The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[clearspira]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62750584

The chairman of Russia's Lukoil oil giant, Ravil Maganov, has died after falling from a hospital window in Moscow, reports say. Maganov is the latest of a number of high-profile business executives to die in mysterious circumstances.

Supposedly he fell out of favour for having ''sympathetic views'' for the Ukrainians.

[phantom000]

Defeatists remain unconvinced despite Russian losses.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/u ... rcna45546

It is important to remember that the tides of war can change very quickly and sometimes unexpectedly. A well planned counter-offensive could drive the Russians out of Ukraine completely, but if they're not careful it could turn into something like the Battle of The Bulge, or Kursk; a botched counter attack that squanders most of their fighting strength and leave them vulnerable.

[Frustration]

It is extraordinary that Ukraine has even a chance of pushing the Russians out. Sadly, it's less of a testament to their dedication and courage than to Russia's complete incompetence, but still.

The perception of Russia's military power has been seriously damaged by this war, which revealed that they're largely a paper tiger that would never last against any large-scale organized resistance. Ukraine has problems only because they're so very small and cannot receive direct military aid from allies.

[phantom000]

It is extraordinary that Ukraine has even a chance of pushing the Russians out. Sadly, it's less of a testament to their dedication and courage than to Russia's complete incompetence, but still.

The perception of Russia's military power has been seriously damaged by this war, which revealed that they're largely a paper tiger that would never last against any large-scale organized resistance. Ukraine has problems only because they're so very small and cannot receive direct military aid from allies.

Supposedly this new counteroffensive was planned with the help of the US, although exactly how much help Ukraine received is unclear at the moment which of course is not surprising. Ideally; your enemies should know as little as possible so of course they are not going to disclose the full story, not for sometime at least.

[Frustration]

I wonder why no one says that the counteroffensive was planned with the help of NATO. Is it just that committees can't bring themselves to commit to things?

I admit I find the concept of all of Europe joined in the same alliance, with only Russia left out, darkly amusing.

[Madner Kami]

Well, Russia decided not be a part of Europe and demonstrated how badly it does not that in February 2022 at the latest, depending on if you buy their general narrative or not, it already showed that already in 2014 or when it invaded Georgia.

[McAvoy]

Another warning from Russia about the US being too involved with the Ukrainians. What is that the tenth warning they made?

[Madner Kami]

To pick up where we left off. The battle about the Kherson region is still raging, with Ukraine making slow and minimal steps ahead.
All the while this is happening and Russia having scraped together whatever they could, they left other areas critically understaffed and so ukrainian forces realized a weakpoint in Russia's frontline in the northern Donbas and launched an attack on Balaklija. This attack achieved a complete breakthrough just under two days ago and the Ukrainian forces aren't stopping to push forward, barging almost a houndred kilometers into occupied territory, cutting the occupational forces in half and (as the time of this writing) leading to cutting off a vital logistical hub in the city of Kupjansk, without which the Russians can not supply the more southern city of Izjum in a meaningful way. This lead to Russia apparently deciding to evacuate large areas of the eastern parts of the Charkiv region, which they had occupied since their assault began in February, as they continue to fail to establish a new frontline and are under severe threat of getting their forces in that area trapped.

This animation shows the advances the Ukrainians made till yesterday. During the course of the day, Ukrainian forces began to fight in Kupiansk (the yellow circle in the east), followed the river south and cut off Izium (the yellow circle in the south). Nearly a 1,000km² of occupied territory liberated in just under 5 days. "Slava Ukraini! Heroiam slava!", indeed.

A couple of videos of Ukrainians being happy about being liberated.

[CharlesPhipps]

I wonder what China thinks of all this since they've been modelling their military on Russias for the past decade and a half.

[CharlesPhipps]

I think US intervention would escalate the war in the region and you'd have a lot of countries in the middle east willing to help Russia in case US wanted to expand upon the area. From there NATO would probably go full steam, but this isn't really something any leaders want.

Restructuring US global military operations would disassemble current US hegemonic conditions in favor of possibly reigniting the Cold War under new terms.

Part of the issue is that if we're just ignoring places we pledged to defend the sovereignty of, what use is any US promise that we've made to much of the world?