The Brink of War?

[Moses]

At last you get the point!!

The size of the US population did not help them win, anymore that your endless repeating of "You forgot: 145:22. Ukrainian end is unavoidable" is an indication of the outcome of this war, particularly as you even get both population sizes wrong. What applied in the American case also applies here!!

No. You are wrong as usual. Russia and US have no border with Afghanistan. Afghanistan has a lot of mountains for shelter. The same problem US met in Vietnam and lost. Logistic and support are very complicated.

Russia and Ukraine have mutual border, Ukrainian land is flat till very West part. Logistic is easy, Ukraine has railroads what are connected to Russian railroads. Satellite intelligence is simple. 145:22 will work and end is unavoidable.

[Dragonman]

No. You are wrong as usual. Russia and US have no border with Afghanistan. Afghanistan has a lot of mountains for shelter. The same problem US met in Vietnam and lost. Logistic and support are very complicated.

Russia and Ukraine have mutual border, Ukrainian land is flat till very West part. Logistic is easy, Ukraine has railroads what are connected to Russian railroads. Satellite intelligence is simple. 145:22 will work and end is unavoidable.

Changing the names in what I posted won't help - I referred to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, not to a Russian invasion of Afghanistan, in reference to your continued posting of 141:22 ratio - and even that you continue to get wrong as it should be 147 (2021 census): 43 (February 2022).

Let me remind you that, in alphabetical order, the countries bordering the Soviet Union were (according to many sources) Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, PR China, Finland, Hungary, Iran, North Korea, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Turkey, with shared maritime borders with the USA and Sweden. Having a land border with Afghanistan facilitated both the Soviet invasion - and the ignominious retreat just as the current land border is doing. And remember the population imbalance was 267: 14 or thereabouts in the Soviet favor.

Logistics, in this case, include moving men and materiel to the Ukrainian border from across Russia, given that the mobilization seems to have selected more men from the ethnic republics like Buryatia, Dagestan, etc., that it did from Moscow and St Petersburg, and moving tanks and other weapons from further to the east to replace those gifted to Ukraine by the backwards advance. Russia has been having a logistical nightmare for most of this war (see, e.g., "Ukrainian Resistance, Logistics Nightmares Plague Russian Invaders," https://www.defense.gov/News/News-St...sian-invaders/), "Putin facing logistical nightmare as Russia failings exposed: ‘No army is this backwards,'" (https://www.express.co.uk/news/scien...r-defence-news), and "Watching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I saw logistics flaws" (https://news-decoder.com/watching-ru...gistics-flaws/).

Ukraine may be flat but the Ukrainians are highly motivated whereas reports seem to indicate that the Russian troops are demoralized - e.g., as they have been from the beginning ("Demoralised Russian soldiers tell of anger at being ‘duped’ into war," https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...duped-into-war) and as they fled in September ("The letters left behind by demoralized Russian soldiers as they fled," https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...ers-they-fled/). Low morale hurts a country fighting a war because those are troops that don't want to take orders, so they won't fight and people won't support the army either. Napoleon's famous aphorism about morale is well-known - “in war the moral is to the physical as three is to one.”

The fact that Russian railways are connected to Ukrainian ones is easily dealt with - the Ukrainians can destroy them.

Of course satellite intelligence is simple - which is why Ukrainians know where the enemy is - "How Private Spy Satellites Help Ukraine's War Effort - WSJ" (https://www.wsj.com/story/how-privat...ffort-23eea3d5). They are finding drones to be useful, too.

Putin is not a military genius, despite his claiming to have commanded an artillery battalion during the Soviet period ("Soldier, spy: more details of Vladimir Putin's past revealed," https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-past-revealed) and has no first-hand battle experience - he was a spy.

Never underestimate the enemy ― Lao Tzu.

[Dragonman]

I ended my earlier post with a quote from Lao Tzu - "never underestimate the enemy."

The Russian recruits in the following article are an example of what happens when Russian soldiers underestimate the ingenuity and intelligence of Ukrainian teenage girls: "Teen uses dating app to get Russians to reveal their positions. Tom Sanders - Yesterday 8:36 pm," https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world...f7b335afb31e04.

The article, complete with photos and names of the Russian soldiers concerned, reads: "A Ukrainian teenager forced out of her home by Russian invaders has turned to technology to get her revenge. She is using a dating app to flirt with enemy soldiers and get them to send her pictures, videos and voicemails. That is leading them to unwittingly give away sensitive information that she is passing on to investigators to help track Russians down. She even got one soldier to reveal the location of a boarding school being used as a base, while another shared pictures of a mansion being used to house a senior officer.
The girl’s action has similarities with – Mata Hari – a Dutch exotic dancer and the archetypal femme fatale who used her charms to seduce and spy for Germany during World War I. But despite their similarities, Lisa- not her real name- took inspiration not from her historical counterpart but from a girl on TikTok who had befriended a Russian soldier and passed his info along to the Ukrainian army. To enact a similar plan, Lisa set up a profile on a dating site claiming to be a young Russian woman in Kherson. She was soon inundated with messages from lonely soldiers stationed in the area looking to get her attention.
Lisa’s unwitting suitors sent her texts, videos and voicemails containing sensitive personal information, which she collected and passed along to journalists working for investigative outlet Slidstvo.info who used the data to verify the soldier’s locations. Once verified, the journalists passed this info over to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. According to MailOnline, Lisa expresses no remorse for her actions as ‘They are all criminals because they crossed another country’s border with weapons’. ‘They came to steal, to kill.’
One of her victims, a hapless teenage recruit named Nikolai Izmailov, bragged about how he was going to ‘kill khokhols [Russian slang for Ukrainians]’, and sent her videos of himself posing alongside helicopters at an airbase in occupied Kherson. Izmailov showed her footage of the aircraft taking off and said they were going on a raid to ‘drop the rockets’ in Kharkiv and Odessa.
Another soldier, Ilgis Hafizov, 24, from western Russia, said he was serving to save up for his wedding, but after breaking up with his fiancée decided to buy a car instead. ‘I’m saving up for a BMW,’ he boasted.
Journalists also managed to track down the location of a mansion being used to house a top Russian officer after another recruit- Daniil Lapyshev, from Siberia- sent her pictures and voicemails describing his unit’s location dug into bunkers in nearby woods.
Lisa, who fled Kherson last month, said her life had been shattered by the invasion. ‘It makes me really angry when they tell me they are doing fine,’ she was quoted saying in MailOnline. ‘We left our native home and cannot return there now, but they are sitting there and fine. ‘They are happy as if nothing bad is happening.’"

The article gives a whole new meaning to "Russian Intelligence," particularly when one remembers that part of Putin's career was as a KGB intelligence officer.

[Dodger]

Well, if things couldn't get worse for Putin, his Prize Crimea Bridge just got bombed.

What kind of emotional tantrum will he have now, e.g., send more untrained troops to their sacrificial slaughter, order the bombing of a nuclear facility somewhere to cause mass human casualties and fuck up the environment, launch a gas attack on the Ukrainian civilian population? Who knows.

I read an interesting piece this morning which theorized that the bombing on the Bridge was only intended to rid the bridge of civilian motorists for a while - to pave the way for a second bombing intended to completely destroy the bridge.

Can't wait to see Putin's poker-face when that happens.

[Dragonman]

Putin has been silent on two other issues, too, perhaps because they highlight the shaky foundations of his claim to Crimea and other Ukrainian territories.

One is the Ukraine's repeated statement in recent days that it recognizes the Kuril Islands (or the Northern Territories) as Japanese territory.

The 1952 Treaty of San Francisco stated that Japan had to give up "all right, title and claim to the Kuril Islands," but it also does "not recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over them." Japan claims that at least some of the disputed islands are not a part of the Kuril Islands, and thus are not covered by the treaty, and that the Russian Federation, as the Soviet Union's successor, occupies them illegally. For example, "Ukrainian Parliament recognizes Japanese sovereignty over Kuril Islands, disputed with Russia" (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...f6f7bd6784965d), and "Ukraine recognizes as Japanese territory islands also claimed by Russia" (https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacifi...russia/2705740).

The same treaty required Japan to give up control of Formosa/Taiwan and the Pescadores/Penghu Islands but is silent on to whom they were to belong - "while the legal status of the island of Taiwan is temporarily undetermined, it would be resolved at a later time in accordance with the principles of peaceful settlement of disputes and self-determination" (sic).

The second is the referendum in the Czech Republic on Kaliningrad, formerly Konigsberg and the capital of Prussia - "A referendum for Kaliningrad was held on Twitter, now it is a part of the Czech Republic called Královec. The President of Slovakia is thinking about the official visit" (https://mezha.media/en/2022/10/07/kralovec-referendum/), and "Putin’s Land Grab Mocked by Czechs With Fake Kaliningrad Claim" (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...iningrad-claim). According to The Jerusalem Post, "Social network users announced that 97.9% of Kaliningrad residents supported joining the Czech Republic, changing the name of the region to Královec" (https://www.jpost.com/omg/article-719151).

Putin and the Russian Federation have descended to the level of a (sad, bad) joke from which they may never recover.

[Moses]

Putin has been silent on two other issues, too, perhaps because they highlight the shaky foundations of his claim to Crimea and other Ukrainian territories.

One is the Ukraine's repeated statement in recent days that it recognizes the Kuril Islands (or the Northern Territories) as Japanese territory.


The same treaty required Japan to give up control of Formosa/Taiwan and the Pescadores/Penghu Islands but is silent on to whom they were to belong - "while the legal status of the island of Taiwan is temporarily undetermined, it would be resolved at a later time in accordance with the principles of peaceful settlement of disputes and self-determination" (sic).


Putin and the Russian Federation have descended to the level of a (sad, bad) joke from which they may never recover.

Do you know real "sad joke"? It will be day when Russia will declare Taiwan part of China. Because after that all "satellites" of Russia and China will do it too, and China will use that recognition in political and maybe military purposes. So for you is better to sit very quiet when other talking about recognitions.

[Moses]

Well, if things couldn't get worse for Putin, his Prize Crimea Bridge just got bombed.

What kind of emotional tantrum will he have now, e.g., send more untrained troops to their sacrificial slaughter, order the bombing of a nuclear facility somewhere to cause mass human casualties and fuck up the environment, launch a gas attack on the Ukrainian civilian population? Who knows.

I read an interesting piece this morning which theorized that the bombing on the Bridge was only intended to rid the bridge of civilian motorists for a while - to pave the way for a second bombing intended to completely destroy the bridge.

Can't wait to see Putin's poker-face when that happens.

"Just" was 36 hours ago. It wasn't "bombing" it was car explosion - Ukrainians hired driver for to transfer fertilizers to Crimea and secretly installed detonator in car. Driver and 2 passengers in small car near explosion died.

Russia has restored car traffic in 12 hours, train traffic in 14 hours.

Such things are unavoidable. Like World Trading Center towers in New-York. Do you remember what became with organizers after 11/09? The same is awaiting Ukraine. By the way: Kiev has only 5 bridges over Dnepr, while it is divided by Dnepr 50/50 by population and next bridge is very far - in Konotop.

And yesterday Russia send signal to Ukraine: yesterday Gen Surovikin has been appointed as a chief of Russian operation on Ukraine. He is men who calmed unrest in Tajikistan, and was chief or Russian military operation in Syria. He never cares about collateral damage. Looks like "soft hands" may became "still fist".

[Dragonman]

Do you know real "sad joke"? It will be day when Russia will declare Taiwan part of China. Because after that all "satellites" of Russia and China will do it too, and China will use that recognition in political and maybe military purposes. So for you is better to sit very quiet when other talking about recognitions.

You really do need to catch up with the 21 century. China has had 73 years to exploit Soviet/Russian recognition for political and military purposes but we're still here.

The Soviet Union recognized the ROC/Taiwan as part of the PRC in 1949. Earlier this year (2022), it was reported that "Russia recognises Taiwan as part of China, opposes island's independence" (https://www.wionews.com/world/russia...endence-450437, Updated: Feb 04, 2022, 04:59 PM(IST). Everyone here yawned at the report.

Most countries already officially recognize the ROC/Taiwan as part of the PRC, but that doesn't stop them either having reciprocal representative office agreements with Taiwan or recognizing our passports (in fact, I can visit more countries visa-free or visa-on-arrival that you can with your Russian passport). Moreover, no-one has imposed any sanctions on us or any of our oligarchs. Moreover, we are getting more friendly government and trade visitors than we have for many years, thanks to the activities of General Secretary Xi and his wolf warriors, and Putin's so-called "special military operation."

Russia has been happy to accept Taiwanese investment in, and joint ownership of, industrial operations in Russia, e.g., in Sakhalin as discussed earlier in this thread.

Running out of Taiwanese-made computer chips yet? "Taiwan bans exports of all modern chips to Russia, Belarus" (https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4557937).

Are MCST Elbrus microchips a satisfactory substitute (Russian-Made Elbrus CPUs Fail Trials, 'A Completely Unacceptable Platform,' By Anton Shilov, December 24, 2021, https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ru...unacceptable)?.

It's astonishing, too, how many citizens of Russia's and China's satellites find it safer and more rewarding to seek work here than at home or in other satellites. I believe that none of the 611 Russian citizens legally here (and the 1,000 or so illegally here) has left because Taiwan has imposed sanctions on Taiwan, either.

That's democracy for you.

[Dragonman]

"

And yesterday Russia send signal to Ukraine: yesterday Gen Surovikin has been appointed as a chief of Russian operation on Ukraine. He is men who calmed unrest in Tajikistan, and was chief or Russian military operation in Syria. He never cares about collateral damage. Looks like "soft hands" may became "still fist".

Don't forget to mention how he calmed unrest in Russia as well: "Vladimir Putin makes ‘brutal and corrupt’ general new military chief. General Sergei Surovikin, infamous for shooting Moscow protesters in 1991, is latest candidate to take charge of failing Ukraine invasion" (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-ne...ilitary-chief/) (https://www.arabobserver.com/russia-...ar-in-ukraine/).

Of course, the man who founded the Neo-Nazi Wagner Group is happy at his appointment: "Who’s happy about the notorious Gen. Sergei Surovikin appointed to command Russian troops in Ukraine? Yevgeny Prigozhin. “Surovikin is the most able commander in the Russian army,… a legendary figure, he was born to serve his motherland faithfully” (https://twitter.com/Andrew__Roth/sta...08693873074176). "Prigozhin not fussed that Surovikin troops killed 3 pro-democracy protestors during failed 1991 coup in Moscow. “Having received an order [in 1991], Surovikin was that officer who without hesitation got in his tank and went forward to save his country.”

Russia's own Tiananmen Square event.

[Moses]

Don't forget to mention how he calmed unrest in Russia as well: "Vladimir Putin makes ‘brutal and corrupt’ general new military chief. General Sergei Surovikin, infamous for shooting Moscow protesters in 1991, is latest candidate to take charge of failing Ukraine invasion" (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-ne...ilitary-chief/) (https://www.arabobserver.com/russia-...ar-in-ukraine/).

Of course, the man who founded the Neo-Nazi Wagner Group is happy at his appointment: "Who’s happy about the notorious Gen. Sergei Surovikin appointed to command Russian troops in Ukraine? Yevgeny Prigozhin. “Surovikin is the most able commander in the Russian army,… a legendary figure, he was born to serve his motherland faithfully” (https://twitter.com/Andrew__Roth/sta...08693873074176). "Prigozhin not fussed that Surovikin troops killed 3 pro-democracy protestors during failed 1991 coup in Moscow. “Having received an order [in 1991], Surovikin was that officer who without hesitation got in his tank and went forward to save his country.”

Russia's own Tiananmen Square event.

You don't know Russian history as well as that "journalist". You should read sources, not storytellers - they are stupid propagandists. Or at least check WIKI.

Story with Surovikin was totally opposite. When here was attempt of coup in 1991, he was on "bad side" (party of USSR restoration). Coup failed and people won. So you can't tell about Tiananmen - people won here. Surovikin was 9 months in prison after it, but his actions wasn't recognized as criminal and he also sworn to serve Russia.

Since that time he is used as ruthless general in all military operations where no needs to worry about collateral damage.