Mailwatch(ed) Forum

So, (as all self-appointed experts start their sentences on the wireless), the government in Westminster, having left the EU and being reluctant to even mildly chide their London-based Russians, their movers and shakers, and their institutions, cannot use their now lost veto to stop anything the EU does.

Vlad bought and paid for the wrong thing.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 8:46 pm Can someone tell me who's said Ukraine are winning militarily? Sure, there are reasons to suspect that Ukrainian sources are overstating the difficulties Russia are having. So I'm interested in Scottie's source. Oh "Russia says".

As in "Russia said she was 18 your honour"...

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 8:46 pm Can someone tell me who's said Ukraine are winning militarily? Sure, there are reasons to suspect that Ukrainian sources are overstating the difficulties Russia are having. So I'm interested in Scottie's source. Oh "Russia says".

I expected them to have taken the whole country by now. Whilst I'm somewhat sceptical of casulty figures from both Russia and Ukraine. It's clear that Russia's military has a number of defiencices and their inital plan has been shown to be a failure.

I tend to hold back from these discussions.

Fog of war, claim and counterclaim render any analysis relatively pointless.
Hat tip to the weeping angel who said as much just above.

Like many, I didn't expect this opening phase of invasion to drag on so long.
A modern (by world standards) army against a force of light infantry and reservists.
Ukraine unable to deploy air or armour units because of the imbalance in numbers.

The stalling of the Russian advance may suggest they started softly, expecting a grateful population to embrace them as liberators.
If true, it means they have levels of escalation prepared; we will likely see these during week 2.

A final thought.
Changing units about on a battlefield is a difficult and slow business.
Historically, the Romans and Americans have managed it using their best trained troops and with overwhelming superior forces.
Otherwise we're reduced to the Western Front in the first world war, where static defences permitted rolling replacement of the frontline.
All armies there managed it while their sector was quiet: The British and Germans rather more successfully than Americans or French.

The exception to this is where the supply chain crosses a sea.
My loose prediction: Escalation will see a professional Russian force sent to capture the Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea.

The ports on the Black Sea are already a key objective, it appears.

James Meek (an old 'Russia hand' as a correspondent and excellent LRB writer) has gloomily predicted an escalation as the invasion 'beds in', fearing another Groznii (or Grozniis...). Putin, he thinks, just doesn't care about lives enough to be deterred.

Meanwhile my partner's father's company 'has enough supplies for now' to keep in business. But eventually...? He'll lose his job, her family will have minimal income in a cratered currency, and for the time being her mother still thinks Putin's not the worst thing around...

Putin thought Ukraine would surrender within a day or two and embrace Russia as liberators. He now has egg on his face because "Russian warship, go fuck yourself!" and will increasingly indiscriminate about bombarding civilian and other non-military targets.

Ukraine have held up admirably but this is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

Oblomov wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 2:23 pm Putin thought Ukraine would surrender within a day or two and embrace Russia as liberators. He now has egg on his face because "Russian warship, go fuck yourself!" and will increasingly indiscriminate about bombarding civilian and other non-military targets.

Ukraine have held up admirably but this is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

On "Russian warship, go fuck yourself!".

I know relatively little of modern warfare.
But that response echoes a famous Ukranian (and Russian) history.

The Cossacks of the Dnieper respond to the Suntan's surrender demand.

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

O sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are thou, that canst not slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. Thou shalt not, thou son of a whore, make subjects of Christian sons. We have no fear of your army; by land and by sea we will battle with thee. Fuck thy mother.

It's a long letter, but that's the first stanza.

With regard financial sanctions, I get the feeling there will be a lot of “useful idiots” ( thinking about Leave campaign funding) getting a bit twitchy about debt/ money that may have to be repaid, as the oligarchs etc liquidise and move their money, especially those whose defence rests on “it was only resting in my account”

We can through Berlin Hauptbahnhof, earlier today for our train to Bavaria. It's quite the scene.

Ian Dunt commented earlier, on seeing the footage, that he was moved to tears. Being in the middle of it, I have no shame in admitting that I joined him.

There must have been hundreds of young, enthusiastic helpers there, all wearing signs indicating what languages they speak and bearing leaflets with practical help and advice for new arrivals. Others had come to offer rooms and accommodation, no questions asked.

Poor bastards, they really didn't deserve one hundredth of what they have endured but it was a real privilege to see a wave of human kindness springing in to action. As in 2015, I am so proud of my home town.

A few RT people have been getting shirty about how it's nothing to do with them. It won't be for much longer.

kreuzberger wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 9:50 pm We can through Berlin Hauptbahnhof, earlier today for our train to Bavaria. It's quite the scene.

Ian Dunt commented earlier, on seeing the footage, that he was moved to tears. Being in the middle of it, I have no shame in admitting that I joined him.

There must have been hundreds of young, enthusiastic helpers there, all wearing signs indicating what languages they speak and bearing leaflets with practical help and advice for new arrivals. Others had come to offer rooms and accommodation, no questions asked.

Poor bastards, they really didn't deserve one hundredth of what they have endured but it was a real privilege to see a wave of human kindness springing in to action. As in 2015, I am so proud of my home town.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... -mariupol/

I'm sure that children's football pitch was a key strategic target

All they need now is for it to be made an offence to just listen to foreign broadcasts and the ghost of Goebbels will have been resurrected*.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ru ... 022-03-04/

*During WW2 it became a criminal offence in Germany to listen to foreign broadcasts, which could ultimately carry the death penalty. Little cardboard hangers were available to hang from the tuning knob of your radio to remind you of this.

Meanwhile in Rubles, a week ago £1 would have got you roughly ₽112. As I type this, £1 is now worth ₽160.

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from ... UB&view=1W

This thread shows what the government has gotten right and wrong on Ukraine

Let no-one say we aren't doing our bit:

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 8:43 pm This thread shows what the government has gotten right and wrong on Ukraine

Its hard to compute that this government made a right call in foreign affairs. And didn’t use the military build up in the Baltics as leverage to gain allies in EU negotiations.

What I think when I read that is… are they gaslighting them as well?

Helping to train up their army and supplying them with equipment not to mention supplying them with weapons isn't gaslighting.

Meanwhile here's Lindsay Germamn trying to make out that STW are being persecuted because people are pointing out their history of turning a blind eye to Putin.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... 46416557-1

The roots of this conflict lie in what has happened since the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved, whereas its western opposite, Nato, was not. Despite assurances to the contrary, Nato expanded ever closer towards the Russian border, incorporating 14 new member states, mainly in eastern Europe. It has also expanded into “out of area operations”, including central involvement in Afghanistan and Libya. It now plans further expansion into the Indo-Pacific as part of an increased military presence against China.

It is not repeating Kremlin propaganda to point out these facts. And the anti-war movement is far from alone in doing this. George Kennan, the doyen of US foreign policy, has said the same. So did William Burns in 2008. He is now head of the CIA.

This is not the first war in Europe since 1945. That was in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, culminating with the Nato bombing of Serbia in 1999. This marked a key turning point in relations with Russia. The next Nato operation was Afghanistan in 2001, initially supported by Russia, as was the bombing of Libya in 2011. These, plus the war in Iraq in 2003, have shaped the present.

This one's a real corker

In some ways even more chilling are the reports of Russian films being removed from festivals, of Russian cats being banned from shows, and of the proposed removal of the statue in Manchester of Friedrich Engels (a German), who always opposed Russia as a Tsarist autocracy and whose political beliefs are roundly denounced by Putin.