Major developments in the Russo-Ukraine war

[trenton]

After gaining a lot of ground, the Ukrainian forced have begun the liberation of Luhansk with a few villages remaining in the Karkiv region. There were massive losses in the counter attack near Kherson on both sides, but the lines appear to be stabilizing after the Russian battalions blew up a bridge.

The Ukrainian army continues to struggle with kamikaze drones. Their air defenses have managed to shoot down 60% of them, but the damage left by the drones is still devastating. The United States is partially responsible for this because it sold microchips to China unaware that China was passing the chips to Iran to build drones to send to Russia. The United States can stop it by not giving China anymore micro chips.

Recently, a major target has been hit. This is the Crimean bridge that took Russia there years to build. Somehow a train exploded, destroying the bridge along with a major Russian supply line. Because Russian troops often struggle to get the proper supplies to wage the war, there is potential for a mutiny. The morale is constantly sinking as commanders abandon their troops and Ukraine regains much of its territory.

I'm not worried about the potential for nukes. This is covered in another thread.

[Hatfort]

I may be wrong, I start with this statement, but here are some thoughts:

Russia demanded Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, and the commitment of Ukraine not to join NATO or the EU in the early stages of the war. Ukraine and Zelenski refused. Now, not only Russia has conquered Crimea, Luhansk, and most of Donetsk, but also the major part of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. A considerable part of these regions are pro-Russians. Will Russia ever annex the whole of Ukraine? Of course not, that was the first scold, totally unsustainable. But the East? They are kind of making it already. Did Russia lose part of Jarkov in the North? Yes. But they didn't demand that territory in their peace agreement demand, so it's not a real loss.

I think the USA blew the Baltic pipeline because they have economic interests in doing so. They don't care about potential peace agreements, which make them deplorable human beings. Europe's position is ridiculous, they seem to be completely sold to the US. They should aim for peace, as they depend on Russian energy.

To sum up, I think Russia is winning its objectives, which never were the whole of Ukraine.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Hatfort

[trenton]

@Hatfort if the war is framed in terms of control over has and oil, then Russia has some moderate success. By controlling areas with gas reserves in Donesk And Luhansk Russia has made some clear progress. Although the propaganda claims it is about denazifying Ukraine, this is absurd and requires the total annexation of all of Ukraine. This was attempted in the beginning of the war but Ukraine repelled the attack on Kyiv. The scale of the objectives have since been cut down significantly.

I'd rather not speculate on who blew up the pipes and the rail roads. The reality is that I don't know and it can easily become the basis of conspiracy theories.

By the way there is a major update. Russia just launched 83 missiles at Kyiv. The Ukrainian air defense shot down a little more than half of them, but their defenses were still overwhelmed. The target was mostly civilian infrastructure. This is a waste if these missiles are not being used in military targets. We will see soon if Russia plans to follow this up with another attack on Kyiv or not.

Other than that the war is presently a stalemate with the stabilized defense lines by both sides.

[Leo Gura]

Geopolitically Russian needs the sea access granted by the military ports in Crimea and they need a land bridge connecting is to mainland Russia. Without this Russia lacks robust sea power to defend itself.

One of Russia's greatest geographical weaknesses is lack of good sea ports.

I think a significant cause of this war is that. As NATO put more and more pressure on Russia, Putin was forced to respond by developing Crimea into a weapon for self-defense. If there was less pressure on Russia from NATO, Crimea would be less pivotal.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Leo Gura

[no_name]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

 

Geopolitically Russian needs the sea access granted by the military ports in Crimea and they need a land bridge connecting is to mainland Russia. Without this Russia lacks robust sea power to defend itself.

One of Russia's greatest geographical weaknesses is lack of good sea ports.

I think a significant cause of this war is that. As NATO put more and more pressure on Russia, Putin was forced to respond by developing Crimea into a weapon for self-defense. If there was less pressure on Russia from NATO, Crimea would be less pivotal.

 

Have you been getting your insights from these guys?  

Coz I swear your views on russian politics sound exactly like them ?

In any case, I highly recommend you ask them to join! You might even receive a complimentary bag of rice and buckwheat if you do! 

[Hello from Russia]

3 minutes ago, no_name said:

Have you been getting your insights from these guys?  

 

[Leo Gura]

@no_name Well, when you don't take one side's survival agenda seriously, don't be surprised when you get a war.

Putin clearly said that NATO expansion would force his hand to take rebalancing moves.

If you actually had an open enough mind to watch that Putin/Stone documentary, you would already know that.

It's not about what I want or think, it's about Putin's worldview.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Leo Gura

[no_name]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Putin clearly said that NATO expansion would force his hand to take rebalancing moves.

 

Yes, like a proper terrorist would do - “do as I say, or else …”

 

[no_name]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@no_name Well, when you don't take one side's survival agenda seriously, don't be surprised when you get a war.

Putin clearly said that NATO expansion would force his hand to take rebalancing moves.

If you actually had an open enough mind to watch that Putin/Stone documentary, you would already know that.

It's not about what I want or think, it's about Putin's worldview.

It could be his worldview, doesn’t mean it is reasonable or sane.

Do you truly imagine NATO randomly attacking a country with half of the worlds nuclear power? 

Edited October 11, 2022 by no_name

[How to be wise]

38 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not about what I want or think,

Actually it is. Since you are Russian, it is only natural that you come to their defence.

[Leo Gura]

45 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

Actually it is. Since you are Russian, it is only natural that you come to their defence.

I have no bias or loyalty to Russia.

Since you are not Russian, it is only natural that you have no interest in seeing their survival agenda and worldview.

It's also convenient of you to forget that I am also American, Ukrainian, and God

Edited October 11, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Mohammad]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@no_name Well, when you don't take one side's survival agenda seriously, don't be surprised when you get a war.

Putin clearly said that NATO expansion would force his hand to take rebalancing moves.

If you actually had an open enough mind to watch that Putin/Stone documentary, you would already know that.

It's not about what I want or think, it's about Putin's worldview.

Totaly agree. I suggest everyone to see that documentary. Not as a bias, but to understand the russian worldview to some degree.

[trenton]

The survival biases present in this war are so strong that they appear on this forum frequently. The knee jerk reaction you get when trying to understand a radically different worldview is people doubting your motives and agenda. Once I start to understand someone's worldview I will realize that from their point of view they are the good guy. In this case Leo starts to sound like he has an agenda when he argues that in Putin's worldview he is good and it provokes many negative reactions.

This is a common source of misunderstanding in politics because the propaganda we are exposed to makes it hard to imagine that someone isn't acting out of cartoonishly evil intentions. Even in a Jihadists worldview they believe that they are freedom fighters in opposition to American imperialism and defeating the economic parasite will be for the glory of God.

Life is not a battle of good versus evil. Life is a battle of good versus good.

This reality is very difficult for ego to accept because it is easy to justify killing people when we think they are terrorists, crazy dictators, Nazis, or whatever else. Knowing the deeper truth that everybody is good does not serve the egos survival agenda, but it will raise our capacity for love dramatically, silence our judgements, and humble us.

[Fleetinglife]

1 hour ago, trenton said:

Life is a battle of good versus good.

correction, "*of the greater good versus the lesser good" if you want to drive home that type of definition framing ??

Edited October 11, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[How to be wise]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I have no bias or loyalty to Russia.

Pure nonsense. Russia is your birthplace, and the place that your parents and ancestors are from. 
 

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's also convenient of you to forget that I am also American,

Not really. If you commit an international crime, your American citizenship will be revoked, and you’ll be sent back to Russia. It’s happened to American citizens that were born in America from American citizens, let alone someone who came here long after birth.

[AminB501]

@Leo Gura But we actually don't have a war, I wish we could have an old school war, but what we have now is Putin saying, I abuse you, and if you abuse me back I kill your civilians in bomb strikes, and If you don't let me win, I flip the chess table (nuclear war). What a pathetically psychopathic individual this is. He said "what good is the world without Russia in it", I have Moroccan and Spain roots and I gladly sacrifice those for the good of the rest of the countries in the planet, specially in the case they're so miserably and pitifully managed like Russia which doesn't even have a god damned road network, Putin got his country to be FAT and WEAK with colesterol, metaphorically, and one the most hated and now it's being humiliated and blames it on nato, and not on himself. 

And don't tell me Russia is very unstable internally, because it should be more than one country it has so much diversity and all are being hold together through oppression. 

[Dryas]

This is a scary one
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Dod9AWz8Rp4Svdpof/why-i-think-there-s-a-one-in-six-chance-of-an-imminent

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, AminB501 said:

@Leo Gura But we actually don't have a war, I wish we could have an old school war, but what we have now is Putin saying, I abuse you, and if you abuse me back I kill your civilians in bomb strikes, and If you don't let me win, I flip the chess table (nuclear war). What a pathetically psychopathic individual this is.

Welcome to how war works. It was never fair.

[Fleetinglife]

5 hours ago, Dryas said:

This is a scary one
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Dod9AWz8Rp4Svdpof/why-i-think-there-s-a-one-in-six-chance-of-an-imminent

Thanks for sharing this, this seems like a well-thought out probabilities and chances analysis, my only jibe is with one of the few scenario examples in the grey boxes that isn't still a completely finished deal historically or politically on the ground:

Namely, Kosovo is still segregated internally, in a sort of a semi-frozen conflict in place with NATO arbitrating peacekeepers still present, with it's internal sovereignty over all it's encompassing territory and autonomy not fully resolved, and with apartheid encouraged outwardly internationally and within it by the state in Serbia still having some state administrative presence over the remaining national minority and local Serbian population there. 

So it listed as an example of a successful breakaway province to use it as analogous to the Crimean peninsula and/or Donbass potential example is not at all the same copy/pasted exact thing, even though Putin and the Russian Foreign Affairs establishment now likes to cite and use it as an international legal precedent example set in international affairs and relations to opportunistically justify now their own annexatory and re-unification  policy into the RF of deemed historically justifiably traditionally more Russian or Russophonic regions of Ukraine. 

Excerpt from the sourced post on Less Wrong website that you linked here:

"The shorthand labels I've given these outcomes (grey boxes) should't be taken too literally: "Kosovo" & "Vietnam" refer to scenarios where one side wins outright (breakaway succeeds & Goliath is expunged, respectively)."

Kosovo still hasn't won outright or has broken away successfully completely, because it still hasn't broken free from Serbian state power or influence in it's whole, still mostly Western and not the majority parts of the world, internationally recognized legal encompassing territory. Kosovo is actually here more akin in some aspects to the North Korean frozen conflict scenario or the Northern Ireland improvized and highly more corrupt and unstable union state one in it's northern remaining majority Serb national minority parts then the successful fully and completely breakaway province turned fully sovereign encompassing independent state scenario which it is cited as an example to be of. 

A better example of that with no background hanging or residing potentialties of conflicts or threat of war against it by its former mother or guardian state or country of a former province would be Singapore's today's majority internationally undisputed secession from Malaysia in the 1960s, on it's own behest and request. 

But perhaps Crimea being a sort of highly autnomous and self-governing predominantly Russian populated province majority internationally recognized within the international borders of Ukraine is perhaps the most further de-escalation and complete conflict-avoidant compromisable solution one can realistically hope at, demand and go-at to settling it's status back to a status quo ante before 2014 - with a lot of added provincial autonomy privelleges to it in the meantime - in order to avoid a further escalatory unpredictable spiral over it in an attempt of its full-scale re-capturing and re-claimation under uncertain conditions, status and auspices that might lead to an actual executed tactical nuclear response and reaction it to a perceived hostile threat and reprisals to the remaining predominantly Russian-speaking population and military infrastructure there. 

I think even if the Kosovo scenario would happen, which seems highly unlikely, I agree here with the author, at this point, I think the best it could hope to achieve would be a frozen highly tensed up conflict in place, like the real and actual Kosovo one even with NATO arbitration, that it would be just a matter of time before it would, especially when international geo-political or polarities power balance of in favor either blocs would either shift, like a swinging pendulum, or suddenly and unexpectedly shake up to be more favorable to one of either of the sides, be waiting for any of the main opposing actors involved  to seize the first opportunity to take the initiative and ignite it again because it would be both of either sides interest to do so at that point because of the presumably inherited unchanging militarized state of this one up until this point, buying of time in the meantime from this point to that very likely hypothetically possible one. 

In short, the purely Kosovo international opportunist legal justification scenario for annexation and incorporation back into a historical motherland country, out of the Vietnam one, seems like a more unlikely internationally unstable one for ensured long-lasting peace, with non-eruption of not so distant, very short-coming future hostilities when sufficient opportunities or justifications for it arise, especially in the very polarized world order and epoch which beginnings we are now living through by starting too see it take more and more slowly and solidly of a shape, outlining and ground day by day with a very low likelihood now of a hope, reaching it at this point, of returning back and receding it now to it's previously relatively more stable, expected and predicateble state in the not so long ago past and that are currently now in the beginning phases of living through it's subsequent layered dismantling, failure and slow, ultimate collapse right now currently at it's seemingly more definitive and tangible starting signs and beginnings, for either side to seize the opportunity and take and restart it immediately from the previous temporary cease-fire and non-definetly honoured and upheld peace agreement at the first available chance they seized and get due to some instability happening again in important power and economic poles of the world and/or/either some of their or some key supply chain regions, places or countries in the world. 

Well, that were off the top of my personal thinking hat my first impressions and two cents on a part of an example used as a possibility in this theory and on the shaky, not really and fully adequately one-hundred percent compatible and fitting in this projected scenario of one of the possibilities of resolution Kosovo case analogy, which I didn't think was a perfectly adequate example of the author, even though the other ones in this very probability theory oriented and centered application on current international relations and raging conflicts within them with a dose of uncertainty projections, were pretty elucidating and damn compelling for a layman just starting to discover and consider viewing international relations resolutions of the world as well as through this probability theory oriented lense, of Goliath definetly winning probability projected scenario in the Russia-Ukraine war case due to the actual current shaky international and inter-state reality of the actual Kosovo situation itself. ??

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[Hsinav]

On 2022-10-11 at 9:16 AM, Leo Gura said:

Putin clearly said that NATO expansion would force his hand to take rebalancing moves.

Massmurders of civilians and children, attack on hospitals, torture, rape etc. were before this war not considered as a rebalancing move by many leaders in the west.