The Russia vs Ukraine show

[Hiphopapotamus]

I heard via NBC that someone has claimed that he was on a second Wagner plane, and that he uses body doubles. Which sounds like total BS but who knows..

[mbasic]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66599733

Completely shocked I tell you, shocked!!1

pissed off putin?
don't do anything that can increase your own potential energy:
- do not do anything above the first floor in a building
- do not visit dams, scenic canyons; do not drive along roads along cliffs/gullies
- no plane rides, bullet-train rides, etc

[mbasic]

Oh fuck, dis gonna be gr8

Inb4:

NATO spies executed a false flag attack something something to stir up internal conflict

Or

Ukrainian AAmissile something something

[5hout]

Prigozhin Plane Trip (colorized, 2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBE4fZLqrVQ

[mikeylikey]

Serious question…

Was Prigozhin an idiot for getting on a plane in Russia? Or was he smart enough to know Putin could kill him no matter what he did and it’d be less painful to just let it bappen.

IOW is he Carlo gullibly getting in the car to the “airport” or is he Tessio going, “meh:.. that’s business”

[quikky]

Serious question…

Was Prigozhin an idiot for getting on a plane in Russia? Or was he smart enough to know Putin could kill him no matter what he did and it’d be less painful to just let it bappen.

IOW is he Carlo gullibly getting in the car to the “airport” or is he Tessio going, “meh:.. that’s business”

I don't think anyone fully understands what has occurred with Prigozhin. It is probably one of the most bizarre coup attempts in history. That said, my take:

Prigozhin hated the people running the war, including Putin. He openly called for the heads of Shoygu and Gerasimov. Likely, other military and security service elites feel likewise, such as the now dismissed general Surovikin who seemed involved with the mutiny.

When the mutiny started, I believe the plan was to do a big show of force, and for Prigozhin to go into Rostov, get into a fight with the regular military, and use that as a way to show his own strength and negotiate with Putin for the removal of Shoygu and Gerasimov. Likely, he would have also asked for supplies and special privileges for Wagner.

To Prigozhin's surprise, he just took over Rostov. Keep in mind, this is supposed to be the main military planning hub for the war. He then decided he'd go for Moscow, thinking surely he would get stopped, and the negotiations would start.

Yet again, no real resistance was thrown at Wagner, and it looked like Prigozhin could try to pull off a full on coup in Moscow. Prigozhin was not planning on this, and simply chickened out.

Likely thinking he could work something out with Putin given their history, he voluntarily gave up. Putin did not want to get rid of him immediately, in part not to risk blowback from the other Wagnerites. So, he made it seem like all is well, and Prigozhin will just go back to doing his PMC work in Africa. After it seemed like everything blew over, Putin got rid of Prigozhin, and was expected by virtually everyone.

It is hard to say if it was Prigozhin being an idiot, or was the fear of starting a full on coup or even a massive civil conflict.

[mbasic]

Serious question…

Was Prigozhin an idiot for getting on a plane in Russia? Or was he smart enough to know Putin could kill him no matter what he did and it’d be less painful to just let it bappen.

IOW is he Carlo gullibly getting in the car to the “airport” or is he Tessio going, “meh:.. that’s business”

so then the question is .... were the 8 other people getting on the plane with Prigozhin idiots?

[mikeylikey]

Serious question…

Was Prigozhin an idiot for getting on a plane in Russia? Or was he smart enough to know Putin could kill him no matter what he did and it’d be less painful to just let it bappen.

IOW is he Carlo gullibly getting in the car to the “airport” or is he Tessio going, “meh:.. that’s business”

so then the question is .... were the 8 other people getting on the plane with Prigozhin idiots?

that's a great question

[Seafoam]

He knew he was a dead man. Prigozhi thought it maybe best to get killed in Russia, in a way that doesn’t allow Putin to make it look like an accident. Perhaps Putin just got tired of waiting for the right opportunity and said send it…? Just thoughts. No doubt he knew he was a dead man walking, I don’t doubt he contemplated this before he turned on Putin. I think he was a couple screws loose and really wanted to play some Russian Roulette. No telling what was actually in his mind, only his actions.

[mbasic]

yeah, Prigozhi was dead six ways from sunday.

stay on the front lines, and be killed in battle (legitimately: UKR forces or friendly fire lolz)

OR

more likely, be quasi-assassinated by Ukrainian special forces revenge in a killing thing.
UKR has managed to kill a lot of RUS generals and colonials or whatever.

OR

eventually get killed by Putin, even if the fake-coup had never happened. Apparently, the higher up in the ranks you are in RUS, or the more success you have running your part of the military .... well, you are at risk (From Puty) for various reasons. Its a fine line: ou want to do a good job so you don't get sacked or killed, but you don't want to do TOO GOOD of a job either

[aurelius]

eventually get killed by Putin, even if the fake-coup had never happened. Apparently, the higher up in the ranks you are in RUS, or the more success you have running your part of the military .... well, you are at risk (From Puty) for various reasons. Its a fine line: ou want to do a good job so you don't get sacked or killed, but you don't want to do TOO GOOD of a job either

I don't think Putin is killing his top generals. I think it is mafia style killings by Putin's captains. If someone starts to gain Putin's esteem, Putin's captains will put get rid of them. They don't want a challenge to their position.

[mbasic]

eventually get killed by Putin, even if the fake-coup had never happened. Apparently, the higher up in the ranks you are in RUS, or the more success you have running your part of the military .... well, you are at risk (From Puty) for various reasons. Its a fine line: ou want to do a good job so you don't get sacked or killed, but you don't want to do TOO GOOD of a job either

I don't think Putin is killing his top generals. I think it is mafia style killings by Putin's captains. If someone starts to gain Putin's esteem, Putin's captains will put get rid of them. They don't want a challenge to their position.

point is same, it seems when you get a little too involved in the political/military system over there, all roads lead to unfortunate accidents

[aurelius]

point is same, it seems when you get a little too involved in the political/military system over there, all roads lead to unfortunate accidents

From that standpoint okay. But it is vastly different for Putin to be killing people versus Putin's captains acting independently. We could be seeing a consolidation of power in the Kremlin at a level below Putin with Putin more of a figurehead. This is actually more dangerous for UKR and the world at large because who do we deal with? Who is/are the person/people that need to be negotiated with?

[mikeylikey]

eventually get killed by Putin, even if the fake-coup had never happened. Apparently, the higher up in the ranks you are in RUS, or the more success you have running your part of the military .... well, you are at risk (From Puty) for various reasons. Its a fine line: ou want to do a good job so you don't get sacked or killed, but you don't want to do TOO GOOD of a job either

I don't think Putin is killing his top generals. I think it is mafia style killings by Putin's captains. If someone starts to gain Putin's esteem, Putin's captains will put get rid of them. They don't want a challenge to their position.

If there is one thing I have learned from the movies is that you don't do this sort of thing without clearing it with the boss first.

[quikky]

eventually get killed by Putin, even if the fake-coup had never happened. Apparently, the higher up in the ranks you are in RUS, or the more success you have running your part of the military .... well, you are at risk (From Puty) for various reasons. Its a fine line: ou want to do a good job so you don't get sacked or killed, but you don't want to do TOO GOOD of a job either

I don't think Putin is killing his top generals. I think it is mafia style killings by Putin's captains. If someone starts to gain Putin's esteem, Putin's captains will put get rid of them. They don't want a challenge to their position.

If there is one thing I have learned from the movies is that you don't do this sort of thing without clearing it with the boss first.

There is zero chance a plane was shot down by Moscow without the midget giving the order.

[aurelius]

There is zero chance a plane was shot down by Moscow without the midget giving the order.

Agreed. I was referring to all of the other 'mysterious' deaths of Russian high ranking officers. I don't believe UKR has the capability to assassinate Russians. That would make them probably the world's best black ops outfit.

If there is one thing I have learned from the movies is that you don't do this sort of thing without clearing it with the boss first.

You need to watch more movies. These things start to happen when the boss is perceived as weak.

How did Russia get into this mess? The Russian military's political leadership and the FIS pushed for this war and made it happen. They fed Putin with flat out fabrications on the Russian and UKR military capabilities. As well as grossly underestimating the West's response. Was this some master plan? No. Pure incompetence. But their goal is still the same, to consolidate power in their ranks. Right now Russia's military's political leadership and the FIS are consolidating power. They are eliminating all opposition (to their rule, not necessarily the war in UKR) in the Russian military and isolating Putin.

To make a WW2 analogy because no one has ever done that: The Japanese military industrial complex pushed Japan to war. Pushed Japan to war in China and then US. For the same reasons: to consolidate power in their ranks. Japan had a 10-year old emperor when they invaded China. They saw an opportunity. Very similarly, the professional Japanese military understood attacking the US was a mistake.

[quikky]

Not new per se but interesting:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/25/politics ... index.html

[BostonRugger]

Necro?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... m=referral

Quoting the whole thing for anyone who doesn't want to click their way around the paywall.

“Our experience since the foundation of the Republic,” wrote journalist Walter Lippmann in 1943, “has shown that domestic division over foreign relations is the outward and visible consequence — and not the cause — of an insolvent foreign policy.”

By “insolvent,” Lippmann meant a foreign policy with strategic ends beyond its military and diplomatic means. His argument resonates today as House Republicans resist the White House’s request for a new aid package for Ukraine. Prevailing opinion in Washington holds that GOP recalcitrance is causing problems in the United States’ Ukraine strategy. But it’s at least in equal measure the consequence of them.

Those problems were laid bare this past week in bracing remarks by Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, in an interview with the Economist. He pronounced that Ukraine’s counteroffensive, in which the West had invested great hopes and billions of dollars in armaments, was unlikely to achieve a decisive breakthrough: “Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”

This was foreseeable. A year ago, when Ukraine had the momentum — having routed the Russians in Kharkiv and Kherson — Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested a negotiated settlement to the war. Like Zaluzhny, he made an explicit comparison to World War I, noting that early on in that war it became clear that it was “not winnable anymore, militarily.”

It’s quite possible that negotiations were at that point infeasible — that the Russians would have refused any talks, and that the Ukrainians could not have been dissuaded from making a decisive push to retake more of their occupied territory. But at least in public, the Biden administration made no effort to try. After Milley’s exploratory statements were roundly dismissed, the White House committed to backing Ukraine’s counteroffensive as long as it takes.

As Zaluzhny diplomatically pointed out, the U.S. administration didn’t always act decisively. Long-range missiles and tanks “were most relevant to us last year, but they only arrived this year,” he told the Economist, which made it easier for the Russians to retrench.

Whether this was because of bureaucratic inertia, or President Biden’s effort to manage escalation risk, the result in the same: Ukraine today finds itself worse off than it was last November. Its troops are exhausted and depleted, its weapons stocks are running low, and Western publics are more polarized over providing further support.

Republican members of Congress who have voted no on Ukraine aid bills — their growing ranks now include House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — are widely maligned among Washington’s foreign policy elite. At worst, they are cast as authoritarians who want Russian President Vladimir Putin to win; at best, they are isolationists who don’t understand the United States’ historic role in the world.

Some Republicans skeptical of Ukraine aid surely fall into these categories. But others have well-grounded concerns about the viability of the U.S. strategy. Aid votes are one of Congress’s few points of leverage over an administration’s foreign policy. A recent letter to the Biden administration from a group of House Republicans insists that before Congress approves more funding, “we should understand the end-state goal and exit criteria” — hardly an impertinent request.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive was supposed to sustain political support for Kyiv by proving that it could reconquer lost territory. Now, supporters of Ukraine might need to make the inverse argument: Ukraine is not reconquering substantial territory, and aid is needed indefinitely to forestall a devastating defeat.

The window for a negotiated settlement favorable to Ukraine — if there ever was one — has surely closed, as Russia sees a technologically stalemated battlefield in which it has a long-term advantage in manpower. Ukraine now needs to outlast the Russians; Putin is not immortal, and authoritarian power transitions can be bumpy.

The United States should never recognize Putin’s illicit conquests. But it might need to pivot from dreaming of victory to preparing to live with stalemate. The stalemate in World War I was broken by U.S. entry as a direct combatant against Germany. But there is virtually no appetite in the United States for direct war with Russia. Russian victory in Ukraine would be a terrible blow to U.S. interests, but not terrible enough to risk nuclear war.

The foreign policy establishment’s ambitions for a defeated Russia, contrasted with the attritional slog on the ground that has developed instead, reflect classic strategic insolvency. If the administration articulated an achievable endgame and the plan to attain it, congressional resistance to Ukraine aid might stop growing.

Most in Congress see Russia as an American adversary and understand the importance of an independent Ukraine. It should be possible to rally congressional majorities around that shared vision. But as the counteroffensive winds down, Ukraine’s supporters will need to rethink their political approach. It won’t work anymore to simply deride or condescend to skeptics. They aren’t the problem; the strategy is.

Perhaps the push and pull in Congress can help forge a more durable one.

[aurelius]

It’s quite possible that negotiations were at that point infeasible — that the Russians would have refused any talks, and that the Ukrainians could not have been dissuaded from making a decisive push to retake more of their occupied territory. But at least in public, the Biden administration made no effort to try. After Milley’s exploratory statements were roundly dismissed, the White House committed to backing Ukraine’s counteroffensive as long as it takes.

This is a terrible article and factually wrong. Reads as an 'even handed' account while in actuality a Republican hit piece to blame Biden. It's like the author believes people are too stupid to Google. And the author is right. Multiple negotiations have taken place. Hell, Russia released a list of demands BEFORE they invaded. Russia has ridiculous demands including Ukraine has to disarm that I believe we can all concede Ukraine cannot agree to.

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/10724136 ... to-ukraine
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60785754

I agree with the gist the Ukraine cannot achieve a 'quick' military victory and is unlikely to take back all of the territory, therefore must redefine what victory means. But a negotiated peace has been attempted.