It’s a joke man
Russia is not going to touch those grain ships because Turkey will ■■■■ them up
Ukraine is not going to stop ■■■■■■■ up Russian ships until Russia stops bombing civilian infrastructure
A classic Ripley’s believe it or not from the Russian ■■■■ wits
Russia has only claimed that UA ports would not be used to attack Russian ships.
UA and Russia don’t negotiate with each other.
Officially the grain corridor was only suspended and not renegotiated, but who knows whether Erdogan extracted a sweetener or Russia is being allowed to save face.
As I understand it, the space above the grain corridor is supposed to be free of any weaponry, which would prevent Russia and UA from firing across the corridor to and from Odessa and the two other cargo ports.
There is another port north of the grain corridor , Ochakiv ( not part of the grain deal) which Russia has repeatedly shelled and from which UA could conceivably launch missile attacks on Sevastopol.
■■■■ I love listening to zelensky. What an inspiring leader. Slava ukraine
Katz gives a clear explanation that the war is not about land and that recovering 100% of Ukrainian territory would not be a “Decisive Victory”:
HOW TO AVOID ANOTHER WAR
But it’s not only about politics, there’s also a practical side to it. In both external and internal politics,
Vladimir Putin has many times shown the worth of his words and promises.
Be it official papers with seals and all, be it public guarantees, or deals made behind the scenes — no treaty you negotiate with him is worth a penny.
Putin signs treaties to solve immediate problems, but as soon as it stops being a problem he takes his words back.
Yes, now Putin can see the condition of his own army.
Yes, after 8 months he realized that he won’t win, and even the part of his army that was at least somewhat professional he just threw into a fire and watched it burn.
But if he gains peace, if he can stabilize his regime, then maybe in five or eight years he can have a new army.
Even despite the existing level of unfettered thievery, hundreds of millions of dollars that will be spent on creation of a new army will not be completely wasted.
Alongside with sky-high palaces and yachts as big as aircraft carriers, they’ll turn into hundreds of thousands of bulletproof vests, winter jackets, warm clothes, thousands of drones, hundreds of modern tanks and military vehicles, into training facilities for soldiers, into army reform, into training of junior officers and sergeants.
Yes, Putin is not a military man. Yes, he is at the head of an ineffective and corrupt system.
Yes, he has problems accessing truthful information.
But the war has brought to the light such obvious problems of the Russian army — technical, logistical, organizational — that it’s possible to at least partially fix them and to cut off at least the most obvious tumors, even within the existing system.
To allow Putin to leave the war and save himself means to have to face another inevitable war later.
But not the kind of war in which you plan to take Kyiv in three days using an army of 200 000 hungry unfortunates, hoping that the “Kyiv regime of nazis and drug addicts” will surrender.
It will be a war waged with adequate forces and adequate assessment of the enemy.
It looks like everyone knows it. Not just the Ukrainian leadership, but its western allies, too.
Humanity was extremely lucky in 2022: Putin has sent an imaginary army to fight an imaginary Ukraine.
The difference between the imagination and reality is so massive that it would be impossible to not draw conclusions out of it.
Putin won’t leave Ukraine alone, and it’s a fact. For as long as Putin is in power, a new war would only be a matter of time, and it would be an entirely different war.
Peace with Putin is not peace, it’s only a respite during which the system can stabilize and prepare for another disastrous attack.
It doesn’t look like anyone wants to allow it such a respite.
Now even though nobody thinks that peace with Putin is possible, Russia itself is another matter.
Ukraine, Europe, the USA, China — everyone is interested in a quick ending of the war.
Simply because there is no other option besides peace.
This war can’t end with victory for either side.
It cannot end with Russian victory — this fact has become so obvious that we don’t need to explain it.
But the war cannot end with Ukraine’s victory either.
For some reason, some people think that liberating all of Ukraine’s territory would mean victory for Ukraine.
That’s not how it works.
A military victory in these circumstances would be to capture the enemy’s capital, to disarm its army and to force it to sign capitulation.
Can Ukraine achieve such a victory? In theory, everything is possible.
A series of military defeats and internal conflicts can cause a split in the Russian army, or armed gangs of Kadyrov and Prigozhin may begin to fight each other, Ukraine may remain the only combat-capable force in the region and thus achieve a military victory.
But that would be a failed state scenario, a scenario of complete collapse of the country and of complete loss of control.
Is it possible?
Today, everything is possible. Is it probable though?
Extremely improbable.
For as long as there is some order in Russia and for as long as it has some army,
a military victory as originally defined is impossible.For as long as Putin remains in power, liberation of Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk or even Crimea means nothing.
Nothing stops Putin from continuing to destroy residential buildings and civilian infrastructure with missiles launched from Belgorod and Kursk regions, nothing can stop him from continuing to send Iskanders, drones, and Tochka-U missiles to Ukrainian territories from Belarus.
A war between Russia and Ukraine can only end by two governments negotiating for peace, and they must be capable of negotiating with each other.
Unlike Katz I would call the existence of a Russian government capable of genuinely negotiating for peace, before or after eviction from the whole of Ukraine, a military victory for Ukraine. Any lasting peace requires requires reparations and punishment of war criminals and a government capable of genuinely negotiating that would have to be a democracy, not just the same rulers without Putin.
But he is addressing a Russian audience, including people within the regime who he has explicitly urged to jump the sinking ship before the other rats do. I think he understands as well as anybody that removing Putin would simply be the first stage of a “controlled dismantling” of the regime that Arestovich said is now US policy.
Putin could indeed be gone as early as February or no later than the end of 2024 as Katz suggested earlier (with warning to beware of predictions of the unpredictable).
But the likelihood that would initiate a “controlled dismantling” makes it less likely that those in the regime who now desperately wish he had never been born would be keen on trying to fill his shoes. So the regime could go down together with Putinrather than after some long delay.
Meanwhile I would say the current regime “strategy” of destroying Ukraine’s electricity grid is not based on any illusion that it is a path to either victory or negotiations. I think they are currently preoccupied with completing mobilization before collapse of the army and collapse of the front lines they are now defending. Meanwhile bombing Ukraine is supposed to keep their more idiotic supporters enthused and pave the way for following any possible eviction from Ukraine with claims that it was a successful completion of the Special Military Operation by inflicting such destruction that Ukraine would not ignore repeated warnings and challenge Russian autocracy again.
That isn’t working either. The idiots from State TV were enthusiastically calling for exactly what is now being done, but they are utterly despondent.
For the wise posters in here what would be the recommended route to make a donation to the ukraine effort. I saw zelensky mentioned the UNITED24 in that presser.
OCHA the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs , has a special unit in UA, coordinating aid across the various NGOs and others in assisting civilians in Ukraine. It operates out of Kyiv
You can check out its work and who it works with on the OCHA Ukraine Twitter account
It also runs a special crisis relief appeal which gets dispersed to those providing assistance on the ground ( such as the Red Cross supplying generators to keep the trains running).
All its funds and expenditures are audited. And it’s lean and mean, don’t take any notice of those who claim it isn’t.
For information
crisisrelief.un.org
It has a special crisis relief operation for Ukraine
Update: bridge is still mostly ■■■■■■ and will remain like that for a bit of a while
Here’s a quiz question for everyone -
When you were watching Under Siege, who did you think was a genuine psycho?
I just remember Erika Eliniak busting out of the cake!
added her to the quiz just for you Kruzin.
Here’s an Aussie delivering multiple convoys of ambulances.
This is the list I’ve put together based on their reputations over time.
https://www.comebackalive.in.ua/uk
I think this opens up a resupply corridor through Bulgaria-Romania-Ukraine.
Also interesting, reports Bulgaria has quietly sold over $1 billion in arms to Ukraine since the start of the war.
Thread. One of the best analysts, just arrived back from a tour of the fronts in Ukraine.
Edit - signs that Russia is pulling significant presence out of Kherson city. Roadblocks abandoned. Flags removed from government buildings. Not jumping to conclusions, but worth following tomorrow.
bump
L8R
A semenel moment of my youth
That’s a really good and balanced account
