Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Josquius]

Looking it up seems it was part of jostling over borders, originally with Muscovy and the Livonians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivangorod_Fortress

[Solmyr]

I find it curious theres a castle on each side of the river. This was the Swedish-Russian border?

For some decades around 1600 AFAIK.

Already earlier. Ingria was Novgorodian and then Russian, Estonia was Teutonic/Danish/Swedish. Ivangorod opposite Narva was built by Ivan the Terrible.

[Syt]

Well, you had these two castles in Alsace (Ramstein having been built against Ortenberg):



Or the castles Lahneck and Stolzenfels on opposite sides of the Rhine.:



Or the two castles in Manderscheid (at times seats of two different vassals), separated by a small river/ravine):



In the German wikipedia article they have more examples, but in many cases one or both of the castles no longer exist.

[Admiral Yi]

Nice.  I have been educated.

[Syt]

The situation is, in hindsight, often not clear, anyways. Sometimes you might have an old castle, and at some point they built a new castle next to it, not bothering to remove the old one.

And poor record keeping (or destruction of records in one of the many wars over the centuries) didn't help. There's two castles on the Rhine next to each other (one built in 11th century, the other in 14th, separated from each other by shield walls). They seem to have belonged to one family, but in 16th century a local legend came about that those castles belonged to two feuding brothers.

https://www.bellevue-boppard.de/en/middle-rhine-region/castles-at-the-rhine/hostile-brothers

The example on the Estonian/Russian border looks much more like later "proper" border fortifications.

[Tamas]

Ukrainian tanks and infantry in a, get this, combined arms operation clearing out vatnik positions near Bakmut.

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1656064355539058688

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm trying to understand this video Prigozhin put out, it almost seems like he has a celebratory tone about the Russian Army getting killed. What is his motivation here? Is this a ploy to discredit Army leadership? Even still, I would think Putin doesn't like this sort of thing?

[Threviel]

I've always assumed that he is borderline irrelevant and is just tolerated due to the diversionary effects.

[Razgovory]

Ukrainian tanks and infantry in a, get this, combined arms operation clearing out vatnik positions near Bakmut.

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1656064355539058688

Can't see it.  Requires a Twitter account.

[Josquius]

I'm trying to understand this video Prigozhin put out, it almost seems like he has a celebratory tone about the Russian Army getting killed. What is his motivation here? Is this a ploy to discredit Army leadership? Even still, I would think Putin doesn't like this sort of thing?

I doubt he does much Putin doesn't somewhat like.
These mercenary companies are officially illegal under Russian law - if Putin turns against priggy it's a simple matter to crush him. No window required.

I guess Putin in his bunker is recreating an age old Internet meme ranting about how the army are cowards who failed him.

[PJL]

Surely it's a classic case of divide and conquer. If Wagner are complaning about the army and vice versa, they're not bad mouthing Putin, who can then swoop in to act and be the saviour in resolving the issue and keep everyone loyal to him. Authoritarian rule 101.

[Grey Fox]

Prizzy feeds Putin.

[Solmyr]

He actually had an indirect jab at Putin in the latest video, though. Might want to stay away from multi-floor buildings.

[Hamilcar]

Scenario:
- The Ukrainian offensive starts and rapidly pushes the Russians back
- Putin flails around and orders his soldiers to die harder in human waves
- Prigozhin gets the backing of enough deep state actors to launch a coup against failing Putin on the basis of "told you so"

Plausible?

[Threviel]

Prigozhin is a minor player useful for propaganda purposes. We are talking about him instead of anything serious which is his purpose. Kind of like the talking heads on TV. Irrelevant.