I don't see how a peace deal will be struck considering Biden turned up with $500m worth of weapons.
I don't see how a peace deal will be struck considering Biden turned up with $500m worth of weapons.
It won't be, but that's a strange way of looking at it.
I don't see how a peace deal will be struck when Russia insists on occupying 20% of Ukraine's territory with no intention of returning it.
Well there's that as well obviously but I was coming from the point that there's been murmurs of Western countries pressuring Zelenskyi into making a deal, but this contradicts that.
See the mercenary is suggesting they've been stitched up by Moscow![]()
This was on News at Ten and was quite fun: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65615184
Great stuff.
Also I've seen the Russian anti-Putin paras have taken a few villages in Russian territory. That could be spicy.
That's insane.Discussions regarding reported Russian losses in Bakhmut have saturated the pro-war information space and are drowning out any remaining positive informational effect resulting from the city’s capture. Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed during an interview with Russian political strategist Konstantin Dolgov on May 23 that Wagner lost 10,000 convict recruits and 10,000 full-time professional Wagner fighters killed in action over the course of the Battle for Bakhmut.
The "city" is flattened and is of little strategic value, even if it wasn't bombed to shit. I'm yet to fully understand why both sides put so much collateral into that place.
It sits at the intersection of the roads to the northern end of the province, and the western end, which allows them to move out from Donetsk. That then puts them on the roads to Kharkov and Dnipro, which, if they are going for frozen conflict status, are probably necessary to shorten the contact line along another main road.
At least Russia seem to have adopted your tactics now Lewis, so that's something.
Unless, of course, one believes that Ukraine blew up a vital piece of their own infrastructure/route into the region as some sort of 5D chess move.
I read something months ago (I might have even posted it here) that the Russians were planning to blow up dams in occupied Kherson.
It sounds like it just collapsed. It had taken a kicking recently, and more than likely hadn't been maintained since Soviet times, so the higher than normal water just broke it. Neither side derives any military benefits from blowing it up, and it doesn't help the Crimean water supply.
Would be disgraceful if evidence came out of intentional attacks on energy infrastructure. One could say it would almost be war crime territory.
At this point the lols are well and truly on us for being anywhere near this nonsense still.
That opinion still makes zero sense.
Is it actually happening? That first translation is pretty clear cut in wording.
Edit: Claims Wagner forces was targeted by Russian military:
Last edited by Bernanke; 23-06-2023 at 07:29 PM.
All part of the plan.
https://tass.ru/proisshestviya/18102851
It's official.After Prigozhin's statements, a case was initiated on incitement to an armed rebellion, according to the NAC.![]()
There is usually some pro wrestling psychology angle to his outbursts, but lol if he has really gone off his nut and forgotten that he's just a frontman.
Both Surovikin and deputy head of the GRU publicly calling for Wagner to stand down.
I know it was referenced barely a few posts ago but Yevrahs ‘going to plan’ might be up there with that weirdo bird who said Theo Walcott was gonna be world class for awful predictions.
I mean, Russia are still in a war, right? A war you were all telling me some farmers were winning a year ago. Why’s it still going on exactly?
The West have chucked fucking billions at it as well. Billions upon billions.
It's actually trillions when you factor in energy support, recession-induced borrowing, and all of the indirect costs falling on the plebs through inflation and rate rises. And it didn't even get Ben Wallace the NATO job lmao.
Why does it make any sense that we’re still doing this? Putin’s not going to give up, as I called so over a year ago (since mis-characterised as “the going to plan” meme) and all the while people are still dying and the economy of the entire first World is utterly fucked.
@Kiko, if I ballsed the quote up.
You realise we’ve doing exactly the same thing for Saudi Arabia to lose a war against literal farmers in Yemen for 3 times as long right?
You voting for them.
Russias plan was to get stuck in a deadlock for multiple years? That was the plan?
I can't imagine this Europe just leaving Russia and Ukraine to it.
But if we’re talking about plans, and the lack of them, what is ours exactly? We do this forever?
No mercenary army has ever turned on the mother country before thinking it could do a better job, so this has to go down as really terrible luck.
War would likely still be going on. Syrian rebels far less well funded are still holding out, same in Yemen, and how long did fighting keep going in Iraq.
Sure, Russia would eventually level the whole place but the Ukraine is big and it would have taken them a while. How long did it take them in Chechnya?
So, sorry you didn’t get to watch the footage of each city being slowly leveled. That clearly is what you would have preferred.
It’s shit, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s yet another shit thing that’s happened to Russia in a long list of them that still won’t end the war. And until that happens, why are we continually dry humping the bunting?
Ukraine would have collapsed last summer without Western support, the price for which is to fight to the last Ukrainian because we didn't plan beyond trying to sanction a commodities superpower into the ground and hoping that they didn't want it as much as they made very clear that they did.
Maybe, but these things typically drag out longer than the initiator wants. Again, see Iraq, Afghanistan, Aleppo, Chechnya, or just about anywhere.
Putin didn’t signal that he was taking a piece. He signaled extinction on a cultural / national level. So someone would still be fighting.
And that form of Ukrainians would have adapted the same negotiating tactics that pretty much everyone has used since Arafat: piles of bodies. Because it is all you have to negotiate with when someone says “I’ll have all that” and it is also a strategy to negotiate with both your foe and your allies. It is a strategy that lasts as long as Ukrainians are willing to provide the bodies.
@ Yev Policymakers are not likely to support Ukraine in a way where tail risks are either too high or too unknown. The tail risks are too great.
This is what there is.
The point mikem makes about genocide is important. This isn't just about territory but about cultural annihilation. We should be supporting Ukraine.
Wagner troops have now attacked/taken Rostov.
We’re not really that fussed about Ukrainians dying though, are we? If we were we’d have gone in and stopped it all in 5 minutes months ago.
It’s just yet another example of us getting involved in some far flung conflict to protect our perceived interests, merely packaged a bit better this time.