Russia v Ukraine

[SasaS]

3 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

This thing has been going on for over 60 days, over multiple fronts. So 40 Russians a day KIA?

 

Forty - ermkay...

If you look at wounded multiples, for Ukrainian forces when Zelensky said in April they had 3,000 dead and 10,000 wounded, then individual Russian units and this from DNR, they tend to bi over 3. I would say Russian KIA is probably about 3 times 2,700 which is the media and social media count. It does not look realistic to me that there would be such a small percentage recorded, if the KIA total were 20k and over, this day and age, because they are all on social media (they are mostly young people) and saying your son/brother/husband/boyfriend was killed in Ukraine is not forbidden in Russia and there are not that many special forces or situations like Moskva where you may be advised to not publicly announce or acknowledge death in the family. There is a considerable delay, because the media count is only soldiers whose bodies have been returned or at least families notified, it is missing all that are still dead in Ukraine, and the count must have missed quite a few existing public notices, and many were not announced on social media, but it is to me not likely the difference would be as much as six or seven or eight times the counted number. This is why I think that count is important info.

 

Also if you use a conservative multiple of 2.5 for wounded, it comes at about 8k KIA and 20K wounded, plus at least a thousand POWs, plus DNR which is according to numbers quited by Defensionem close to 10k (I don't know if this includes civilian deaths and wounded, but they probably don't have that many as Ukraine). There is probably about 3k more from LNR KIA and WIA, so the total would be almost 45k lost. That is quite a lot for under three months, with the total force of maybe 200k people. They are saying there still have about 150k at the moment, there are close to 20 BTGs in Belgorod, also, the estimate is that the number of BTGs is down about 15 percent, with some of them depleted, which would roughly be my 45k, give or take.

 

20k or 30k KIA people are estimating would mean additional 50k or as many 75k of wounded. I don't think that is realistic.

[cochyn]

24 minutes ago, SasaS said:

If you look at wounded multiples, for Ukrainian forces when Zelensky said in April they had 3,000 dead and 10,000 wounded, then individual Russian units and this from DNR, they tend to bi over 3. I would say Russian KIA is probably about 3 times 2,700 which is the media and social media count. It does not look realistic to me that there would be such a small percentage recorded, if the KIA total were 20k and over, this day and age, because they are all on social media (they are mostly young people) and saying your son/brother/husband/boyfriend was killed in Ukraine is not forbidden in Russia and there are not that many special forces or situations like Moskva where you may be advised to not publicly announce or acknowledge death in the family. There is a considerable delay, because the media count is only soldiers whose bodies have been returned or at least families notified, it is missing all that are still dead in Ukraine, and the count must have missed quite a few existing public notices, and many were not announced on social media, but it is to me not likely the difference would be as much as six or seven or eight times the counted number. This is why I think that count is important info.

 

Also if you use a conservative multiple of 2.5 for wounded, it comes at about 8k KIA and 20K wounded, plus at least a thousand POWs, plus DNR which is according to numbers quited by Defensionem close to 10k (I don't know if this includes civilian deaths and wounded, but they probably don't have that many as Ukraine). There is probably about 3k more from LNR KIA and WIA, so the total would be almost 45k lost. That is quite a lot for under three months, with the total force of maybe 200k people. They are saying there still have about 150k at the moment, there are close to 20 BTGs in Belgorod, also, the estimate is that the number of BTGs is down about 15 percent, with some of them depleted, which would roughly be my 45k, give or take.

 

20k or 30k KIA people are estimating would mean additional 50k or as many 75k of wounded. I don't think that is realistic.

Yes, it's proper fog of war stuff the numbers of 300/ 200s recorded by the RFA. I say recorded, there's ample evidence to show they simply refuse to recover their dead or wounded and therefore just register them as MIA: It dukes the stats and saves them the compo owed to the fallens' families.

 

We may never know for sure. But I suspect some enterprising journo like Bellingcat could get to the bottom of it by bribing russian mobile phone carriers to divulge the numbers of sim cards that became inactive/ lapsed since February 24th (much like China's 'true' death toll was estimated during Covid). There's always a way.

[Gnasher]

I see the Hitchins article went down well, he's been writing about Ukraine/Russia/ and the  tensions within the old Soviet Union for decades. His veiws on the subject have been fairly consistent and I'd suggest his knowledge on the area matches most of the amature generals on social media.

 

Here's another article if anyones interested,

 

https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2022/03/peter-hitchens-one-glorious-day-in-sevastopol-12-years-ago-i-saw-what-was-coming-thats-why-i-wont-jo.html

 

And another excellent one by Vanis Varoufakis. If you agree with him or not is another matter,

 

https://unherd.com/2022/04/ukraine-cannot-win-this-war/

[Gnasher]

An American who hasn't taken leave of her senses, 

 

 

[Red Phoenix]

Uncle Schwabby Wabby talking about a multipolar world! Watch out Klaus, you'll have the "rules-based (US based) international order" mob out for you with that kind of talk :

 

Quote

Klaus Schwab, who organised the first Davos – in 1971 – and is executive chairman of the WEF, has put a brave face on the no-shows by the global bigwigs.

“The annual meeting is the first summit that brings global leaders together in this new situation characterised by an emerging multipolar world as a result of the pandemic and war,” he said. “The fact that nearly 2,500 leaders from politics, business civil society and media come together in person demonstrates the need for a trusted, informal and action-oriented global platform to confront the issues in a crisis-driven world.”

With no A-listers, can Davos still play a part on the global stage?

 

Silly old Davos/WEF fucking twat. Get your mates to pay some taxes and stop trying to place your gimp forum above world governments.

If that isn't Ukraine related enough there's always this : Davos day one: Ukrainian MPs call for more support as WEF begins

[M_B]

55 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

An American who hasn't taken leave of her senses, 

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/04/21/wimbledon-russia-medvedev/

Wimbledon’s ban on Russian players is unfair, personal — and exactly right

Wimbledon did exactly right. The ban that will prevent Russians and Belarusians from competing at the All England Club may seem unfair, given that players such as Daniil Medvedev have not personally contributed to the war in Ukraine. Yet it’s a necessary message: Even the most innocent Russians will be price-payers for the rapacious actions of Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Young Ukrainians are being bombed, shot and orphaned, and they have not participated in the war or done anything to deserve their penalty, either. Nevertheless, they are part of the conflict. Why should Russian tennis players get a bye?

Wimbledon’s sanctioning of athletes for Russia’s bloody state incursion is unpopular with tennis authorities because it takes aim at individuals such as Medvedev, a lithe and peaceable player ranked No. 2 in the world. Medvedev is of course blameless. So why should he be held responsible? This is a question that political philosophers teethe over constantly: “Are the citizens of a state liable for what it does in their name?” Princeton professor and author Anna Stilz has asked. One way to start to answer it, she suggests, it is to flip the question around: What happens if we treat state crimes as totally detached from individual citizens? Terrible things.

Putin cultivates enormous domestic prestige from the success of Russian athletes, who he treats as elites and uses heavily in his triumphalist narrative to the Russian people. It was no accident that he held his March pro-war rally at Moscow Stadium flanked by half a dozen athletes. As chess grandmaster and dissident Garry Kasparov has said of Putin’s sports propaganda efforts, “They are an important part of his campaign of gaining influence.” That he views Russian champions as explicit expressions of his belligerent ambitions was apparent in the irascible statements of spokesman Dmitry Peskov in response to Wimbledon’s ban, which will affect 20-some players.

“Making athletes hostages of some kind of political prejudices, intrigues, hostile actions towards our country, is unacceptable,” Peskov said. “Considering that Russia is after all a very strong tennis country, our tennis players are in the top lines of the world ranking, the competition itself will suffer from their removal.”

Hostages? Suffering? This is the supercilious and remorseless language of the Russian national spokesman about a tennis tournament at a moment when mass graves of bullet-riddled Ukrainian civilians are being uncovered in the tank-shredded mud around Kyiv. There is a bill that will come due for those graves, catastrophic consequences for all Russians. Sports ostracism is an effective way to penetrate Putin’s total control of the war narrative in Russia — and send notice of that unavoidable bill.

As the All England Club said in a statement, it’s merely doing its part “to limit Russia’s global influence through the strongest means possible.” Club chairman Ian Hewitt added that Wimbledon refuses to allow itself “to be used to promote the Russian regime.” Hewitt rightly recognized that Wimbledon’s move would provoke a greater outcry than those of other sports entities that have barred Russian and Belarusian athletes, including track and field and figure skating, precisely because the move seems so personal and such an expression of global recoil.

The ATP leaped to the defense of its players, calling the ban “unfair” given that in tennis “the players compete as individuals.” It’s a common refrain, and it leads back to that difficult question: Do citizens bear responsibility for the acts of a nation, even when they bear no moral blame?

International courts often have decided they do when a state wages aggressive war. As Stilz has pointed out, reparations are often levied on taxpayers — as Russians should know, because East German citizens in 1945 were forced to pay reparations to Soviets. War, unlike tennis, is not an individual enterprise. It’s a national one. Russia — not just Putin — is destroying Ukraine, so the response can’t be limited to Putin while exempting the citizenry.

“If we end up unable to distribute state responsibility to its members,” Stilz wrote in a 2011 essay titled “Collective Responsibility and the State,” then we’re in danger of establishing “perverse” incentives. States become “responsibility-laundering machines” in which citizens can just “dissociate themselves” from any sense of liability for atrocities. Maintaining some sense of personal liability for states is what gives people the “incentive” to exercise their political will and limit the harm of a state through dissent and civil disobedience.

Russian-born pianist Igor Levit echoed this sentiment on Instagram. “Being a musician does not free you from being a citizen, from taking responsibility,” he wrote. “Remaining vague when one man, especially the man who is the leader of your home country, starts a war against another country and by doing so also causes greatest suffering to your home country and your people is unacceptable.”

Being a tennis player does not free you from being a citizen, either, and Russian national responsibility is inescapable, whether you are personally silent or an outspoken dissident. The ATP’s criticism of Wimbledon’s policy as “unfair” is language as grossly misapplied as Peskov’s. Unfair is not sitting out a tennis tournament in England. Unfair is a bullet in the head on the lip of a trench just for being a Ukrainian mayor. If ATP officials have an issue over fairness, it’s not with Wimbledon. They should take it up with Putin.

[Bjornebye]

It’s absolute bollocks banning Russian players. What the fuck has it got to do with them? 

[Gnasher]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2020/mar/28/coe-and-ovetts-olympic-debt-to-bureaucrat-who-defied-thatcher

[M_B]

 

[Bjornebye]

Weirdos. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

Just now, Bjornebye said:

Weirdos. 

I'm pretty sure this is the first time they've ever shown themselves up as clueless whoppers. 

[Bjornebye]

[M_B]

Sounds like propaganda bullshit to me. More likely to have been motivated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the mass murder of its citizens, and the desire to deprive Putin of a photo opportunity.

[Bjornebye]

2 minutes ago, M_B said:

Sounds like propaganda bullshit to me. More likely to have been motivated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the mass murder of its citizens, and the desire to deprive Putin of a photo opportunity.

Quite possibly although I’m yet to see a picture of Medvedev carrying a rifle 

[M_B]

Just now, Bjornebye said:

Quite possibly although I’m yet to see a picture of Medvedev carrying a rifle 

No, but you'd certainly see a picture of him next to Putin after winning Wimbledon. Or at least the other side of a long table.

[Bjornebye]

7 minutes ago, M_B said:

No, but you'd certainly see a picture of him next to Putin after winning Wimbledon. Or at least the other side of a long table.

And? It’s a tennis tournament 

[M_B]

1 minute ago, Bjornebye said:

And? It’s a tennis tournament 

And if Wimbledon want to ban Russians from their tournament then that's up to them. And if it denies Putin a chance to boost his popularity then great.

 

Russian football teams have been banned from European and World competitions. And Russian Athletes have been banned by the World Athletics council. Nobody seems too bothered about that though.

 

 

[Bjornebye]

26 minutes ago, M_B said:

And if Wimbledon want to ban Russians from their tournament then that's up to them. And if it denies Putin a chance to boost his popularity then great.

 

Russian football teams have been banned from European and World competitions. And Russian Athletes have been banned by the World Athletics council. Nobody seems too bothered about that though.

 

 

Don't they? What are you implying?

 

I think it's ridiculous personally. He's an individual tennis player. Get a fucking grip 

[Jordy Brouwer]

12 hours ago, SasaS said:

If you look at wounded multiples, for Ukrainian forces when Zelensky said in April they had 3,000 dead and 10,000 wounded, then individual Russian units and this from DNR, they tend to bi over 3. I would say Russian KIA is probably about 3 times 2,700 which is the media and social media count. It does not look realistic to me that there would be such a small percentage recorded, if the KIA total were 20k and over, this day and age, because they are all on social media (they are mostly young people) and saying your son/brother/husband/boyfriend was killed in Ukraine is not forbidden in Russia and there are not that many special forces or situations like Moskva where you may be advised to not publicly announce or acknowledge death in the family. There is a considerable delay, because the media count is only soldiers whose bodies have been returned or at least families notified, it is missing all that are still dead in Ukraine, and the count must have missed quite a few existing public notices, and many were not announced on social media, but it is to me not likely the difference would be as much as six or seven or eight times the counted number. This is why I think that count is important info.

 

Also if you use a conservative multiple of 2.5 for wounded, it comes at about 8k KIA and 20K wounded, plus at least a thousand POWs, plus DNR which is according to numbers quited by Defensionem close to 10k (I don't know if this includes civilian deaths and wounded, but they probably don't have that many as Ukraine). There is probably about 3k more from LNR KIA and WIA, so the total would be almost 45k lost. That is quite a lot for under three months, with the total force of maybe 200k people. They are saying there still have about 150k at the moment, there are close to 20 BTGs in Belgorod, also, the estimate is that the number of BTGs is down about 15 percent, with some of them depleted, which would roughly be my 45k, give or take.

 

20k or 30k KIA people are estimating would mean additional 50k or as many 75k of wounded. I don't think that is realistic.

I can easily imagine 20k Russian and DPR/LPR dead and a similar or greater proportion wounded. 

 

The problems is that most Western people only want to consider these in isolation and are in no hurry to talk about Ukrainian casualties (this being "off narrative") which causes problems in assesing the situation rationally.

 

Tom Copper had a very brief forray into the topic nobody wants to think about once and left it there.  

 

Russia has superior firepower and Ukraine is conducting a static defense in many places (sitting in trenches recieving artillery fire with orders not to retreat under any circumstances). 

 

There is also the mater of the evacuation (surrender) at Mariupol. 

 

Also the Russian airforce and missiles work on Ukrainian positions daily. 

 

If one imagines 25k Russian unrecoverable casualties then one must imagine 35k Ukrainian unrecoverable casualties and it includes some of their best fighters at Mariupol. 

[SasaS]

25 minutes ago, Jordy Brouwer said:

I can easily imagine 20k Russian and DPR/LPR dead and a similar or greater proportion wounded. 

 

The problems is that most Western people only want to consider these in isolation and are in no hurry to talk about Ukrainian casualties (this being "off narrative") which causes problems in assesing the situation rationally.

 

Tom Copper had a very brief forray into the topic nobody wants to think about once and left it there.  

 

Russia has superior firepower and Ukraine is conducting a static defense in many places (sitting in trenches recieving artillery fire with orders not to retreat under any circumstances). 

 

There is also the mater of the evacuation (surrender) at Mariupol. 

 

Also the Russian airforce and missiles work on Ukrainian positions daily. 

 

If one imagines 25k Russian unrecoverable casualties then one must imagine 35k Ukrainian unrecoverable casualties and it includes some of their best fighters at Mariupol. 

Most people seem to think Russian side casualties are 3 times the Ukrainian losses (Polish Rohan Consulting for example), even higher, Tom Cooper puts it at 1:1, I would say they may be bigger than Russian, due to the mentioned firepower. On the other hand, Russians are the ones mostly attacking and that is when you have the biggest losses. On Ukrainian losses, last I've seen is some estimate in the NYT of 11k KIA and corresponding number of wounded.

 

Speaking of Tom Cooper, here is the latest update.

 

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-21-22-23-may-2022-585dddf58bf1

[Jordy Brouwer]

8 minutes ago, SasaS said:

Most people seem to think Russian side casualties are 3 times the Ukrainian losses (Polish Rohan Consulting for example), even higher, Tom Cooper puts it at 1:1, I would say they may be bigger than Russian, due to the mentioned firepower. On the other hand, Russians are the ones mostly attacking and that is when you have the biggest losses. On Ukrainian losses, last I've seen is some estimate in the NYT of 11k KIA and corresponding number of wounded.

 

Speaking of Tom Cooper, here is the latest update.

 

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-21-22-23-may-2022-585dddf58bf1

Nah most of that is "information war". 

 

Tom Cooper's 1:1 is at least in the ballpark of believable but reallistically  its probably worse for the Ukranians. 3:2 would be my guess.  

 

The Russians are attacking but a lot of those attacks are artillery bombardments. Artillery is still king. Add to that air and missile strikes. 

 

11k - no chance. They lost the best part of that in Mariupol alone most likely. Even the most conservative estimates of the garrison there are 7- 10k and all of them are gone one way or another. 

 

Ukraine is on, I believe its 4th round of mobilisation and a lot of videos show the soldier coming to the front as young boys or older men. There are a few videos of mobilised Ukranians criticising being sent to the front without training and cursing the leadership. 

 

Few want to talk about Ukrainian losses but then its no good to wonder why their eastern defensive line is slowly collapsing. 

 

 

[SasaS]

33 minutes ago, Jordy Brouwer said:

Nah most of that is "information war". 

 

Tom Cooper's 1:1 is at least in the ballpark of believable but reallistically  its probably worse for the Ukranians. 3:2 would be my guess.  

 

The Russians are attacking but a lot of those attacks are artillery bombardments. Artillery is still king. Add to that air and missile strikes. 

 

11k - no chance. They lost the best part of that in Mariupol alone most likely. Even the most conservative estimates of the garrison there are 7- 10k and all of them are gone one way or another. 

 

Ukraine is on, I believe its 4th round of mobilisation and a lot of videos show the soldier coming to the front as young boys or older men. There are a few videos of mobilised Ukranians criticising being sent to the front without training and cursing the leadership. 

 

Few want to talk about Ukrainian losses but then its no good to wonder why their eastern defensive line is slowly collapsing. 

 

 

Where did you get that "most conservative estimates" of 7k to 10k in Mariupol? That sounds totally insane. If they had 10k, Russians would still be pushing towards Sartana. Mariupol was defended by some 5-6 battalions (1 Azov, 2 marines, 1 National guard and 1 territorial defence that I am aware of) plus 2 tank companies (Azov and marines) plus elements and detachments of border guards/coast guards, some local police and special police. None of the brigades were there in its full formation. Wikipedia had it at 3,500, I was told it was about 3,000 by a person with connections to UAF. A British analyst said 4k to 5k in some interview if I remember correctly. It sounds about right when you look at the number of POWs. The highest estimate I heard was 600 dead defenders, they were speaking about 200 bodies at Azovstal needing evacuation.  

 

On artillery - highest losses are always when you are attacking, or crossing open ground, or in unfortified areas.

 

People throw around these casuality numbers, like Russians would still be on the offensive if they lost 40 percent of their manpower, or Ukrainians would be, until recently, still holding most of the lines in Donbas after 3 monthes with that kind of losses.

[TheHowieLama]

3 hours ago, Bjornebye said:

Don't they? What are you implying?

 

I think it's ridiculous personally. He's an individual tennis player. Get a fucking grip 

What about your boy Djokavic?

[Bjornebye]

Just now, TheHowieLama said:

What about your boy Djokavic?

I can't stand him. What about him? 

[TheHowieLama]

Just now, Bjornebye said:

I can't stand him. What about him? 

You were all in on boycotting him weren't ya?