Russia on brink of ... NOPE! Russia INVADES Ukraine!

[K1052]

To be a fly on the Kremlin's inner walls.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499364395373240323

I expect Putin will close the borders soon to keep Russians from fleeing. Though long term that probably won't work since people will just slip across the thousands of miles of lightly guarded frontier into friendlier nations.

 

[K1052]

At the rate Russia is loosing men, the offensive will be largely blunted by around 100 days. One way or another.

It is not inconceivable that their total casualties already exceed 10% of committed forces after a week.

 

[Pens1566]

There's NATO, which is a brilliant concept. Putin can nibble, maybe, but he's flanked by NATO and he's fully aware that he doesn't dare attack a NATO nation. He said his concern was UK getting into NATO, and the events of the last week and my studies of them have me thinking that that really was a big concern of his. If he fails to take UK now, I've got figure that UK will go NATO and that would be a great thing, it would be a major failure for Putin.

Not sure what all that has to do with a failed Russia and its stockpile ... but, Ukraine isn't about anything NATO. It's about his desire to re-control any/all of the former soviet states that he can in order to bring back the good old days. Any NATO talk is kind of a red herring, just like the de-nazification talk. There was no NATO movement. There was nothing in progress in that regard. Just an excuse.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Seeing lots of videos of confused hungry Russian troops standing around.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499383833090834433

 

[pmv]

Like one says “the United States” but not “the Canada” or “the Germany.”

And is it "Lebanon" or "The Lebanon"? Or is that another version of the same dilemma (maybe it's "the Lebanon" if you think it belongs to Syria, "Lebanon" if you acknowledge its independence?)

I don't think there's any absolute grammatical 'truth' involved, it's just a matter of custom and historical usage. "The Ukraine", just like "The Congo", is a term that's historically associated with being a possession of another country. It's just polite to use the form the country itself prefers, but I don't think there's any objective meaning in having the definite article or not.

 

[cytg111]

Seeing lots of videos of confused hungry Russian troops standing around.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499383833090834433

MILLION

 

[Homerboy]

Remember the Lusitania

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499378883296116736

 

[fskimospy]

And is it "Lebanon" or "The Lebanon"? Or is that another version of the same dilemma (maybe it's "the Lebanon" if you think it belongs to Syria, "Lebanon" if you acknowledge its independence?)

I don't think there's any absolute grammatical 'truth' involved, it's just a matter of custom and historical usage. "The Ukraine", just like "The Congo", is a term that's historically associated with being a possession of another country. It's just polite to use the form the country itself prefers, but I don't think there's any objective meaning in having the definite article or not.

The meaning is whether you adopt the language of the aggressor or the country itself. ‘The’ Ukraine adopts Russian language in that Ukraine should be viewed as part of a greater Russian whole. Ukraine itself drops that because they don’t want to be.

 

[sdifox]

And is it "Lebanon" or "The Lebanon"? Or is that another version of the same dilemma (maybe it's "the Lebanon" if you think it belongs to Syria, "Lebanon" if you acknowledge its independence?)

I don't think there's any absolute grammatical 'truth' involved, it's just a matter of custom and historical usage. "The Ukraine", just like "The Congo", is a term that's historically associated with being a possession of another country. It's just polite to use the form the country itself prefers, but I don't think there's any objective meaning in having the definite article or not.

Me thinks The is used when the name is plural. The Unites States, The Netherlands, The USSR, The UAE and The EU.


Nope, EU is singular so my theory is broken.

 

[K1052]

Fine.

Get set up in Poland and Romania to sustain long term transfers of essential humanitarian aid and weapons across the Ukrainian border.

Close the deal with Iran to get their 2.5mb/d of export capacity back on the market.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499385378754732040

 

[Roger Wilco]

Gtfo

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499091956957339648

 

[KMFJD]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499359056326184960

amphibious landings incoming? That would get messy

 

[akenbennu]

It is not inconceivable that their total casualties already exceed 10% of committed forces after a week.

I think I saw estimates were 5% or the Russian resources and about 5-10% of Ukrainian resources were out of action after a week, but naturally this hurts Ukraine more since they don't have as much to keep feeding the backfill.

 

[KMFJD]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499157917399977987

Good read about what the sanctions are going to do

 

[K1052]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499359056326184960

amphibious landings incoming? That would get messy

Were I Ukraine if the Russians didn't get all my costal defense missiles I'd have been saving them up for right about now. That's probably what the ballistic missile strikes on Odessa were aiming for but don't know if they succeeded.

 

[KMFJD]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1499361692261756945

more than a few of these videos floating around about the state of Russia's conscripts

 

[IronWing]

I think we need to get away from American expectations for how fast an offense should move. The Russian invasion is only a week old, far too soon to declare it a failure. For comparison, the 1939 German invasion of Poland took a bit over a month and was considered astonishingly fast. Desert wars have conditioned our expectations.

 

[K1052]

I think I saw estimates were 5% or the Russian resources and about 5-10% of Ukrainian resources were out of action after a week, but naturally this hurts Ukraine more since they don't have as much to keep feeding the backfill.

Reports of Belarus hospitals swamped with casualties and the dead being left in the field lead me to suspect Russian losses are higher even than western estimates.

 

[KMFJD]

Were I Ukraine if the Russians didn't get all my costal defense missiles I'd have been saving them up for right about now. That's probably what the ballistic missile strikes on Odessa were aiming for but don't know if they succeeded.

I believe they had about 70 land to sea missiles , these just went into service a month or two ago and are Ukrainian made

 

[pmv]

The meaning is whether you adopt the language of the aggressor or the country itself. ‘The’ Ukraine adopts Russian language in that Ukraine should be viewed as part of a greater Russian whole. Ukraine itself drops that because they don’t want to be.

I think that's basically what I said. It's a matter of custom and historical usage. The Ukrainians don't use "the", so it's just polite to do likewise. We've already been through that same process with "the" Congo (worse, there are now two different "Congos").

I'm merely saying that there's no objective grammatical rule that says "the" always means a place is a possession of another country, because otherwise you'd have to explain "the Netherlands" and "the United Kingdom" etc...

 

[K1052]

I think we need to get away from American expectations for how fast an offense should move. The Russian invasion is only a week old, far too soon to declare it a failure. For comparison, the 1939 German invasion of Poland took a bit over a month and was considered astonishingly fast. Desert wars have conditioned our expectations.

I think it goes mostly in three to four buckets right now

1) advance on Kyiv from the north - epic debacle books will be written about
2) attack on Donbas - proceeding slowly at high cost
3) thrust from Crimea - going reasonably well
4) invasion in Odessa - TBD

 

[K1052]

I believe they had about 70 land to sea missiles , these just went into service a month or two ago and are Ukrainian made

Putting the bulk of the major Russian Black Sea Fleet surface assets on the bottom would not be an inconsiderable victory if they could pull it off.

 

[fskimospy]

I think we need to get away from American expectations for how fast an offense should move. The Russian invasion is only a week old, far too soon to declare it a failure. For comparison, the 1939 German invasion of Poland took a bit over a month and was considered astonishingly fast. Desert wars have conditioned our expectations.

Depends on how you define failure.

1) Russia’s invasion clearly failed if you’re basing that on Russia’s initial objectives. That’s already over.

2) If the question is if after failing initially if Russia will eventually defeat Ukraine’s army and occupy the country that seems highly probable.

3) It’s very likely there will be an insurgency following that though, which Russia will likely lose.

 

[UnklSnappy]

Russian businessman puts bounty on Putins head.

A Russian businessman has put a $1 million bounty on Vladimir Putin's head, calling for military officers to arrest him as a war criminal

Russian crypto investor Alex Konanykhin, who is based in California, told Insider the million-dollar bounty would come from his personal funds.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[K1052]

Depends on how you define failure.

1) Russia’s invasion clearly failed if you’re basing that on Russia’s initial objectives. That’s already over.

2) If the question is if after failing initially if Russia will eventually defeat Ukraine’s army and occupy the country that seems highly probable.

3) It’s very likely there will be an insurgency following that though, which Russia will likely lose.

Economic costs not to be discounted. Putin absolutely convinced himself the west would never dare but we did.