Ukrainian War Thread III: The Horrors

[El Lazaro]

If Putin would rather destroy the rest of the world for fucking Ukraine, he's even more of a thudding fool than I think he already is.

Not what I said. Putin, and most Russians, would use their nukes to prevent the occupation of their country.

The largest nation on earth with a military far less impressive than it looks, and the formidable political and logistical challenges of running it once Putin and his ilk are deposed, arrested, jailed, tried, and executed.

If by "less impressive than it looks" you mean "perfectly able to glaze the world multiple times", I assume you're also volunteering for the first line.

If the world begins and ends at Georgia, it’s a small world indeed. Russia’s military is quite defensively capable, but invading countries is a separate challenge altogether. Russia has used what is ostensibly a quarter of its active military on Ukraine, but their deployments of conscripts and inability to reinforce units in Ukraine makes it seems like they’re already mustering most of their offensive strength.

[Novus America]

Nothing is guaranteed. Zero risk is not a viable way to do anything.
The question is if the probability adjusted harms outweigh the probability adjusted gains.
You can argue it does or does not, but it requires much more than pointing out there is some risk. If we had the logic we cannot do anything with any risk we could not fo anything except ironically NOT doing anything has risks.

Not intervening also has serious risks.

Our current hyper risk adverse approach actually ironically itself creates great risks of its own. Especially in the longer term.

Sometimes being too risk adverse can be the most risky, ironically enough. See WWII. By trying to excessively avoid risk and escalation we ironically exacerbated it.

Risk can only be managed, not avoided.

Anyways sure there would have to be obviously strictly laid out, and clearly communicated goals, restrictions, and as well as a reasonable out for Russia (such as it gets recognition of Crimea if it withdraws from the rest of Ukraine) and open channels of remote communication. War and diplomacy are not mutually exclusive.
The negotiations start alongside the involvement.

But even if it escalated to some limited strikes outside Ukraine (very likely) it still would never escalate to a full occupation of Russia, which we lack the numbers and logistics to even try.

The Gulf War is a good example although this would be even more limited (as we did hit Baghdad with air limited strikes but would not want to try to hit Moscow).

Iraq could have used its chemical weapons but did not. Because they would not have helped, and actually made its situation worse, made us less willing to negotiate an end.

There is a non zero risk of escalation even in our current approach, the question is how to best manage it.

The big difference here is that you're deciding to significantly escalate now on the slim hopes that somehow the situation won't spiral out of control. I don't trust that it won't, "inaction" (which by your standards means anything short of turning this into World War III, or under perfect conditions Gulf War II) is much less likely to go further as the Russian military is quite effectively beating itself half to death in Ukraine with the support they're already getting. Even if they somehow come out of this with a convincing victory its going to be years, decades even before their military becomes meaningfully capable of mounting an offensive again. This crossed the threshold of Germany marching bloodlessly into Czechia, or even only lightly bloodied into Poland a long time ago.

Sure, what Germany did in Czechoslovakia is more like what Russia did in 2014. And our lack of sufficient action then allowed this…

The issue is how many Ukrainians have to die? How many of their cities have to be destroyed?
Relying on Ukrainians to die is rather a cowardly approach I would say.

They must die, so we can minimize risk to us, but in doing so maximize it for them. We are sacrificing whole Ukrainian cities to buy time. Russia WILL attack again. The only question is where and when.

True, you are right that Russia’s failures do reduce the risk to those outside of Ukraine.
Unfortunately not to those inside it though, as Russia has only upped the brutality as they still think they can break Ukraine, even if much more slowly, piece by piece rather than in one blow.

Actually though I am willing to compromise. If we will not intervene but really step up the sanctions, even though it requires economic costs for us, actually provide more than just the minimum weapons they need to slow Russia’s advance, give them Mig-29s and a lot more switchblades, armed drones, and other methods of destroying Russian artillery (their artillery is one of their only things that they actually do somewhat competently, if brutally) and IF that works, I can accept that as a compromise.

But we still need more options should that fail.

[Fartsniffage]

https://twitter.com/scottdetrow/status/ ... 7804909569

[Post War America]

The big difference here is that you're deciding to significantly escalate now on the slim hopes that somehow the situation won't spiral out of control. I don't trust that it won't, "inaction" (which by your standards means anything short of turning this into World War III, or under perfect conditions Gulf War II) is much less likely to go further as the Russian military is quite effectively beating itself half to death in Ukraine with the support they're already getting. Even if they somehow come out of this with a convincing victory its going to be years, decades even before their military becomes meaningfully capable of mounting an offensive again. This crossed the threshold of Germany marching bloodlessly into Czechia, or even only lightly bloodied into Poland a long time ago.

Sure, what Germany did in Czechoslovakia is more like what Russia did in 2014. And our lack of sufficient action then allowed this…

The issue is how many Ukrainians have to die? How many of their cities have to be destroyed?
Relying on Ukrainians to die is rather a cowardly approach I would say.

They must die, so we can minimize risk to us, but in doing so maximize it for them. We are sacrificing whole Ukrainian cities to buy time. Russia WILL attack again. The only question is where and when.

True, you are right that Russia’s failures do reduce the risk to those outside of Ukraine.
Unfortunately not to those inside it though, as Russia has only upped the brutality as they still think they can break Ukraine, even if much more slowly, piece by piece rather than in one blow.

Actually though I am willing to compromise. If we will not intervene but really step up the sanctions, even though it requires economic costs for us, actually provide more than just the minimum weapons they need to slow Russia’s advance, give them Mig-29s and a lot more switchblades, armed drones, and other methods of destroying Russian artillery (their artillery is their only thing that they actually do somewhat competently, if brutally) and IF that works, I can accept that as a compromise.

But we still need more options should that fail.

You are insisting that we dramatically increase risk the extinction for humanity and virtually every other multicellular lifeform on the surface of the planet. Against that math there are very few things that are worthy. The ugly truth of war in the atomic age is that every single war involving a nuclear power risks those weapons being used. The risk escalates dramatically when two nuclear powers are fighting each other. You are functionally calling for 4/5ths of the worlds official nuclear powers bearing 94% of the world's known nuclear arsenal to be fighting each other so that Ukraine can be a puppet of the West instead of a Puppet of Russia, and make no mistake direct NATO intervention will come with plenty of strings. Even your in your "compromise" you still want that war.

So to bring us to the gotcha question reversal:
How many millions need to burn in atomic fires to satiate your bloodlust? How many billions must die slow and horrifying deaths to radiation poisoning?

[Diuhon]

An invasion and occupation of Russia isn’t going to happen, y’all. I have no idea why folks are even speculating on that. Nuclear apocalypse is a likelier outcome. Can we just stick to liberating occupied regions of Ukraine, quite possibly without direct involvement, for now? Cause even my that’s still not a certainty. Far from it in fact.

I don't understand why some people want Russia invaded or destroyed. Russians do this to themselves every few decades, anyway.

This recent act of Russian aggression is just one in a long line of invasions against European nations. Europe should defend itself from Russia and find long-lasting ways to prevent the funding of their next invasion. Plus help Ukraine get its stolen regions back. A united Europe has nothing to fear and has no need to invade anyone.

An opportunity to break this fucking cycle of authoritarians taking over and claiming Rossiya irredenta! is an opportunity that must not go to waste. Again.

[Adamede]

You were planning on fighting with zero training or preparedness whatsoever?

It's not like Western military veterans are any better prepared either lol.

You show up, maybe get a pair of boots, but usually not, and like an AK and two or three magazines, before being shipped to the front.

You then get to experience more mortar bombs, gunfire, and unit KIAs in the next 4-8 days than you experienced in Iraq or Afghanistan over the course of 4-8 years.

You also have to pay for everything including room and board, which you won't get, and equipment and training, which you also won't get. In practice that's to extract as much profit as possible from the conscripts and attain essentially free companies or battalions to throw into a meat grinder, because Ukraine is extremely bribe happy and corrupt, so you get guys trying to steal medical equipment and drugs out of US Department of State ambulances, or detaining entire convoys of ambulances showing up at hospitals with a variety of BS excuses, just in order to get a fat 15,000 hryvnia that day and possibly another bribe the next day.

It's pretty screwed up (for the people who don't know what they're getting into anyway, so always read the fine print of any contract you sign) and anyone who goes is not thinking very smartly IMO, but people who say "they would go but" literally don't have an excuse unless they are in a wheelchair with no legs, or have a missing hand, or something drastic. Even then they will probably find something for you to do and could probably fashion you peg legs out of chairs if they really have to, and it's not like it's the first time someone fought in shooting war with a wooden arm.

Got a source for any of that?

[Ifreann]

I don't understand why some people want Russia invaded or destroyed. Russians do this to themselves every few decades, anyway.

This recent act of Russian aggression is just one in a long line of invasions against European nations. Europe should defend itself from Russia and find long-lasting ways to prevent the funding of their next invasion. Plus help Ukraine get its stolen regions back. A united Europe has nothing to fear and has no need to invade anyone.

An opportunity to break this fucking cycle of authoritarians taking over and claiming Rossiya irredenta! is an opportunity that must not go to waste. Again.

You don't get to tell us that we need to die for your cause.

[Adamede]

I don't understand why some people want Russia invaded or destroyed. Russians do this to themselves every few decades, anyway.

This recent act of Russian aggression is just one in a long line of invasions against European nations. Europe should defend itself from Russia and find long-lasting ways to prevent the funding of their next invasion. Plus help Ukraine get its stolen regions back. A united Europe has nothing to fear and has no need to invade anyone.

An opportunity to break this fucking cycle of authoritarians taking over and claiming Rossiya irredenta! is an opportunity that must not go to waste. Again.

Yah thing is the Russian authoritarians are armed with nuclear weapons.

[Kowani]

Senate unanimously passes legislation to ban imports of Russian oil, gas and other energy products to the US

[Diuhon]

An opportunity to break this fucking cycle of authoritarians taking over and claiming Rossiya irredenta! is an opportunity that must not go to waste. Again.

You don't get to tell us that we need to die for your cause.

Kick this can down the road and you'll find that you may have to take up my cause, so take up the can and shove Putin into it. At the very least it won't be just Ukraine that benefits, but the rest of the CIS.

[Novus America]

Sure, what Germany did in Czechoslovakia is more like what Russia did in 2014. And our lack of sufficient action then allowed this…

The issue is how many Ukrainians have to die? How many of their cities have to be destroyed?
Relying on Ukrainians to die is rather a cowardly approach I would say.

They must die, so we can minimize risk to us, but in doing so maximize it for them. We are sacrificing whole Ukrainian cities to buy time. Russia WILL attack again. The only question is where and when.

True, you are right that Russia’s failures do reduce the risk to those outside of Ukraine.
Unfortunately not to those inside it though, as Russia has only upped the brutality as they still think they can break Ukraine, even if much more slowly, piece by piece rather than in one blow.

Actually though I am willing to compromise. If we will not intervene but really step up the sanctions, even though it requires economic costs for us, actually provide more than just the minimum weapons they need to slow Russia’s advance, give them Mig-29s and a lot more switchblades, armed drones, and other methods of destroying Russian artillery (their artillery is their only thing that they actually do somewhat competently, if brutally) and IF that works, I can accept that as a compromise.

But we still need more options should that fail.

You are insisting that we dramatically increase risk the extinction for humanity and virtually every other multicellular lifeform on the surface of the planet. Against that math there are very few things that are worthy. The ugly truth of war in the atomic age is that every single war involving a nuclear power risks those weapons being used. The risk escalates dramatically when two nuclear powers are fighting each other. You are functionally calling for 4/5ths of the worlds official nuclear powers bearing 94% of the world's known nuclear arsenal to be fighting each other so that Ukraine can be a puppet of the West instead of a Puppet of Russia, and make no mistake direct NATO intervention will come with plenty of strings. Even your in your "compromise" you still want that war.

So to bring us to the gotcha question reversal:
How many millions need to burn in atomic fires to satiate your bloodlust? How many billions must die slow and horrifying deaths to radiation poisoning?

Why are you accusing me of bloodlust, for wanting to end rather than indefinitely prolong an extremely brutal war?
If you resort to such ad hominems, accusing me of just wanting to see people die for the lols, I will not continue. But I see I hit a nerve. Because you realize that yes we are fighting only to the last Ukrainian. Requiring them to die so we can hide behind them. Like the cowards we are being.

I do not want to start wars, the war is already raging. I just want to bring it to an end.
I would much prefer Russia simply stop its attacks. But they are obviously not going to do that. The question is how we get them to stop. How we increase our leverage in negotiations enough to bring about a reasonable end.

I do not believe Russia is willing to see as much of the world burn as they can, just to avoid defeat in Ukraine.
And the more we allow them to get away with things by assuming their nuclear weapons are a first response, rather than a last resort, the more die.

Nobody has to die in nuclear war because it would not plausibly happen. Russia is not suicidal.
Using nuclear weapons would not benefit Russia here.

Iraq could have fired chemical weapons to just kill a lot of people. Put chemical weapons on the missiles they used. They did not. Because deterrence actually greatly limits escalation from conventional to WMD use.
It would have gained them nothing to escalate a war to WMDs as they would still lose.

Saddam could live another decade by NOT using such weapons. And using them would have likely meant his death.
So he decided to live. Putin would do the same.

Not that nuclear weapons would cause the complete extinction of humanity, but yes hundred of millions could die.
(actually contemporary thermonuclear weapons do not produce that much fallout, but yes what they still produce would be bad).

Nobody should want hundreds of millions to die, least of all me. But that is why it is so absurd.
It does not benefit Putin either even though he has no regard for morality, he still cares about his power and place in history. He does not want to go down as the guy who destroyed Russia because NATO tactical bombing caused him to lose Kherson.

You accept something utterly illogical as an axiom because it seems scary. That is the problem. Fear is rarely fully rational.

[Kalaron]

Got a source for any of that?

For the record, Kat is pretty accurate to the reports coming out of the Reddit Foreign Legion they've stood up. The Ukes don't have a lot of equipment to be handing out to people who more or less are just another warm body to them. It's not exactly a secret that Ukraine's forces have been getting bombed to pieces, heck it's part of the complaints that get raised since Russia tends to catch some civilians in the blasts too.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.c ... ign-legion
Silly Vice article, but here's a dude literally saying Ukraine was worse than the entire tour of Afghanistan, because it's the kind of war where soldiers are sort of disposable on both sides.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... volunteers
Here's a guy mentioning that you have to bring your own kit, because they aren't interested in giving you anything. It's pretty simple to extrapolate that the "Prior Experience" of some soldiers is meaningless (in both the "do the Ukes care?" and in the "will it be relevant for this war?" senses) because the war is dramatically different from anything they'd have fought in, and because they aren't going to have air-support or whatever when Russia starts dropping missiles on their heads. It's an aggrevated form of the issue with spec-ops soldiers, everyone gets blown up regardless of the training you give them if they catch a mortar in their mouth.

[Kowani]

[Zurkerx]

(Image)

Huh, they actually showed some form of strength:

The United Nations suspends Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council over its invasion of Ukraine. Russia has of course, threatened nations that abstain or vote yes.

[Arkandros]

It's not like Western military veterans are any better prepared either lol.

You show up, maybe get a pair of boots, but usually not, and like an AK and two or three magazines, before being shipped to the front.

You then get to experience more mortar bombs, gunfire, and unit KIAs in the next 4-8 days than you experienced in Iraq or Afghanistan over the course of 4-8 years.

You also have to pay for everything including room and board, which you won't get, and equipment and training, which you also won't get. In practice that's to extract as much profit as possible from the conscripts and attain essentially free companies or battalions to throw into a meat grinder, because Ukraine is extremely bribe happy and corrupt, so you get guys trying to steal medical equipment and drugs out of US Department of State ambulances, or detaining entire convoys of ambulances showing up at hospitals with a variety of BS excuses, just in order to get a fat 15,000 hryvnia that day and possibly another bribe the next day.

It's pretty screwed up (for the people who don't know what they're getting into anyway, so always read the fine print of any contract you sign) and anyone who goes is not thinking very smartly IMO, but people who say "they would go but" literally don't have an excuse unless they are in a wheelchair with no legs, or have a missing hand, or something drastic. Even then they will probably find something for you to do and could probably fashion you peg legs out of chairs if they really have to, and it's not like it's the first time someone fought in shooting war with a wooden arm.

Got a source for any of that?

It’s literally in the publicly available information released *by Ukraine* about joining their volunteer forces. I looked into it at the start of the conflict because why the fuck not go from one warzone to another, but the conditions were incredibly exploitative. To pick a few highlights, you volunteer for an unlimited service duration at the discretion of the Ukrainian military, you are expected to bring your own kit, there will be a nebulous “compensation” (with no mention of quantity, value, or any substantive information regarding said compensation, so they could feasibly compensate you in experience), supplies (to include food, ammo, medical care, etc) is neither guaranteed nor stated to be without cost, and there were veiled statements that broadly implied volunteers should incite mutinies and desertions in other national militaries to bolster the Ukrainian volunteer forces.
This is both a demonstrated act of desperation and exploitation on the part of the Ukrainian government.

[Novus America]

I don't understand why some people want Russia invaded or destroyed. Russians do this to themselves every few decades, anyway.

This recent act of Russian aggression is just one in a long line of invasions against European nations. Europe should defend itself from Russia and find long-lasting ways to prevent the funding of their next invasion. Plus help Ukraine get its stolen regions back. A united Europe has nothing to fear and has no need to invade anyone.

An opportunity to break this fucking cycle of authoritarians taking over and claiming Rossiya irredenta! is an opportunity that must not go to waste. Again.

We cannot though. We cannot occupy all Russia. How many troops do you think we need vs how many we have?

I do not think we even have half of what we need, even if we used everything we have.

And while I do not think Putin is willing to die for Kherson, he might die for Moscow.
He does not want to be the guy who destroyed Russia, but if he thinks Russia is getting destroyed he might rather go down as the guy who used nukes to keep Moscow from falling.

Russia has a nuclear threshold, a very high one. But has one.

I think a full on invasion into core areas of Russia would cross it.

We can save Ukraine, without occupying Russia. And if we do defend Ukraine they will probably not attack it again.
Thus we break the cycle without invading Russia.
Simply defending Ukraine can break the cycle.

[Ifreann]

You don't get to tell us that we need to die for your cause.

Kick this can down the road and you'll find that you may have to take up my cause,

I don't see any reason to believe that.

so take up the can and shove Putin into it.

No.

At the very least it won't be just Ukraine that benefits, but the rest of the CIS.

There's very little benefit to dying of radiation poisoning.

[San Lumen]

https://thehill.com/news/senate/3261477 ... th-russia/

US Senate votes 100-0 to limit trade with Russia, ban oil imports

[Novus America]

(Image)

At least good news. But now we have all the justification needed (not that we needed more) to look at sanctions on those on the red list. The PRC in particularly has show its true colors, not that we did not know, but that they are actually taking action to support Russia’s war, just because they want to see the West be attacked.

[Diuhon]

China wants the US embroiled in another Afghanistan, another Iraq, while making a beeline to Russian resources. It must not be given that chance.

[Ifreann]

China wants the US embroiled in another Afghanistan, another Iraq, while making a beeline to Russian resources. It must not be given that chance.

Says the person advocating for America to get embroiled in nuclear war.

[UNITED AN]

eswxcdrfcedrfrddredrdrxdrxdxxrrcrcrfcfrvfv

[Gravlen]

(Image)

That feeling when Israel says the Human Rights Council is such a venerable and important institution Russia shouldn't be allowed on it.

[Adamede]

Got a source for any of that?

For the record, Kat is pretty accurate to the reports coming out of the Reddit Foreign Legion they've stood up. The Ukes don't have a lot of equipment to be handing out to people who more or less are just another warm body to them. It's not exactly a secret that Ukraine's forces have been getting bombed to pieces, heck it's part of the complaints that get raised since Russia tends to catch some civilians in the blasts too.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.c ... ign-legion
Silly Vice article, but here's a dude literally saying Ukraine was worse than the entire tour of Afghanistan, because it's the kind of war where soldiers are sort of disposable on both sides.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... volunteers
Here's a guy mentioning that you have to bring your own kit, because they aren't interested in giving you anything. It's pretty simple to extrapolate that the "Prior Experience" of some soldiers is meaningless (in both the "do the Ukes care?" and in the "will it be relevant for this war?" senses) because the war is dramatically different from anything they'd have fought in, and because they aren't going to have air-support or whatever when Russia starts dropping missiles on their heads. It's an aggrevated form of the issue with spec-ops soldiers, everyone gets blown up regardless of the training you give them if they catch a mortar in their mouth.

Okay that backs up at best half the post, and the most obvious parts.

[Adamede]

Got a source for any of that?

It’s literally in the publicly available information released *by Ukraine* about joining their volunteer forces. I looked into it at the start of the conflict because why the fuck not go from one warzone to another, but the conditions were incredibly exploitative. To pick a few highlights, you volunteer for an unlimited service duration at the discretion of the Ukrainian military, you are expected to bring your own kit, there will be a nebulous “compensation” (with no mention of quantity, value, or any substantive information regarding said compensation, so they could feasibly compensate you in experience), supplies (to include food, ammo, medical care, etc) is neither guaranteed nor stated to be without cost, and there were veiled statements that broadly implied volunteers should incite mutinies and desertions in other national militaries to bolster the Ukrainian volunteer forces.
This is both a demonstrated act of desperation and exploitation on the part of the Ukrainian government.

Ok, yah I know about the needing to bring your own kit and shit pay but where's the source for literally everything else?