is because they have nothing to hide, and most statements are aimed at an internal Russian audience, or a RoW audience, both of whom appreciate straightforward clarity
USEU statements are all lies, designed to try and fool everyone, so they wind up trip wiring themselves
When the ruling class is aligned in interest with the working class truthful statements are easier to come by
Read Chairman Mao - it's all just common sense
There is no strategic ambiguity with NATO or the West. Everyone knows it wants to take down Russia and China.
Don't accept numb-nut mainstream media mislabeling of moronic Macronic flipfloppery for strategy - it is nothing more than tactics. Thus both the West and Russia are clear on strategy; it is at the tactical level that Russia and the West differ.
The West and Ukraine trumpet their weapons transfers, their pending offensives, their terrorist activities disguised as conventional war while the Russians say nothing about offensives until only the most idiotic Westerner fails to understand they are underway, and don't even talk about captured towns or strategic positions until days and weeks after they are taken.
What does 'take down' mean here - easy to say hard to understand - unless the RoW is supposed to understand yankee slang
Looks like the Battle for Kharkov is not going to happen after all. And I was hoping to see Kharkov come back to its home. Sigh. Odessa (my town) still remains far.
My worry is that only the Donbass will be liberated and everything else will prove too hard of a nut to crack. The fact that such a small force is present around Kharkov is not encouraging.
Successful wars of attrition are fought with great patience. Do not focus on what is or is not happening around Kharkov - focus on the fact that Russia is completely destroying Ukraine's military and its infrastructure - major territorial gains like Kharkov will eventually fall into the hands of the RF without much effort.
Exactly
In the paid article it seemed to indicate that degradation of infrastructure takes years, but I am not seeing it honestly. Lights are still on in Kiev and many major Ukrainian cities
It's a gradual process, as has been indicated already by S and by very many commenters
- the RF do not fight high speed style like the US
or as NATO did in Serbia, wipe out 70% of electricity in a few weeks
I think they are trying to take out as many military (and dual-use) facilities as possible, leaving the remaining ones for civilian use. They are attacking PPs as we write. Same with transport. Same with fuel centres. They are trying to maximise military destruction and minimise civilian impact - which sounds like, from what you say, they are at least somewhat successful, as your power is still on.
Indee. Territory is not the measure of victory: at most, it's the fruits of victory.
We'll see. It is indeed demoralizing to think that Russia will stop at Donbass, leaving the rest for nazis to consume.
What i think is that Russia doesn't have a choice. There were attacks on civilians in Belgorod recently, attack in Crocus, etc. Nazis won't leave Russia alone. Belgorod is actually in the same position as Donetsk or Lugansk, or any other city really, Kharkov, for instance.
Moreover, i think that if Russia wouldn't intervene, nazis would be shelling Belgorod anyway, only latter and in a worse situation for Russia overall.
It's not like Hitler would voluntarily leave USSR or Europe and go back to Germany into nazi paradise. He would keep pushing, building more armies, just like Zelensky does now.
I don't know how the war will end, but it is crazy to think that Europe in 1943 would be left with Hitler in power. It just doesn't seem possible. This is why i don't see a future where Ukraine could win the war.
Have faith, brother.
It’s a war of attrition not a war of maneuver. Land is everywhere. More soldiers are hard to come by.
Victory is victory whether by crushing the enemy's armies utterly or having them unconditionally surrender.
While there are fair points about the Maginot line - the fact is that the French people, government and military surrendered rather than fight after the initial German successes in World War 2. Consider how early Soviet armies were defeated, one after another, a couple years later but the Russians fought on. The Russians were willing to accept enormous losses and keep going but the French were not. These are differing examples of will to fight.
Ukraine is getting closer, every day, to the point where they cannot fight - at which point their willingness to fight becomes irrelevant.
Whether this inability to fight is due to lack of arms, men, money, or willpower is the only question.
The Maginot line was penetrated by an infantry assault with no armor support in June, 1940. The fortifications were of purely local significance and proved irrelevant, as the opposing Siegfried Line did in 1944-45. Both were primarily morale boosters for their respective sides.
Fortification lines beyond trenches are mostly speed bumps and intended to deter and channel assaults.
Sure, but that is not the point. The point is that the French surrendered rather than fight whereas the Russians fought even though the Germans basically accomplished their objectives in the initial campaign against Russia.
The French had less land to work with _and_ had mobilized what they thought was their maximum military fraction. They lost a quarter of their expected force in the initial campaign and all their allied forces. They didn't see a path to producing an army that could stop the Germans in time to have any country left, so they surrendered. It was a logical decision, they had no chance to produce a front before they were thrown out of the country.
Did the Germans capture significant petroleum, their weak spot? No.
Did the Germans capture significant rail nodes such as Moscow, Leningrad or Stalingrad? No.
Did the Germans logistically cripple the Soviet state by harming its productive capacity? Long term, no.
Did the Germans inflict enough casualties to weaken Soviet resistance? No.
Did the Germans achieve their objectives? No. They occupied a lot of territory, that's it. Clausewitz would have told them they were going to lose.
The Soviet Union OTOH had a _lot_ of land to trade for time. They did. They had heavy industry already extant from the various Five Year Plans. They took what they could from the west and dumped it on the other side of the Urals and rebuilt factories out there. Then they scoured the eastern parts of the country for men to put in uniform. They did the prisoner thing like the Russians have done in Donbass. Bottom line: they mobilized 700 divisions over the course of the war, or thereabouts. The German intel estimates suggested 200 or so at the maximum. There's the problem right there, if they'd correctly estimated the scale of the force they'd face, they'd never have invaded. They also expected issues with ammo and small arms ala WWI, which did not manifest. The US helping mostly with road and rail transport equipment, octane boosters for aircraft fuel, communications equipment (telephone poles, wire, handsets) and feeding people, as represented by the ubiquitous Spam cans, did the rest.
What you write is accurate, but is also at least partly excuse as opposed to inescapable reality.
Could the French have fought more? Yes, they could have. They would have experienced horrendous losses like the Soviets did - remember that the Soviet military capacity was not fully mobilized when the initial attack occurred either - but the 2nd and 3d Soviet armies still fought. Nor were there volume shipments from the US for literally years after the initial German attack - it took significant time to get the ships, transport and material lined up.
I'm not saying the French would have won because they probably would not have. But the fact remains is that they did not go even 5% of the way which the Russians did. Were Parisians willing to suffer 1 million dead from besieging German forces as the residents of Leningrad did? Clearly not.
Even the Germans fought far harder than the French did - after it was transparently clear that Germany was going to lose. The same excuse could have been used by the Wehrmacht when faced by attacks from both the US/UK forces on the Western front and the Soviet juggernaut on the Eastern front.
Your justifications of French behavior are reasonable, but war is never just about reason.
Even your laundry list of objectives is at least partly ex post facto.
We know exactly what the German objectives were for the start of hostilities - and they were all met. But they assumed that the Russians would fold like the French did - and the Russians did not. Every Soviet army that was destroyed as per German plans, more sprung up. Even the successor armies were then defeated by the Germans, but a 3rd set sprung up. It wasn't until around the 4th set that the tide turned. And this reflects precisely with the data you put forward: the Germans expected 200 divisions and wound up facing 700.
That's the difference between Russian fighting spirit and French.
Nor is your belief that ":estimations" were wrong, accurate. The German estimations were perfectly accurate: the 500 extra divisions literally did not exist when the Germans started their attack. The Germans simply did not believe that the Russian people and Soviet government would be willing and/or able to create 500 more divisions largely from scratch.
The only reason the stated German objectives were so stupid was that the person making them wasn't thinking about a military victory and thought his opponents were subhumans. I'm actually not exaggerating there. Anyone in Germany who was actually thinking along practical lines would have immediately thought of the objectives I described - I doubt Speer would have said the 1941 or 1942 campaign achieved some reasonable objective, and from their diaries we know both Halder and Goebbels didn't either.
I'm trying to think along the lines of the person of the early 1940s with expected Soviet resistance. I'm pretty sure the Japanese knew better after their experiences fighting Zhukov in Manchuria. I'm also pretty sure that the Poles did too after their war in Russia. The Finns surrendered even though they were winning tactical victories for a time. The 1918 interventions for the Whites didn't come out well. Why would someone with a reasonable frame of mind from that time expect the Soviet Union to collapse under external stress? The simple answer is that you wouldn't.
Honestly, from inside Russia, it seems that the reason the volunteer units take higher casualties than the regular line troops is because the volunteers are literally auxilia, operating in lightly-armed formations with nonstandard/worse/quickened training and sometimes patchy integration with the regular army. Why wouldn't such troops suffer proportionally more casualties even ceteris paribus?
I would question (and dismiss) that whole statistics. Who was killed, in which numbers, and what group they belong to. How the BBC & Co. will be able to find that out? OTOH, a kontraktnik goes to the AF, where ever he is needed, so a probability of <30% to end up in a war zone. Whereas a volunteer goes to the SMO only (that's the difference) and will end up in a war zone with elevated risk.
Do you know this for a fact or are you assuming?
I actually doubt that there is anything so clear cut as the volunteers all getting sent to the front. Among other things, it does not look like most of the trained volunteers to date are even in Ukraine.
As far as I see the Russian news and discussion, volunteers (доброволци "good-willings") refers only to people that are going directly to the SMO, usually via the Specnas-University in Gudermes (Chechnya), but other ways seem to be possible, just more rarely mentioned. A training course of about two weeks used to be reported - for people having served a full basic service in the military. Whereas people that decide to join the army as regulars (kontraktnik "contract-soldier") never will be named that way, despite the fact they do that out of free will as well. These persons go in large part into the 2 newly (re)created military districts (Leningrad and Moscow) and may also enter a lot of newly created AD units for defending industry and cities. Many kontraktniks won't go to the front line any time soon. Once these military districts will be established, they will get their share of the front line, where the military district may sent some 10%-20% of their personal. Draftees, which are drafted twice a year, in spring and autumn, for basic service, do not go to the SMO.
So yes, I would call this a fact.
Again, is this based on first hand knowledge or assumptions? You answered this - you are reporting what you have read from other people - in other words, hearsay = not first hand knowledge.
Among other things: the training periods for volunteers is far longer than 2 weeks unless they are part of some outfit like the Chechens - which is Rosguardia, not Russian army. The vast majority of volunteers are not joining the Chechens or Rosguardia - that would be very visible.
Equally, what you write above is contradictory. What exactly is the difference between a 'volunteer' and a 'contractor'? Is there an actual form or official classification difference? I greatly doubt it. Among other things: just because someone wants to fight in the SMO does not mean the Russian army will send them there. The Russian army has no interest in warm bodies but rather in soldiers it knows can execute tasks given to them. Someone willing to fight and die is just a negative statistic waiting to happen - the Russian army has no need to take any warm body available unlike the Ukrainians.
I talked about доброволец vs контрактник in Russia. What does it mean, and how they are used. The term 2 weeks is from interviews with personal and students from Gudermes University.
If you insist of first-hand-experience - "the training periods for volunteers is far longer than 2 weeks" is based on what first-hand-experience by you exactly? Do you even speak Russian?
I have Russian relatives and have regularly visited there and talked to them, and other Russian people, for 15 years now. These include past and present serving members of various Russian armed forces.
As for your "speaking to personnel and students from Gudermes University" - are these actual normal, walk off the street volunteers? Presuming what you say is accurate - it is like asking DLI members (Defense Language Institute in Monterey) staff and students or Ranger school alumni to understand what the experience of new recruits are to the US Army or Marines ... which is to say, not the least bit accurate.
It would not surprise me at all if military special school alumni have a very different experience than an enlisted who has done nothing more than serve a single term.
Clearly you have not actually considered the possibility of differences between the 450K or more volunteers - of which I am 100% sure no more than a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction ever went to a specialist military school like Gudermes - as opposed to the sources of your information.
Not that I doubt you are right, but enjoying a bit of Latin sprinkled into the prose on my Friday.
I thought BBC was part of the claque which has been assuring us that Russia has lost hundreds of thousands killed.
Eyeballing their graph shows an average of 1500 or less per month. That is 36,000 over the 2 years covered by the graph, which is surely 10% or less of the total Russians the West claims have been killed.
Was this an admission the BBC actually intended to make?
The BBC has long published reasonable estimates of RF dead soldiers along with Mediazona
Investigate!
But at the same time as the BBC article that you linked above continues the propaganda by saying this:
"A classified US intelligence report estimated this week that 315,000 Russian soldiers had been either killed or wounded since the war began - which it said was almost 90% of Russia's military personnel at the start of the invasion." So, they still keep to the narrative of waves of Russians dying.
Though in another article titled Russia's meat grinder soldiers - 50,000 confirmed dead,
while quoting Eelensky ludicrous lie of only 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed.
But what I understand that latest estimates are around the 5-600,000 mark with a million plus amputees.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-68819853
The BBC regularly publishes the Mediazona/BBC estimates of RF dead
That the BBC has to play along with/brunt the more foolish stupidities of the US UK NATO and so on propaganda is inevitable, and indeed necessary, and indeed praiseworthy - best to give both informations, both sides, rather than reporting just one
It is up to the reader to work out which he thinks more accurate and why, rather than relying on 'authority', race/identity, or emotion
Reporting on 'lies' is just as interesting as reporting on 'truths', as long as you think to know which is which
if you read "classified US intelligence report" or anything from "anonymous Pentagon official" - you are being given BS. worse, it is a circle jerk BS because such 'reports' are based on 'ukrainian estimates' which are so wrong and so bad that Bagdad Bob compare to it is an angel of truth.
I personally don't doubt that RF casualties are overstated in much of the West. But, given Russian/Soviet proclivity to withhold actual casualty numbers in the past, it's going to be a losing battle to argue this point until we get around to writing histories of this war.
I dont think the BBC knows exactly which set of instructions it should be following at the moment. The reality is starting to dawn on them but this is mutually exclusive with a lot of their established talking points. I noted a few weeks ago the 'BBC verify' team quietly letting on the hundreds of thousands killed wasn't correct (without ever tacitly acknowledging the fact, of course) - but then we still get breathlesss reports from the likes of Steve Rosenburg about meat assaults and Putin's dark ambitions of European domination.
As an aside, what does having to launch a 'verified' news service in the wake of Covid say about the rest of your output BBC, and the public's trust in it?
Rosenburg.
No, it wasn't. As other mentioned, they have been publishing these figures from very early on in the conflict. The clue here lies in the fact that this is apparently news to you. You see, these numbers are rarely, if ever, published where western audiences can easily see them. These numbers were published for Russian audiences. Unlike in the west, Russians know the numbers we get to hear are absurd exaggerations. So they don't work, in fact, they work counter-productive. In order to try and stir up casualty-induced anti-war sentiments within Russia, the BBC needs believable, and verifiable, numbers to get any traction at all. Hence these numbers in their collaboration with Mediazone.
I would also like to point out that there are actually two, very different, BBC's. The first is the domestic (UK) BBC, the one most people think of when they see/hear the three letters. That one is tied down (to some degree) by their 'charter' and by parliamentary oversight. The second one is BBC International. That one is very different and can do pretty much what it likes with very little interference or oversight. One could in fact make a very decent case of classifying BBC International as a tool/extension of the British 'intelligence services' rather than a news organisation.
The numbers which we see in the west are those published by BBC UK and are the massively inflated ones, while those collected and published in collaboration with Mediazone are the work of BBC International. So two different groups basically, serving two different purposes.
Great point.
I seem to recall that the last time the UK tried to shut down the partial independence of the BBC international journalists (at its "World Service"?), someone (iirc Qatar?) hired them all and rebranded them as something called "Al Jazeera". So if the UK doesn't want deja vu all over again on that fiasco, it has to tread carefully... ;)