Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Syt]

Via the BBC - which might suggest why Russia could be losing the information war: "Russian military spokesperson Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov claimed Saturday that Moscow had suffered no casualties during the invasion"

[Syt]

Image of Kyiv apartment building being hit by missile earlier this morning.

[Syt]

From the desk of Mededev, per WaPo:

Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev, in a lengthy personal essay Saturday, defended President Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine and said Russia did not need diplomatic ties with the West.

Writing on his official page on the Russian social media site VKontakte, he said: "There is no particular need in maintaining diplomatic relations," and it is time to "padlock the embassies" in Moscow. "We may look at each other in binoculars and gunsights," he added, according to the Associated Press.

Medvedev also appeared to dismiss newly imposed Western sanctions and said they showed the "political impotence" of the United States, the European Union and others. He said that in response, Russia could use a number of levers, including opting out of the New START nuclear arms control treaty, which limits the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and freezing Western assets in Russia.

He also lashed out at Russia's suspension from the Council of Europe on Friday and said the move from the human rights organization could make Russia reconsider some of its laws, including reinstating the death penalty.

Medvedev is now the deputy head of Russia's Security Council, which is chaired by Putin. He said Russia would continue what he called its military operation in Ukraine until it had achieved all of its aims, without specifying what they are.

[Solmyr]

About 3000 people at the anti-Covid protest. The demonstration in support of Ukraine seems to have significantly more.

10000 people protesting in Helsinki today.

[celedhring]

From the desk of Mededev, per WaPo:

Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev, in a lengthy personal essay Saturday, defended President Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine and said Russia did not need diplomatic ties with the West.

Writing on his official page on the Russian social media site VKontakte, he said: "There is no particular need in maintaining diplomatic relations," and it is time to "padlock the embassies" in Moscow. "We may look at each other in binoculars and gunsights," he added, according to the Associated Press.

Medvedev also appeared to dismiss newly imposed Western sanctions and said they showed the "political impotence" of the United States, the European Union and others. He said that in response, Russia could use a number of levers, including opting out of the New START nuclear arms control treaty, which limits the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and freezing Western assets in Russia.

He also lashed out at Russia's suspension from the Council of Europe on Friday and said the move from the human rights organization could make Russia reconsider some of its laws, including reinstating the death penalty.

Medvedev is now the deputy head of Russia's Security Council, which is chaired by Putin. He said Russia would continue what he called its military operation in Ukraine until it had achieved all of its aims, without specifying what they are.

"Joke's on you! We now can start killing our own people!"

Man, what a deranged regime.

[Solmyr]

Medvedev has been struggling to stay relevant since his removal as PM a few years ago.

[Josephus]

Saw a talking head on the BBC today saying that with the war going a lot worse than Putin would have expected, Russia getting kicked out of all the things, and the whole affair being quite unpopular even at home, even a palace coup might be in the cards. He drew parallels to Khrushchev who he said was finally ousted when he was deemed too unpredictable, and Putin might reach that point. But he also cautioned that the person replacing Putin might continue his nationalist course, just more pragmatically.

But isn't all of Putin's government his enablers basically?

[Berkut]

Russia is going to lose this.

[DGuller]

I don't know how likely a palace coup in Russia is, but it appears that at least outside of Russia a coup against Russia is almost complete.  The apparent initial military setbacks seemed to have inspired the good guys and cowed the Western useful idiots and traitors into abandoning Putin.

[celedhring]

Russia is going to lose this.

Heh, not so sure. Still think ultimately they'll overwhelm the Ukrainians.

That said, the Russians don't seem capable of dealing with this if it drags for too long.

[Berkut]

It seems consistent with the news we're seeing everywhere. Not only that resistance is tougher but Russian morale doesn't seem great, they seem to be having logistical issues - there's loads of videos now of stranded vehicles that have run out of fuel. It doesn't seem to be going well I think Putin believed it and thought everything would collapse.

I posted something a while back where I was talking about the Russian military, and that we should expect it to be mostly shit.

Why wouldn't they be? Running a professional, competent military is really fucking hard. It rarely works when your entire state structure is designed to serve strictly political purposes, and your army does the same.

Everything we know about how to create a professional, competent military would suggest that the Russian army should be mostly shit.

I think they ahve some well trained special forces types, and other then that, are mostly crap. They don't spend anywhere near enough on training, maintenance, logistics - all the not sexy stuff that makes a military actually work. They don't have a professional officer corps, much less a professional non-com corps. They are led by a bunch of ex-KGB mafia buffoons who almost certainly don't know the first thing about how to actually create a competent fighting force, or use it conventionally.

You can get away with that when you are fighting Georgia or Syria. Not so much trying to invade a large country and subdue it.

My gut tells me that they are in the opening act of a losing war. If the Ukrainians can hold on until the West can start funneling them supplies and weapons, the Russian are going to be fucked. Air power can't win for them.

[Berkut]

Russia is going to lose this.

Heh, not so sure. Still think ultimately they'll overwhelm the Ukrainians.

That said, the Russians don't seem capable of dealing with this if it drags for too long.

I think even if they do overwhelm the Ukrainians initially, they still lose in the long run.

The Russian Army is shit. It's been shit for a long time.

[Syt]

Russia is going to lose this.

Heh, not so sure. Still think ultimately they'll overwhelm the Ukrainians.

That said, the Russians don't seem capable of dealing with this if it drags for too long.

At some point I assume Putin will resort to very blunt force. And this will only isolate him further and - if news get back home - may cause him additional trouble. Either way, I don't see how he would come out stronger or looking better if it gets to it.

[HVC]

Good thing he has all his advisers on tape recommending action. Plenty of scapegoats.

[Tamas]