Next step is a flood of young men who wouldnât or couldnât flee the country this month running for the exit doors in April. By the middle of next month the Soviet-style exit controls will return to Russiaâs borders.
Worst Red Square Parade ever!
But if it is propaganda, itâs pretty effective. Honestly, Iâm suspicious. The multiple âZâ marks, no real close-ups of the guns, the wobbly, tin-can-like appearance of the shields, the uniform appearance . . . it just seems a bit too pat.
But, Iâve overestimated the Russian army all along, so . . .
What was purportedly the worldâs second largest military. Doesnât go asking 3rd parties for ammo and weapon donations unless theyâre running short.
Their advance stalled just a couple weeks into this. The entire story of this thing has been fuel shortages and abandoned vehicles.
Theyâre out of stuff, and continually running out of other stuff. Itâs just which stuff, and exactly where theyâre out of it.
Those trucks modern Toyota trucks are nowhere nearly as indestructible as the ancient Hilux. Hereâs Top Gears third try at destroying one:
This is especially true wrt the general staff of the Russian armed forces. Theyâve been actively kept out of the loop with this invasion until the last second. Itâs clear that they werenât prepared nor had any idea that they were going to invade any time soon which explains the logistics issues theyâre having. This is doubly true wrt Putinâs over all budgeting priorities because if you wanted an army that can handle a handbrake invasion then you wouldâve allocated your budget for those items which are necessary to make that kind of war. As someone from YouTube (perun I believe) put it, âmilitary strategy is built strategy.â And itâs clear Putin and company never built for such campaigns.
Thatâs why this would make great propaganda. It tracks with all kinds of other information weâve been getting.
China: How dare you translate our propaganda. Itâs propaganda that you shown the world our propaganda.
Iâve seen some analysis suggesting that recent weeks have definitively proven something that many have suspected for a long time: tanks have very limited utility in modern warfare and are largely obsolete unless youâre only using them against folks who donât have access to any of the latest anti-tank weaponry. Small drones and javelin missiles are dirt cheap compared to tanks that cost millions of dollars each, and you just canât add enough armor to a tank to make it invulnerable. In that context using light, fast vehicles that are relatively fuel efficient and cheap makes a lot of sense.
But yeah, making these decisions and major strategy changes on the fly is definitely an indication that the Russians are desperate.
Edit: I saw this photo with a caption to the effect of âdonât count out Russian armor yet: their new advanced submarine tanks and subterranean tanks may soon change the tide of this war.â
But while evidence of Ukraineâs success in fending off at least some of the Russian offensives may mean that the country as a whole is not in immediate danger of being overrun, the risk to Ukraineâs future as a sovereign nation remains. Russia has a long track record of starting wars disastrously, but then succeeding in throwing sufficient manpower and material into the conflict to grind down its opponents through sheer mass. The danger is that Russia can continue a war of attrition, regardless of the cost in casualties among poorly trained troops or the damage done to Russiaâs own economy, longer than Ukraine can maintain the interest and support of the west.
I know very little of the politics between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but this seems like a big deal.
Until you factor in that those lighter vehicles can be taken out by small arms fire, an enormously smaller investment than Javelins and NLAWs. At that point, the âincredible Russian war machineâ has sunk to the level of a third world warlord. Fighting a functional army armed with, if not the best, pretty damned effective western arms. I suppose itâs true that if he chose, he could just flood the country with cannon fodder in the mode of a zombie attack, climbing over corpses and trading many Russian lives for each Ukrainian, a la Stalingrad, but in an interconnected, social media driven world, I just canât see that lasting very long.
Sure.
But thing is we keep hearing this, because it keeps happening. And thereâs enough info out there to know it actually happened.
Like the first prediction like this I remember hearing was about when fuel and food shortages would stop the big convoys headed towards Kyev.
Which happened, to the day. And those troops were approximately in the exact same spot. Until some of them withdrew to Belarus in the last few days.
No oneâs been predicting âRussia is out of everything forever, and the war is over next weekâ. Itâs all been fairly specific.
I donât really see any reason to think a new one is propaganda, when people were dismissing the last 12 accurate predictions as such.
Counter argument- spin that Russia is getting its ass kicked and Ukraine is their new Afghanistan.
Is Russia the sole entity that can spin stories?
As long as ânew Afghanistanâ doesnât mean that the Russians keep fighting for years before leaving behind a ruined country that promptly descends into civil war.
It could mean their greatest defeat that they had to retreat from and humiliated the country.
Thatâs the nature of spin - you get to draft the narrative.
The problem with humiliating a country is that nationalists will want to avenge the humiliation and show that their country is strong again. Showing that Russia has overcome defeat in Afghanistan and is a great power once more is part of the reason behind all Putinâs wars.
I refuse to subscribe to the you can never do anything theory.
