The Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Ajax]

It's remarkable how the delivery of a small number of modern precision-guided rocket launching systems has comprehensively screwed the Russians and turned the war on its head. The concern now is that Putin goes into 'fuck it' revenge mode and starts firing off tactical nukes.

[xor]

He'd have a mandate for it imo. Having NATO push for a position 300 miles from Moscow is an existential threat for Russians.

[Ab]

NATO doesn't "push" membership on anyone.

[xor]

Yeah, i'm not so sure i'd agree with that.

[Lightspeed]

If anything it's Russia that pushes NATO membership onto countries. Western corruption sucks, but families aren't getting killed in mysterious circumstances. Are they?

[xor]

Yeah, i'd agree with that. Though, the west should have been doing much more to voice its neutrality with Ukraine prior to 2014. Instead, the the CIA director to go there for no particular reason.

Russia is acting no differently to Ukraine than what the US did in Iraq 2003 IMO.

[Lightspeed]

Yeah, with fuck up after fuck up, I'm surprised we enjoy the relative peace and stability we do.

The difference with the US in Iraq was the US was after oil/regional influence, Russia is after people. By some accounts a million people shipped out of Ukraine into Russia so far.

[DrTiTus]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Russia is after people.

What makes you say that? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just haven't heard this take. I would have thought that Ukraine was a strategic country to have control of, as well as being a source of resources. Add to that the NATO situation, and I would have thought that it's primarily a territorial conflict - with obvious US involvement - and it's Russia pushing back against a presently weak America, to "take back"/gain control of something valuable.

The people angle is new to me.

[Lightspeed]

[Ajax]

IMO one of the original main Russian objectives was to establish a land bridge from the Donbas through Kherson and Odessa, and connecting with the Russian presence in Transnistria. The Russians could then have made a move on Moldova and significantly expanded their borders. This plan is pretty much in the toilet now and they’d be happy to hold on to their pre-invasion territory in the Donbas.

[Ajax]

An armoured thunder run to capture Kiev and decapitate the regime was also something of a risky stretch goal (and of course turned into a disaster without air supremacy).

[Ab]

Assuming Ukraine avoids defeat and liquidation, you just know this is going to happen more:


Ukraine finds a mass grave in recaptured city of Izium

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/...16-p5bijm.html

[DrTiTus]

The Ukrainians are getting strange test messages to their phones in the middle of a real war.

I don't know what it means, but it doesn't make much sense.

It's been going on for months, but now they TEST messages?

[Nich]

boop

check out this equipment list (US only, excludes Europe, UK,AUS weapons):
https://raheemkassam.substack.com/p/...-of-what-biden
Only 30% approx will actually be deployed to ukranian soldiers (the rest goes on black market or vanishes). And if it is artillery it is out gunned 10:1 and out ranged. get destroyed in quick order.

[Nich]

now, replacement of sent weapons, in Europe, UK once they send weapons, they can't replace them
https://www.financialexpress.com/ind...ahead/2666608/

Europe is fast becoming de-industrialised, starved, and economically crippled because of an autistic schoolkid's ideas on energy. Replacement rate is only via US (boston dynamics, raytheon, boeing et al), and they only buy because US via NATO says buy or else you love Putin.

US has sent more Javelins in 6 months than it can produce in a year. Even US cant keep up. And where do they go? no one knows, no one cares.

Europe Population could give two shits about the propaganda from Ukraine / US when they have no firewood, no food, no power. European nations will hesitate to back NATO pressure into proxy war with Russia if average Sven and Isolda don't want to hear it.

[Nich]

Israel benefitted more from liberated Iraqi oil than US did. Back from the brink after dotcom almost bankrupted the nation. Same played out in Syria, Israel secured more oil fields. People will do crazy shit if you entrap and blackmail them with child sex. Like start wars they can't benefit from.

[Nich]

Originally Posted by Ab

Assuming Ukraine avoids defeat and liquidation, you just know this is going to happen more:


Ukraine finds a mass grave in recaptured city of Izium

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/...16-p5bijm.html

cmon man, Reuters. really?

Remember, first casualty of war is the truth. Zelenski made sure of that.

And yes, so did Putin, and Biden, Xi, blah blah. These people have no interest in telling us how it really is. And us inventing or embelishing their lies suits them. The lie gets more meat on the bone and the otherside can chew on that.

The point is, the headline, the images, the video, and reuters, telegraph, AP all tell different stories. And interviews with locals (when they bother to hear their side) show that Russians were not mass murderers (like Azov cleansing operations *ahem*bucha*ahem*). Looks like a "burial site" more than a mass grave to me. Who would want Ukranian soldier's bodies stinking up your foxhole? not I bury that shit.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/0...ews-items.html

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Nich

cmon man, Reuters. really?

Remember, first casualty of war is the truth.

Read my post

[Nich]

and finally. It looks like team Fuck US Hegemony has assembled.

https://sonar21.com/will-the-united-...-organization/

guess which hemisphere will have the best (only) Christmas light show this December?

[Ab]

China can hear the music slowing. It has 20, maybe 30 years, and then its population collapses.

[blynk]

Originally Posted by Nich

cmon man, Reuters. really?

Remember, first casualty of war is the truth. Zelenski made sure of that.

And yes, so did Putin, and Biden, Xi, blah blah. These people have no interest in telling us how it really is. And us inventing or embelishing their lies suits them. The lie gets more meat on the bone and the otherside can chew on that.
[/url]

Ah the joys of information.
All these people are lying, but believe my links and posts.

(**not trying to say which maybe more truthful)

[Ajax]

Originally Posted by Nich

US has sent more Javelins in 6 months than it can produce in a year. Even US cant keep up. And where do they go? no one knows, no one cares.

They go into Russian tanks and make them explode. There have been hundreds of filmed kills at this point.

Originally Posted by Nich

Looks like a "burial site" more than a mass grave to me.

Yeah, those soldiers must have tied their hands behinds their own backs, tortured themselves, then stacked each other into open pits. Makes sense.

[Ajax]

Originally Posted by Ab

China can hear the music slowing. It has 20, maybe 30 years, and then its population collapses.

I'm not sure that I would frame it as a population collapse - more of a gradual return to a reasonably sustainable level. The rampant growth of the last several decades can't go on forever. Even if China's population halves by 2100 it still has over half a billion people.

[Ab]

Dunno man, all their boomers will be dead by mid century and the consequences of the 1-child policy and female infanticide will kick that country right in the nuts. The birth rate is dropping by 2-point-something percent per year, and there literally aren't enough women to turn it around. I reckon the population will halve a lot sooner than the end of the century.

[Ajax]

China has been taking censuses since ancient times, so we have a fairly good picture of their population state over time.

[Lightspeed]

How does that look compared to the rest of the world?

Lots of countries are struggling with population issues, including Russia. Age distributions are very problematic. NZ is not off the hook in that regard.

There's gotta be studies out there comparing various countries' population distribution and reproduction levels. I suspect there are a few themes that various states share.

Like NZ keeps its population growing through immigration. Japan doesn't like immigration. Who wants to move to Russia? Other countries keep their populations manageable in part through emigration.

I guess the funding for any studies is probably skewed towards political interests.

[Ab]

That's awesome but... the scale makes the graph kinda useless. We need to know what's happening to Chinese demographics in the past couple of decades, not millennia.

Check this:



China just doesn't have enough women of childbearing age having enough babies.

[Ajax]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

How does that look compared to the rest of the world?

Generally speaking, developing economies experience rapid population growth, which levels off and begins to decline as they transition into developed economies.

Lots of countries are struggling with population issues, including Russia. Age distributions are very problematic. NZ is not off the hook in that regard.

True, and I don't see population declines as a bad thing at all. For a start, less population means less pressure on the environment.

[Ajax]

Originally Posted by Ab

China just doesn't have enough women of childbearing age having enough babies.

I can't recall where, but I read an interesting study a while ago that suggested an optimum, sustainable global population would be around 1 billion. If that's true, we have some way to go yet.

[Lightspeed]

A problem declining populations is you're left with awkward decisions on how to manage infrastructure. Maintaining the same infrastructure with less population means committing a greater proportion of resources to that infrastructure. The alternative isn't any better, figuring out what is mothballed, what is abandoned, what is demolished, it all comes with costs and complications.

And politics, if China's population halves, do they halve the number of positions of power too? Who keeps power, who doesn't? That's a problem, not unsolvable, but it has a cost.

[Lightspeed]

It sounds like there's something happening right now, not sure exactly what, but it's coming out from these referendums that are being held. Maybe Russia announcing full mobilisation to hold those regions? Whatever that might mean.

[Ab]

The thing is, China is a manufacturing economy that can't afford a declining birth rate AND zero immigration. A smaller workforce means fewer things getting made, fewer things getting sold, and thus less money to pay for the old people who are costing the country more and consuming less by the year. And looking after the old people is non-negotiable.

The CCP failing to deliver on a non-negotiable aspect of Chinese culture (immovable object) meet a declining workforce and declining consumption in a country that depends on manufacturing (irresistible force).

[DrTiTus]

Partial mobilization announced for this special military operation.

Act II about to begin

[Ab]

Putin's talking about annexing the four captured provinces. Presumably that would allow him to treat the Ukrainian counteroffensive as an invasion of Russia.

Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the state-owned broadcaster RT and a vocal lobbyist for the war, said: “Judging by what is happening and what is about to happen, this week marks either the threshold of our imminent victory or the threshold of a nuclear war. I can’t see any third option.”

neat.

[Lightspeed]

It's a bit mad really. There's no point justifying nuclear war. If you're a nuclear power and you've decided we're all fucked, then we're all fucked.

[Ajax]

I’m guessing the Russian playbook will be something like this:

1. Conducting sham referenda in Luhansk and Donetsk to show their populations want to rejoin Russia, then declaring the territories to be Russian federal subjects

2. Declaration of war against Ukraine (as opposed to a limited special operation) in response to the purported Ukrainian invasion threat to the new ‘Russian’ territories

3. Announcing mobilisation and conscription to support the war (Russia’s conscripts cannot be deployed abroad unless the country is on a war footing).

[Ajax]

These steps will help Russia justify the war to its own citizens, but they’re not likely to be of much military value. Russia’s conscripts are notoriously shit quality, poorly trained, and have terrible morale. On top of this, Russia has lost offensive momentum and is running out of tanks, aircraft and artillery with no manufacturing capacity to replace them. Their munitions stocks are running so low that they’re trying to buy replacements from North Korea. In short, they’re pretty fucked.

[xor]

Putin must be up at night wondering who's going to knife him in the back.

[_indigo1]

USSU

[Nich]

Originally Posted by Ajax

These steps will help Russia justify the war to its own citizens, but they’re not likely to be of much military value. Russia’s conscripts are notoriously shit quality, poorly trained, and have terrible morale. On top of this, Russia has lost offensive momentum and is running out of tanks, aircraft and artillery with no manufacturing capacity to replace them. Their munitions stocks are running so low that they’re trying to buy replacements from North Korea. In short, they’re pretty fucked.

You could write for the Guardian, Reuters, or CNN with this level of insight into troop morale, military supply chains, and citizen happiness. You have the full picture!